One of our laying hens, after violent disagreements with the rooster, was being picked on by him and, alas, by the other hens to the point that we felt they would kill her. (Chickens can be as clique-ish and brutal as high school girls.)
So we turned her out to see how she'd do, figuring that she could live free for a while at least. Our dogs have ignored her and she's been happily on her own for week now, exploring the garden and beyond. When John goes to feed the other chickens, she runs and waits just outside the coop door for her scratch feed.
She's having a great time pecking around in the garden and the shrubbery. And I like to think that the chickens who were so mean to her are a bit envious.
These charming folks invited me to their book club last night. I have to say, this is a lovely way to meet with a group (as long as it's of a manageable size.)
We ate dinner ( two different lasagnas-- one with zucchini slices instead of pasta -- both delicious, a fancy salad with grapes and sugared nuts, and brownies and a marvelous lemony polenta cake with fruit and whipped cream.)
And while we ate, we talked about Signs in the Blood -- and I told them about the original ending to the Little Sylvie story, as well as how the story came to be. This is fun for me -- I usually know the answers to the questions. And it was more like a group of friends having dinner than me Giving a Talk.
And for an added fillip, there were baby ducks. And chickens. And dogs and cats. I really felt right at home.
These are baby Runner Ducks -- ducks kept for eggs, not for eating. They stand very erect and look like a covey of bowling pins as they wobble along after their mamas -- who happen to be two hens, one of whom brooded the eggs.
The neat thing is that this is a house in a wooded suburban development. Kim and her husband have a chicken house and a chicken tractor as well as lots of herbs and tomatoes growing in places where you might expect to see traditional landscaping.
I think Elizabeth Goodweather would feel at home too.
Chickens -- indeed, most birds apart from owls and other night hunters, are hard-wired to turn in early. I went down last night to close them up and they'd all put themselves to bed -- or to roost.
It was quite dark inside the chicken house ( the pictures were taken with a flash) and some of them had lapsed into the coma that comes over birds in the dark. This is, of course, what makes them so vulnerable to possums and raccoons and foxes at night -- they can be dead before they wake up.
We have two more hens who want to be mothers and rather than roost, they stay on their nests. As we really don't need any biddies, we remove the eggs they are sitting on -- generally eggs other hens have laid as once a hen turns broody, she quits laying. Try this in the day time and the one on the left will give you such a peck ---- but at night she's like a rag doll.
The banty hens and rooster are up in their snug attic.
Early to bed, early to rise is the chicken motto. It was about eight pm and still quite light when I took these pictures but the chickens will be up in the morning with the sun -- long before eight am.
The broody hen's patience has been rewarded and she is the proud mother of two, possibly three tiny bantam chicks. She was very defensive, not liking the looks of the lady with the camera aimed at her babies, and she hustled them under her feathery skirts right away but I'll try again for better pictures.
The rock work planned for Friday had to be canceled due to rain but Saturday was a perfect day. Over half of the walkway remained to be re-done and the fellas got started early: pulling up the modest-sized stepping stones I'd set long ago (and that had since tilted and sunk, becoming pretty much useless as a path), digging a footing, spreading it with gravel, and laying some BIG stones purchased from the rock yard.
It helps a lot to have a tractor with a front-end loader to deal with some of these giant rocks
and the guys are quite good at nudging these monsters into just the right place in their gravel beds.
By five, the last rock had been laid, the gravel had been tamped down and covered with dirt, and the walkway had been swept and hosed down.
After showers, it was time for the traditional 'gloat drink' as workers and watchers alike sit and enjoy the beautiful new path.
And then the feast -- putting to use most of that wonderful box of veggies that arrived Wednesday from Carol.
While John grilled the yellow crookneck and zucchini squash, along with some of our own asparagus and skewers of shrimp and some andouille sausage, I made cheese grits and fried green tomatoes, as well as a green salad with the last of those sweet sweet cucumbers
There was goat cheese (for those who like it) to stir into the grits -- and for afters, there was Ba's pound cake, sliced fresh peaches, and fresh sweet cherries.
A well-earned reward for a good day's work! Hearty thanks to those rock-layin' guys -- and to Carol for much of the feast!
We have mushrooms! Remember those logs John inoculated back in late March? They're beginning to produce!! Here (above) we have six shitake and two oyster mushrooms, ready to go into a stir fry this evening.
Below, a flush of tiny oysters break through the paraffin that coated the plug of spawn and sawdust. We have regular oysters and blue oysters (so that's where the band Blue Oyster Cult got its name!) -- not sure which these are.
They have a strange beauty -- like tiny alien life forms bubbling out of the logs.
Below are the minute yellow crescents ( not much larger than a fingernail clipping -- I'm really asking too much of my poor camera) of Chicken of the Woods. I've never tasted this mushroom and look forward to seeing these reach eating size.
All these mushroom pictures made me think of the books about Mr. Thallo and the Mushroom Planet. The first one, published in 1954, was my introduction to science fiction. Charming, innocent fantasy about children from Earth visiting a planet where all life is fungoid.
No, it wasn't creepy at all -- it was, rather, a good way to introduce a child to the notion that a being very different from oneself isn't necessarily scary.
The chicks have moved (well, been moved, squawking and protesting) into their fancy new chicken tractor, built by my husband John. In the UK it's called a chicken ark and we first saw one in the side garden of a Stately Home (to which we had paid admission) in the Cotswolds a few years ago. We were entranced; John took pictures and we thought someday . . .
It's an elegant system for keeping chickens out of trouble and on green grass. They peck and scratch, eat bugs and green stuff, leave their droppings, and when the grassy spot has been thoroughly worked over, you move the tractor to another spot. (I have a tier in the garden where fat bugs of some sort -- maybe sowbugs -- have wiped out my squash and I'd love to put these biddies there.)
There's chick food and water and at night they can trundle up the ramp to the sleeping quarters (I've removed a panel so you can see) where there's a roost awaiting them. There are also nest boxes at either end when they get old enough to lay.
The chicks are happy to be out of the box and in more natural surroundings and Ali Ali seems to have decided that he's a chicken guard -- he's run off the other dogs when they've tried to investigate.
We still have the chicken house and the five old hens and Gregory Peck, the rooster. As these young pullets reach full size, we'll move some to the chicken yard -- 6 t0 8 is probably maximum capacity for the chicken tractor.
If you're interested in backyard chickens, this is a great solution. More and more communities are allowing chickens in backyards (not roosters, however.) There are any number of websites with plans and advice on chicken tractors. We even found a site where we could buy one just like the one we saw at the Stately Home -- for the stately price of about $1500 -- plus shipping from the UK.
This one looks just the same (John found the plans on the Internet), cost about $150 in materials (including the feeder and waterer), and features some small improvements. It's a lot fancier than it needs to be (here's a cheaper easier one) -- you can find plans for building a perfectly nice chicken tractor using recycled pallets -- but what a lovely addition to the garden of our stately home!
