Why our garden should have a fence

The chickens have won the battle for who gets to eat the most tomatoes. The blasted things took forever to start bearing, because, of course, the bok-boks ate all the blooms off the bottom half of the plants! Then when they finally started getting some fruit on them, they picked off all the ones they could jump up and reach. Yum! Tasty treat. Oh, yeah, not to mention all the lovely cucumbers, peppers and pumpkins they devoured. Number one on the To-Do List for Fall: build the damn fence!

It seems we can now trust Lucy around the chickens. Of course we can! They're like a walking, squawking smorgasbord. She just follows them around waiting for snacks to pop out their butts! Why would she ever want to limit the amount of chicken poop she can eat in a day!

David left for Germany today and will be gone all week. No cooking for me! I'm planning to reduce the amount of leftovers that threaten to take over my fridge. This evening I've already dined on the remains of Thursday's dinner. Scallops with linguine in tomato-cream sauce. Yum! Awaiting me in the days ahead are spaghetti with portobello marinara, some pork loin that I smoked yesterday with added BBQ sauce and pork fried rice. I love using leftovers creatively.

Goldie is getting vewwwy interested in the nesting boxes. I found her sitting in there this morning after all the others were outside. She was the first one to investigate them. I checked her vent this afternoon and it's nice and moist and seems to be a little swollen, so that's a good sign that it won't be long! Maybe I will win The First Egg contest between Amy, Don, Ron and me.

So, Henry, the champion crowing machine (45 times in a row, dare to compare), is going to live with my mother-in-law, Phyllis. She has been wanting him for a while and I just can't take the incessant crowing anymore. I'm afraid the neighbors will lynch him some day when I'm out. And what's worse, he tried to flog one of the grandkids a couple of days ago. Nathan was chasing Kaitlyn in the yard and she was screaming like a two-year-old is wont to do and Henry flew up at Nathan with his feet going for his face. Thank goodness he doesn't have his spurs yet and he didn't quite have the hang of it, so he was unsuccessful, but it was a little scary when you realize the damage he could do in the future. One more reason to ship him off. If we didn't have that option, he would be Sunday dinner.

And, last but not least, just wanted to add a few cute pics I've taken in the past few days.

Picky, picky, pecky

Are the pullets getting close to laying? Their behavior has altered in the last few days. In the evenings when I gave them their cracked corn, they used to peck and scratch together peacefully. Now they're getting testy with each other, pecking at necks and squawking as if to say, "Hey, that's my piece, get your own!" Henry is getting more aggressive with the girls. He hasn't tried mounting them yet, but I'm sure the time is getting near.

The chickens were penned up in the run last evening before roosting, when they all stopped what they were doing and went to the back fence next to the woods. They were craning their necks looking into the trees and underbrush. There were dogs barking in the distance, an owl hooting and various birds giving their goodnight calls. Those are all sounds they are used to hearing. Maybe they could hear a raccoon or a fox or a coyote starting their nightly rounds early. They were definitely very wary and paying close attention for at least ten minutes. A long time for an animal with a short attention span.

On the way back from a walk with Lucy yesterday morning, I counted twenty crows near our house. That thrills me and gives me hope that they will keep the hawks away from the area around our property. We haven't seen many in the last few years. I'm positive they were decimated by the West Nile Virus epidemic we had several years ago.

Also on our walk, I saw a young red-tailed hawk hanging out near a wooded pond about a mile away. I'm pretty sure it's one from the nest on our property. The parents obviously have left it to fend for itself. Its call sounded plaintive and hungry. I hope it doesn't remember where our barn is, but more than likely it will be back. Like Amy, I'm worried about the Cooper's hawks when the protective tree canopy is gone. We have several evergreen trees in the yard, but not like the cover that all the underbrush under the deciduous trees provides. I guess I'll cross that bridge later.

Why is it I never seem to have my camera with me when I see things that are interesting? I suppose I'll have to start carrying it with me everywhere I go so I will have photos to correspond with every post. Oh well, next time!

Sing! Sing a song!

Sing out loud, sing out strong! The pullets are singing all the time now. And I've even had a lot of bawk, bawk, BUHgawks lately. All, of course, being signs that they're almost ready to start laying. David started working on the nest condos this past weekend and finished them up last evening. I left the perches up last night when they went to roost, and they didn't show much interest in them or even seem to notice they were there. This morning when I let them out of the henhouse, I lowered the perches and put some pine shavings in each one and a couple of wooden eggs that I had bought at a flea market a few weeks ago. I'm going to replace the pine shavings with hay this weekend. Little Red, a Rhode Island Red, was very curious, as she is about everything I do, but she didn't hop up to investigate further.


Some of the pullets' combs and wattles and, really, their whole faces are turning bright red. Another sure sign that laying is near. They will be 17 weeks on Saturday, which is still early for heavy breeds, but I've heard of some laying at 18 weeks. I'm glad David got the nest boxes done early so they can practice and get used to them being in the henhouse. Can't wait to taste those yummy eggs!

Goldie


Henrietta and Peep


We didn't make it to the state fair this weekend. Kind of a bummer. David was off on Friday, but he had so many things to catch up on, the day was gone before we knew it and we were just too tired to make the drive. Our guests, David's cousin and wife, were too burned out from their recent stint at the Butler County fair to be up for it, so we stayed home and had a campfire in the pit and made S'mores. It was a 'fair' substitute. The leftover ashes will make a great dust bath for the chickens.