Woods and birds

The weather has been letting us get some work done here and there around the farm.  Thursday I heard chicks peeping when I went to the barn to feed in the morning.  I determined that the sound came from the red turkey sitting in a doghouse in the back of the barn.  After breakfast I went out to check on her again and found her wandering around in a light rain out by the pond with two babies.  So I set up the brooder in the barn, caught the two little ones and put them in.  I will need the brooder for the chicks I ordered next week anyway.

One of the chicks was dark brown with stripes and the other lighter golden with stripes.  When I handled them I realized they weren’t newly hatched, feathers were coming in on the wings already so they were probably a week old or nearly so.  The cold, rainy weather kept me inside and the turkey hen must not have went far with the chicks so I missed their hatch.  I felt a little sorry for her but I want those chicks to live so they were put in a warmer, safer area.   The cats were way too interested when they saw the chicks.  Now she’s back sitting on the eggs that didn’t hatch, I need to clean that out. 

The babies seem to be settling down and doing well in the brooder.  I put a small cardboard box in there for them to hide in, since they had spent a lot of time under mom’s body in the dark.  I hope all goes well when I introduce the new chicks in a few days.  I have some new  production layer pullets and some banty chicks coming. Baby ducks should be hatching out any time now, but they will stay with mom.

I went to a swap meet yesterday and came home with two parakeets, a yellow and green male and blue female.  They are small American types and they are mature- who knows how old.  Steve was saying he missed parakeets; we raised English budgies many years ago.  They are in my office with the canaries, separate cages of course.  The dogs are going nuts trying to get to them.  They pretty much ignore the canaries now so why two more small birds should be so interesting is beyond me.  Once the dogs get used to them we may move them to the living room where we can watch their antics.

My barn swallows are back, I saw them last evening as I sat by the pond.  Today before the rain started I went around and put up 3 bluebird houses and repaired an older one.  I haven’t seen bluebirds in a few years around here but I am hoping that maybe they will pass through and see a good place to nest.  If they don’t use the boxes maybe tree swallows will.  The robins and starlings are already nesting.

While putting up the nest boxes I found a dead deer, pretty decomposed, up next to the fence, in a little hollow between the fence and a small hill.  It was in a direct line, about 200 feet from my neighbors bird feeder, where she told me the deer regularly eat.  I think it was probably the doe with the broken leg that was around but I didn’t investigate the corpse.  Hopefully the crows and vultures will clean it up.

I also investigated the woods a little.  It’s hard for me to navigate the uneven ground in the pasture that slopes down to the wooded area because I cannot lift my legs well anymore to clear logs and vines.  So I didn’t get far into the woods but it was interesting as it’s still open and clear as the trees haven’t leafed out.   It’s very swampy this year, with open water on the west side.  There are lots of dead trees in there, some ash that were killed by the borer and some dead poplar.  There was one tall straight dead tree with several holes in it and lots of chickadees popping in and out of them.  And there is one very oddly contorted aspen, still growing, I remember seeing it before but it really got twisted over the past year.   I kept wishing I had brought my camera. 

The swampy woods used to be the dump for the farm in days past and I found a couple of interesting objects I brought back to the house.  One was a white metal pot, holes rusted through in several places that was an odd shape and I thought maybe would work as garden art.  The other was an odd shaped oval object about 8 inches long made of aluminum, with wires sticking out of the top and bottom.  I told my husband it was a bomb, but he thinks it was some kind of insulator or connector for electric or phone wires.  I don’t know what I will do with that.  I have brought a lot of odd things back out of that dump.

Being out in the pasture made me nostalgic for the animals we used to keep, especially my horses.  I could still see their poop piles here and there and the paths they wore to their favorite spots.  I hope they are doing well where they are.  What will eat our grass now?

The pond is filling up-but so is the basement!

The weather here is very trying.  Its 34 degrees here today and we had snow overnight that left a coating on the grass and car.  Thursday before the deluge it was 75 degrees.   We had about 2 inches of rain in a short time on top of saturated soil from heavy rains earlier in the week.  The ditch by the road was overflowing, which is a signal to us that our little dug out basement had water in it.  Sure enough when we lifted the hatch in the bathroom which leads to the dugout we saw lots of water.  We have pumped it out 3 times so far.    The far corner of our yard near the road is under water.  The grass is growing but we won’t be able to get a mower on that wet ground for a while.

At least the pond is really getting full.  On Thursday I got to sit by it for a few minutes before the storms started.  I saw one tiny fish and heard bullfrogs singing.  No signs of turtles yet which is odd, there were so many last year.  Two kingfishers were out there, flying around and scolding me.  I have seen one around the last couple years, but this is the first time I have seen two, hopefully it’s a mate and they will nest here.  My odd little duck is back also.  I still haven’t quite figured out what type of duck it is.  

The arrow shows where the pond edge was in the fall.

My own ducks are all sitting.  One is in my garden wagon in the barn, with a nest of down all around her.  I won’t be using that for a while.  If the eggs are good I should have some baby Muscovies hatching in about a week from the first duck that started sitting.  That’s about the time my new chicks are scheduled to arrive.  

Both of my Bourbon Red turkeys are sitting but I doubt they will hatch anything.  The dark turkey hen never sits this early.  But when she does sit she generally hatches and raises her babies.  She likes to nest out in the yard somewhere, generally in one of my garden beds.  Last year she started sitting in late May.  The dark tom turkey is beautiful right now, his colors are brilliant.  The older Red tom is looking scruffy just like last spring.  He is growing new feathers though and he’s gobbling like crazy just like the young tom.

All the wild birds are building nests.  The Red winged blackbirds are thick and noisy around here.  Doves are building nests in several trees.  Now if I could just get my inside canaries to successfully nest I’d be happy.  One hen laid but the eggs didn’t hatch.  One hen just plays around a bit with nest material and never gets serious.  Both males are singing furiously and I saw the young male mating with his hen, who is the unsuccessful nester.  I’m not sure the older male is actually mating with his hen, which may be why she isn’t too diligent in building a nest.

I have been trying to come up with a good solution to keeping the cats away from the bird feeders outside.  One in particular spends all her time underneath the feeders or the ramp nearby.  I think if the weather will just stay warm I may hook up a sprinkler I can turn on whenever I see her out there.  We only used half the bird feed we used last year-because the birds don’t come around or she has eaten them all. 

Our garden efforts are proceeding slowly.  Between the weather and our physical problems it seems like we are just poking along there.  But I have got a peach tree, strawberries, saskatoons and grapes planted.

One day it will be 80 degrees and we will suddenly have spring.  Ah, Michigan.