Random Friday

1. I tried to get a good picture of the chick for you but everytime I tried, it ran.  Its a chick in constant motion.

2.  So I gave up and took a short video.

3.  I bought some fancy rat zapper wahoo traps that cost a fortune because I wanted something effective, yet humane.  We haven't caught any rats.  A couple other rodents, but no rats.  Grrrr.

4.  Here is Calvin the rooster who thinks he's an attack dog; part German Shepard and part pit bull.  I'm glad he's protective of the chick and, thankfully, he's been leaving me alone.  Nevertheless, I did not get down to eye level to take this picture.

5.  When we fill the water in the evening, the chickens all crowd around.  There is something irresistible about the mud that appears around the water bin.

Random Friday

1.  Brett took Flash to the vet Wednesday.  He's been moving slower and slower and we wondered what else could be done to make him more comfortable.  Brett gave him a bath before loading him into the trailer and off they went to our vet's clinic, a bit more than an hour away.  Flash was happy, alert and ready to go.  When the vet asked him to trot, Brett figured he'd take two or three steps and stop.  Nope, he went around and around and around.  In the end, she said that, yes he has a decent amount of arthritis and his days of trucking up and down hills are over.  But, at 20 years old, he is a horse who still has the desire, and the need, to be used.  Her prescription: put shoes and pads on the front and then ride him.  Motion is Lotion, she said.  Don't ride him hard and keep it on level ground.  But use him.  Brett called me from the truck on his way home and was almost incoherent with happiness. Words cannot adequately describe how much he loves that horse.

2.  It's been a quiet week with Tex.  The weather has been warm, but not hot, and fly masks were not needed.  Tex and I have just been hanging out together at the pasture fence, not doing anything in particular.  He seems to have turned a corner of some sort; his energy is relaxed and happy.  He wants to be in our company.  I told Brett that when he rides Flash, I'd like to ride Tex.  I plan to ride him at the walk and not do anything more than that until we are in sync, relaxed and happy.

3.  We still have our one chick.  It is growing taller and sprouting wing feathers.

Often, it is flanked by the two roosters and it is never far from Mama Hen.  The other day, it clambered up onto the back of Mama Hen and went for a piggy-back ride.  The chickens are all very vigilant and, so far, they have kept the chick from harm.  Calvin, the barred rock rooster, is a bit too vigilant.  He took some menacing steps towards me in the hen house (baby and mama were outside so unnecessary) and I countered with menacing steps and a kick towards him.  Usually, he backs right down but not this time.  He fluffed up and kept coming.  I screamed at him in my most menacing voice and kept up the counter-attack.  Lord Byron, the head honcho Blue Andalusian rooster, arrived and jumped on Calvin.  While they duked it out, I slipped out the gate.  Calvin took longer to acknowledge Lord Byron as boss, but he did.  I'm hoping he will take on any rats with the same amount of focus and bluster that he used with me.

Random Friday

1.  I wanted to share some pictures of the beautiful fence that Brett and Richard installed last week.  Slowly, but surely, the property is turning into a place of beauty.  Brett is itching to replace more of the fence and I bet that he has started a fencing fund.  He's a man obsessed.  Last night he said "Just think how much fence I could replace if we didn't have to buy hay."  ...of course, that would mean no horses and no need for fences...

The view from the pasture gate towards the road.  The new fence stops even with the large oak tree on the left.

2.  You will notice some orange haze in the sky on these pictures.  That isn't the sunrise; it is smoke.  Even though we are a couple hundred miles from the fire near Big Sur, the smoke is blowing, and settling, here in the Sierras.

The opposite view - towards the pasture gate.

3.  We have been kayaking every weekend.  Last weekend we went to Loon Lake which is located high in the mountains, at the timber line.  The lake is surrounded by granite boulders; the sky is typically sapphire, and the water a matching brilliant blue.  Despite being breezy, windy even, it is one of our favorites.  Unfortunately, last weekend the sky was hazy grey from smoke and the lake was a dull green-blue.  The skies have been clearer the past few days and we are hopeful they will remain so on Sunday when we will be kayaking on a lake we haven't tried before.

This is what the existing fence looks like beyond the point where Brett stopped.  Pretty sad.

4.  I will try to post pictures of the chicks, as they grow, here each week.  I am really hoping that at least one of them is female.  We don't need, or want, anymore roosters.

5.  My summer vegetable garden and the orchard have been an unmitigated disaster this year.  I have been invaded by ground squirrels and rats.  I don't want to use poison because 1) I hate it and 2) our cat hunts in the garden and I don't want her to eat a poisoned animal.  I also don't want her to get caught in a trap so I'm stuck.  The varmits have taken every tomato, every plum, every apple and the one pomegranate that was hanging on my little bitty tree.  Next year, I'm going to plant flowers in the raised beds and buy my produce at the farmers market.

Meet the Chicks

The chicks are three and four days old now.  Mama hen sure manages them differently than we did with the chicks we've purchased to start, and maintain, our flock.  We have a brooder (a big box, basically, with wire sides) and used a heat lamp to regulate temperature and didn't let them out to mingle with the flock until they had their feathers.

Mama Hen kept the chicks in the nesting box for one day.  Then they moved to the floor of the hen house.  She wasted no time, teaching them how to scratch for food.  She took them over to the feeder, where they were able to eat from all the feed that falls on the floor there.

Then she took them over to the waterer I had hung low to the ground for them.  She flicked water onto the ground and onto their beaks until they figured out to drink by themselves.  I think they had that down by the end of day two.

Wednesday, she took the chicks outside where they careened around, never venturing far, and returning to her pronto when she clucked.

The roosters patrol at a safe distance when they are outside.  She swells her breast, beats her wings, and takes menacing steps towards any chicken (or human) that comes too close.

She's a very good mom.