February already! 2012

The first day of February has brought beautiful weather.  Although I usually enjoy a cloudy day with rain, today's sunshine is getting me excited for the spring and I'm eager to start planning the garden!  With Shelldon gone, the hens are happily sun bathing and the yard is mostly quiet except for the normal cooing and clucking of the ladies.  Slim and Stan are building up the courage to go back out in the backyard without the fear of the rooster coming and pecking them in the behind!  What an experience having a rooster was!  I hope that one of the hens goes broody again soon, this way we can try all over again.  Pete from the farm store said they just got in some Cream Legbar hens and will be expecting baby chicks in a couple of months. 

"The Cream Legbar is an autosexing type of chicken. This means that you can tell the sex of the chick at hatch, and they breed true. The Cream Legbar originated as a cross between Brown Leghorns and Barred Rock with some Araucana blood in them."
 

So a guaranteed hen - and they lay blue eggs!  Very appropriate too because they are a mix of LayLa's breed with a little bit of Shelldon's blood. I hope the timing works out! 

Cream LegBar Hen

Cream Legbars lay only blue eggs!

It's hard to say if the chickens know that Shelldon is gone.  Today they went about their business but last night EggBerta was the last one in the run at night and I believe she was looking for her "son".  The rooster was always the last one in for the night making sure his ladies were safe and sound.  I'm looking forward to visiting him next week, but overall I'm happy that he's gone and glad that he is in a safe place where he can happily live his days!

 

Being a farmer ain't easy!

I love my chickens.  I'm probably a little too attached, lets be honest!  Martini, Layla, and EggBerta hold an extra special place in my heart since they are my first "flock" of hens, and we raised them in a refrigerator box in our spare bedroom from 3 days old.  So you could imagine my horror when Shelldon the rooster "mated" with Layla today, fiercely chasing her and biting her neck, ripping out feathers and leaving a huge bald spot on her.  It was quite traumatic - and I wasn't even there I just heard about it from Cameron.  I love all of the chickens differently but just yesterday I was remarking how Layla is the perfect image of a "Mother Hen".  She is (very) round, and pretty and just a simple creature.  She goes with the flow and grazes on the lawn and minds her own business.  She is friendly and kind.  The perfect target for Shelldon.

Yesterday, with a crop full of oatmeal!

 We planned on driving out to Estacada, OR to a chicken rehabilitation farm called Oregon Peeps next Tuesday.  Pete, the owner, also works at The Urban Farm Store where we got all of our chickens, but Cam and I thought it would be a fun day trip to drive Shelldon to the actual farm and see where he'd be spending his days.  I also wasn't quite ready to say goodbye to him because he's funny to have around, although lately becoming a nuisance with his crowing, and chasing the dogs, and overall "cocky" attitude.  I figured a few more days with him would be perfect.  But when Cam sent me a picture of LayLa after the "mate" and told me what had gone down I was angry!  I know that it's nature, but these are my baby girls!  He put LayLa in the coop and closed the door to the run because Shelldon was relentless and kept chasing her.  When I came home I barely said "hello" to the dogs and ran out to the run.  Her neck looked much better than it had in the picture, but she was definitely acting like she had been defeated.  That's the only way I can describe it.  I brought her in the house and let her drink some milk while I made her oatmeal and she kept making this sound that I had not heard any of the chickens make before.  It was a coo, very low and gentle, kind of..sad.  Cam recognized it too so I know that I wasn't being that crazy, and her fluffy chicken butt that I love so much was wet - almost like she sat in water.

Today after the "mate"

Shelldon (fka Shelly)

Since the days have been getting shorter and the weather has been rainy, I haven't had a chance to spend much quality time with the "ladies" in the backyard.  Cam does a wonderful job of tucking them in at night and making sure they are safe and sound from any backyard critters.  After 2 or 3 days of not really seeing them I made it a point to go out and sit with them until they called it a night...and that's when I realized, Shelly is a Rooster!

Since I'm not a chicken expert (YET!) I was hoping that my feeling was wrong and started referring to good old GOOGLE but was so impatient that I just called the Urban Farm Store where we got her..him.  Pete told me to look for pointed 'saddle' feathers at the base of her body near her tail so I ran out and looked and sure enough, Shelly was a Shelldon.  It explained a lot about her/his personality and also just how BEAUTIFUL (handsome!) she is!  The first thing I did was cry.  I love that little chick that EggBerta raised from 3 days old and since roosters aren't allowed within city limits we technically have to get rid of her...him.  Another reason for my tears was a bit selfish, or maybe just the farmer in me coming out ~ he's not going to lay eggs!  He's an Ameracauna and the hens lay variations of blue, pink, and green eggs or so I hear.  Eggberta was supposed to be an Ameracauna but she turned into a Wyandotte, so when she went broody I tried for the Ameracauna again :( 

Time of the Season

Sauvie Island Pumpkin Patch 2012

Summer is officially over! I've always loved season changes and fall has always been my favorite. I love the change in temperature, the occasional drizzle, and of course my favorite is the beautiful colors on the trees! That being said I am definitely going to miss being out in the garden and hanging with the chicks! It's sad buying tomatoes in the store, and our egg carton is running a little empty. Baby Bird (Shelly) is almost full grown and she is gorgeous, and the shorter days and chilly weather has started Martini's first "molt". It was alarming to go in the yard afer a few days and see her featherless neck and missing tail feathers. She is supposed to be even more beautiful when her new feathers come in but right now she looks sick! Egg production stops and all of her energy is put into making new feathers so only Layla is laying currently. Eggberta never started back up since she became a mom, and Shelly has 2 more months until her first egg.
We have a couple fall crops in the works ~ brussel sprouts, peas, broccoli, lettuce, arugula, turnips, spinach but they aren't looking too promising. I actually didn't realize we had the much left until I just wrote it! The garden looks so empty compared to how it looked just a month ago. I'd say the cherry tomatoes were the biggest hit. They grew so big and produced so much! Cam's never been a tomato fan but he is now after eating them off the vine. 

Last week we planted some orange and yellow mums in the front yard, along with ornamental kale in purple and white to celebrate renewing our lease. Yup, that's right we're in PDX for another year! We love it here but who knows what's on the agenda for 2014. Hopefully our credit will be back on track so we can look into buying a home again. I'd love to live on a farm with chickens and goats and cows! Maybe even a pot-bellied pig?

 

Martini's first MOLT!

The bright side to the chillier weather ~ seasonal brews!!





I love Portland.

I really really do. 

Sometimes it's the little things that make me happy...like being bummed that the gas light came on in the car only to realize I can't pump my own gas anyway so it's not so bad to pull into the station and have someone do it for me!  Driving with the windows down is fun to me since it seems like I always had them up in Vegas to keep the a/c in, or was driving on a highway and it was too windy to keep them down. 
The pedestrians and bikers FRIGHTEN (I'm afraid I'm going to clip one) but I really enjoy seeing them out and about ~ they look so natural & happy.  Mount Hood's silhouette in the distance, driving over a bridge and looking out at the water and seeing more bridges in the distance; these things make me smile both inside and out.  Flowers, grass, outdoor markets, apple trees, and pear trees on the side of the rode that you can just pull up to and pick a fruit off and eat in your car - even going to the stores seems different here.  It's laid back and carefree and seems as if everyone knows each other, or would like to.  A woman checking out in front of me today was talking about her black and white dog named "Gravy".  The clerk was surprised Gravy wasn't a brown dog and was curious how the name came about. "It just seemed right" was her reply.  Tiny moments like that make me appreciate my new home. 

Days full of doing nothing!

For doing "nothing" on my days off I sure manage to get a lot done!  But simple stuff, fun stuff.  Last weekend I stayed home all day but when the day was over I couldn't believe how quickly it passed by. "Where did the day go?" I wondered.  And then I realized that I really, truly enjoyed it.  Life is so amazing when you kick it down a notch and take it slow.  I let the chickens out first thing in the morning and instead of running back in the house just sat on the bench and watched them peck around, spread their wings, talk to each other.  It was nice.  Mosied on over and checked on the garden which continually amazes me no matter how many times a day/week I look at it.  Went back in the house and layed on the bed with the hubby and looked out the window and listened to the chickens and birds, and the trains passing by.  It's nice not always rushing around. 
I had cut and hung up a bunch of lavendar a couple weeks back, and since it was now dry I attempted a Lavender Oil recipe I found on Pinterest.  It was a crockpot method and it came out pretty good!  I put some in Epsom Salt for lavender scented bath salt, made some soap balls with dried lavender buds in them, and also made a "Calming Room Spray" for my friend Cami who just had a baby.  For the new mom I made a "Mud Scrub" of coffee grinds, turbinado sugar and a touch of oil.  I made a card from a brown paper bag, cut with pinking shears and decorated it with stickers and stamps.  It was a really cute gift and I wish I would've taken a picture of it.  I enjoy filling the days with simple projects and homemade items.  Today I'm canning tomatoes and making more soaps.  Last week we made our own cucumber and they came out delicious! I like full days of doing nothing :-)

EggBerta is a Momma Hen!

She's a stressed out mom...as I would be!  She's a worry wart!

I couldn't resist, I had to make our broody Wyandotte a mom!  I'd toyed with the idea of getting a half dozen fertilized eggs and putting them under her to hatch, but we're not quite ready for that yet!  We only have room for 1 more full grown hen, and I wouldn't know what to do with the extra chickies...and what if one hatched a rooster?!  One of these days we'll have a house with a big yard and coop and for sure a handsome rooster, but currently we're only allowed 3 hens. The only other option was to get a 3 day old chick from the Urban Farm Store and pull the ole' switch-er-oo!  When we originally got EggBerta she was supposed to be an Americauna so we thought it fitting for her to mother one :)   I did some research and called the Farm Store and the babies were arriving on Friday.  The only problem was that I work until 7pm and the store closes at 6pm, so I put the idea out of my mind and figured we'd just wait until her next period of broodiness ~ it just wasn't meant to be. As luck would have it, right before I went to lunch that very same Friday my supervisor asked me to leave 2 hours early to make up for OT.  It didn't even hit me until the ride home at 5 that we could make it to the store! It was a sign! I called Cam and told him I'd be pulling up shortly and to meet me out front, and off we were to get Shelly!  There were a lot of different breeds at the store but we only looked at the "Easter Eggers" and picked out the newest member of our flock, headed home, and waited just a little bit before we made the move. 

Oddly enough when we went in the yard EggBerta was out and about and I feared that her broody period was over. The chick was cheepin' away and when EggBerta finally went back on her nesting box we got the chick and placed it under her!  Shelly took to her new mom right away but EggBerta wasn't sure what to do!  She was pecking the chick to keep it underneath her and kind of started to purr, or coo.  It was cute.  We stayed outside until dark to make sure everyone was well behaved, and I was up at the crack of dawn next morning anxious to see how the night went.

We weren't too sly about it!

It's fun to watch EggBerta come down the ramp and that little ball of fluff peepin' and cheepin' to keep up!  During the day mom and baby have been staying in the chicken run with their own food and water, but on my lunch break and when I'm home in the am and pm they graze around the yard under our supervision.  Right now I'm gazing out the kitchen window watching them in amazement. Shelly will be able to fend for herself and be on her own in 6 week.  I hope EggBerta looks after her until then!



Shelly grazing on
her own.