Spring in February

It’s February 4 and the sun is shining and its about 40 degrees here in Michigan.  There is no snow.  This has been a weird winter but I like it.  We have had the hose to the barn run every week at least one day and many weeks every day, at least in the afternoon.  I love it when I don’t have to carry buckets of water.  On warm days I just fill several large buckets and it lasts me through most days when the hose doesn’t run.

 Today I opened up the coop door and let everyone have a day outside.  I am hoping that all will return home to roost and I am not trying to get turkeys out of the trees tonight.  All the birds were so restless, fighting and running around in the coop that I just let them out.  The guineas were the first out followed by a couple hens then the ducks.  Not all of them ventured out right away but I think they will.  The sun should be good for them all and they may even find a few green shoots here and there.

I put some nest boxes in big enough for turkeys in the coop last week.  The turkey hens have been trying to get in the chicken nests.  It looks like I have 3 tom turkeys and 3 hens.  At least 3 of them were doing a strut and circle dance in the coop.  I think I messed up with choosing the dark turkeys and left a tom instead of the old hen which I really, really regret.  It makes me sick thinking that she may be in the freezer. She was such a great mom.  They looked so much alike last fall.  I stared at them every day trying to sort them out.  But when you go to catching them things get confusing.  There is one dark hen so I am hoping the smaller one that I thought was a young hen just got bigger and was actually a tom.  Time will tell.

I have a duck sitting on eggs I can’t reach very well so I’m letting her sit.  Didn’t want babies until April but at least it will be March.  The other hen ducks are very interested in finding nests too.  The only bad part of letting the birds out right now is that they will roam all over looking for places to hide nests and this isn’t good outside nesting weather.  At least there aren’t many good hiding spots right now. 

 I have been trying to tell what sex the little wild kittens are- they are nearly cats now.  I hope they all aren’t female or we will have a population explosion. (They always find a tom somewhere.)  They won’t let me pick them up and look.  I haven’t seen any acting like they are in heat, that’s a good thing.  Steve keeps cooking eggs for them, they are spoiled little things.

The horses have been frisky and Chance is rubbing his winter coat off.  I wonder if he knows winter is going to be mild the rest of the season.  The groundhog did not see his shadow here so maybe this good weather will continue.   It’s just if the animals and plants get too many signals that winter is over and then we get a surprise clobber snowstorm or real cold weather it really hurts them.  And it’s so likely to happen.   But everyday I don’t have to carry water is a blessing and its one more day closer to true spring.

Later in the evening footnote.

I went outside around 5 pm to get all the birds back in the coop.  Most had came inside already.  However one turkey had flown into the dog kennel.  I was able to rescue him with just his tail feathers lost.  The guineas were all making their horrible noise outside because one of the flock had went over the fence by the pond and couldn't figure out how to get back.  Since I would have to climb down a slippery bank and back up on the other side of a fence to get to it, I waited a bit but he was still there after the others finally marched off to bed.   So down I went and back up, working carefully so I wouldn't fall into the icy pond.  When I appeared on the other side he suddanly remembered he could fly.  He went over the fence and was in the barn way before me.  Guineas are pretty stupid.

February 5- the birds stayed in the coop.  Maybe they'll get another outside playdate soon.

I like this weather

I am looking out the window and it’s nearly the winter solstice and the grass is green. I love it. It will get colder of course but the longer this milder weather goes on the less there will be for the whole winter. And the days will soon start getting longer—like after tomorrow and the sun brighter and stronger- hurray! I don’t need snow for Christmas.


The water in the hoses to the barn ran today. The temps are falling through the day but the hose will still run tonight. Filling buckets up gives us water that doesn’t have to be carried for a few days. That’s one of the worst parts of winter for me. Driving on bad roads is the very worst part and shoveling a path to the barn is another bad thing. So far the roads haven’t been that bad and no shoveling has been done. And while I have carried water a few times it also hasn’t been that bad. Hope it keeps up this way.

I haven’t brought the horses over to the main barn yet and the birds still can use the back part of the barn for roaming around in. I’m keeping an eye on the weather forecast so I can get the horses over there if I have to before I have to lead them through drifts. They like the freedom of the larger pasture better anyway. They have a deep run in barn for shelter. They don’t mind this weather and are very frisky. Lily hasn’t had any trouble with her feet, maybe having Chance with her keeps her more active.

We butchered two turkeys, young toms. They weighed out at about ten pounds each, nice size for us. I was supposed to bring one tom to a friend but that has been postponed. The bronze tom has been being a bit of a bully, it’s strange they are all related but the red turkeys separate themselves from the bronze most of the time even inside.

If I was sure the weather would stay mild most of the winter- we are talking Michigan here- it could be -20 degrees and 3 feet of snow next week- I would turn the birds out to roam again. I’d have to clip turkey and duck wings or I’d have them all over the yard again and I’d probably never get them caught again. The Guineas would probably never come in again and roosting outside in the winter wouldn’t be good. If I had to bring the horses over then leaving a door open would be a problem. The horses would be after the bird grain all the time too. They would try to push through even a small door. The doors all face north- and that would be bad for birds to leave them open although the horses come in and stand to the side and are fine. I guess I’ll leave them locked up; there isn’t much to eat out there anyway. They do have their big “greenhouse” area we made by covering the fenced outside run.

The ducks are trying to nest already. Guess they think its spring. I don’t think I’ll let them hatch eggs this early though. We have 7 ducks left- soon to be 6 as I give another away and even that few make a big mess in the coop. Hurry spring.

Getting ready for winter

Winter coming always inspires some crazy hoarding thing in me; it has to be an ancient instinct.  I want my cupboards and hayloft full.   I start buying groceries to pack the pantry, butchering for the freezer, canning and baking with frenzy.   Now we have been stranded in winter for a few days, unable to get out, but we have never been anything near starving because of it.  Just the eggs our chickens produce each day would feed us-until their feed ran out anyway.

 We bought hay this week and were lucky to find decent hay at a good price just down the road from us.  Our barn is very full now with just little paths to let Steve get his wheelchair around.  We used to put the hay up in the loft of the barn where there is plenty of room, but it’s quite a chore lifting it up there without a hay elevator and neither of us is able to do it anymore.  And I as the only one who can get up the loft steps and throw it down can barely make the climb up those steep steps anymore.  So we stack the hay in the front of the barn, where it makes everything very crowded until the stacks get eaten down a bit.  Lily and Chance are working on that part.

The little wild kittens love it though. They have moved out of their groundhog hole under the propane tank into holes between the bales of hay.  They sure do give me a start when they pop out of there though.  They are getting big- they look good and healthy from all the cat food we are feeding them.  But they are still as wild as can be and run when they see us.

 Steve just went out in his electric chair because the rain stopped and we heard there will be high winds as the day clears off.  We are putting a plastic roof and walls over the outside chicken run to give them more room this winter and he’s worried the wind may sail off some of what he’s started.   However there isn’t much he can do about it I think.  The turkeys saw him coming and followed him all the way to the gate, squawking and yelling at him for food, trailing after his electric chair.  They are getting big and I am wondering how I am going to catch them for butchering in December.  They still won’t roost in the barn at night and go high up in the pine tree where I can’t reach them.

 So far we haven’t had a day when the hoses to the barn have been frozen all day.  I hate hauling water in buckets.  I dread the day when we will have to lock the chickens and ducks in and bring the horses over to the north pasture where we can feed and water them from the barn.  They use the back part of the barn as a run in shelter and we only have to shovel one path to the barn to feed everyone.

 

This weekend looks like it will be cold but sunny and hopefully we’ll get the major job- enclosing the chicken run done.  We still have house storm windows to put on and I need to cover some of the main barn windows with plastic again and well - there is still a ton of things to do before real winter sets in.  I hope it gives us a while longer.

Fall chicks

Part of me welcomes the rainy days of fall in Michigan.  The pond fills up a bit before winter, the trees get well watered, there’s one more flush of good grass in the pasture and if the weather is poor I don’t feel guilty sitting inside writing or reading.   And wet weather makes you appreciate all those nice days in fall where the air is crisp and the sun feels good.   Those are the days when you feel you must be outside because there won’t be many nice days left before winter sets in.

 I have a turkey hen sitting in back of the barn in a bower of weeds, which as fall progresses has given her less and less of a cover from rain or sun.  I found a large foam board sign that farmers use to advertise a variety of grain that they planted and set it like a tent over her.  It gives her a measure of cover and so far it hasn’t blown away.   She should hatch those eggs in a week or so- and then I worry about the chicks running through wet grass- but hey- she choose the time to sit. 

The batch of chicks that the other hen turkey hatched around 6 weeks ago are doing well.  The ones I put in the brooder are now in the pasture in back of the barn.  They were continually getting out of the pen they were in so I turned them loose and they seem much happier.  The four that were left with mom are doing as well or better than them.   They are very tame and when they see or hear me come out of the house they come running, begging me to throw them bread. 

 
I don’t like it that their mom frequently leads them into the road.  I think they are picking up walnuts and acorns that have been crushed by cars.  But the brown babies look like the road and I am so afraid they’ll get hit.  Plus they look almost exactly like wild turkeys and I am also afraid someone will kill mom.   But there is no penning them now and this was an experiment that I need to see through.  She seems to be doing a pretty good job raising them.    

 At night the family roosts high in a pine tree.  And they run under trees or into deep grass if they see a large bird overhead.  I wish mom would take them into the barn when it rains; instead they stand under the catalpa tree with its big leaves.  Mom will spread her wings and the babies crowd under but she gets pretty wet sometimes.  There are several better places where they could take cover also.

 The six I took away from her are fascinated by the family on the other side of the fence and occasionally they fly over the fence.  But they don’t mingle - at least not yet and there seems to be no real recognition of the relationship.   These babies seem to still be learning the ropes of outside life.  They could go back inside the barn to their old pen at any time but they don’t.  I am still trying to find out where they are roosting at night.

 Mama muscovy duck hatched her brood of ten ducklings at the beginning of September.  For the first 3 weeks we kept them in a large pen in the back of the barn with mom.  They had a large doghouse in there and mom faithfully rounded them up each night and went inside.  The babies were getting out all the time so once again we opened the gate and let them into the pasture.  I was afraid mom would take them to the pond and they would get lost but so far so good.  They do get nailed occasionally by a bigger duck or chicken but they quickly learned to be nimble and quick.  They are so much fun to watch as they cheerfully run around under the feet of the bigger birds, chasing bugs, snatching bread crumbs or playing in puddles.   Momma duck brings them inside the chicken coop each night, back to where she hatched them under the chicken nests.  She also herds them inside if it rains.  Maybe ducks are smarter than turkeys.

 The bigger ducks are so pretty right now.  We did butcher two males as we have so many.  We had never tasted muscovy duck before.  I roasted it and it was very good actually.  Like most people say, it did taste a lot like beef and it wasn’t greasy.  It was a bit tough and hard to slice off the bone.  Our birds do a lot of walking, flying and swimming.  I would like to sell a few more but if nothing else we can eat them. 

 My group of frizzle roosters has been fighting terribly.  We had to remove one.  It’s a shame they all turned out to be roosters- except maybe one- they are so pretty but I can’t keep all of them if they are going to fight. 

 The only surviving Ameraucana cross hen from the raccoon massacre has turned out to be a small, light golden laced bird I named Goldie.  She is very feral and her eggs are brown and small.  She is hiding them beneath an old piece of wood in our junk area.  She never comes in the barn that I know of, and doesn’t associate much with the other chickens.  The young rooster hangs with her a bit.

 The garden is pretty well gone now.  We did get some tomatoes this week but the cold weather that we expect in a few days should be the end of them.  It wasn’t a bad tomato year- I only sprayed fungicide once- but I wasn’t real happy with it either.  The corn was a big disappointment.  I hope the weather will allow me to get some horse manure on the gardens this fall.

 Momma turkey and brown chicks.

 Young Muscovy ducks.

Frizzle roosters.

hot times

Well after stating that I intended to blog more often, I haven’t.  I could use problems with internet dial up services as an excuse but I’ll just say I didn’t follow through.  I did enter a 24 hour short story contest this week, and while I completed the story in no time, I had to sweat out whether my phone would come back on in time to send it.  It did and that is now behind me.

 It’s easier to stay inside and write now that the weather is hot and muggy and today- peppered with thunderstorms.  I need to move some chickens and ducks around in the barn but I don’t want to stress them and me in this heat.  We had all the meat chickens butchered a few days ago which leaves us with a little room to spread out the rest of the birds.  Some of those birds- at 49 days- were the size of small turkeys and I am not exaggerating.   It’s amazing how selective breeding has transformed these broiler birds. 

 When we first started raising meat birds it took about ten weeks - sometimes longer- to produce a nice bird from broiler stock.  Now about 18 years later it takes about 6 weeks- at least we could have butchered last week and had decent sized birds.  I saw a number of broilers at the butchering facility that were from the new “Red Ranger” meat stock.  They sort of looked like red barred rocks, or maybe New Hampshire’s a little.   I saw one butchered out and the carcass looked pretty good but I had a feeling the birds were a few weeks older than the broilers we brought in.  They are supposed to do well on pasture.

 I don’t think you save money raising your own chickens but they were every bit as tasty as store bought birds and they were fed a good natural feed with no antibiotics.  Plus the meat wasn’t pumped full of salty water before we cooked it.  Our 10 pound  roasters were all real meat, no additives.

 Well the barn swallows have left their nest and I turned the baby mallards loose to find their way back to the wild.  For a few days they never left the pond.  Now they are back up in the chicken pasture hanging out with Mr. Muscovy duck.  They seem less nervous and scared than they were in their pen.  The baby muscovy ducks have not been allowed outside yet, they are growing like crazy - but I gave them a big rubber horse pan to swim in.  Soon I am moving them outside to a pen.

 The guineas are starting to make their weird little guinea noises.  They too need to be turned loose soon.  The red turkey disappeared for most of the days last week and I had to hunt down her new nest.  It was right beside the road, under a small bush, a very unsuitable place.  I tried to move her and the eggs but that turned into a disaster of cracked eggs.  The dark turkey hen is sitting on a nest in the middle of the corn patch- a small bit more acceptable.  After a few days the red hen is sneaking off again.  We saw her coming out of one of the bushy garden beds I have so I suppose that’s the new nest spot.  She can stay there.

 I don’t know if the tom we got is doing his job or not, although I have seen them mating.  He is still a scruffy thing, with most of his belly bare.  Hopefully a few more weeks of good food and care will see an improvement in him.  The hens are egg laying machines though- as good as the chickens almost.

What is quite interesting is the baby silky-frizzle crosses which I understand are called sizzles.  They are turning out quite pretty although I can’t sex them yet.    They probably won’t lay well but I think I’ll keep a few.

new horse

I am a horse owner again. I went out and bought a mini-horse mare and her two month old colt. Lily is a nice little six year old sorrel mare and Charlie is her bouncing sorrel baby. At least I think he will be sorrel. I have all this pasture full of knee high grass and I can’t put her out in it and leave her because she was being kept in a paddock without any grass since the foal was born. It would make her founder. So Steve and I made a small pen just outside the stall in the back of the barn and pulled all the grass out of it. It was last weekend, when we had 5 inches of rain – we worked on and off in the rain.

Lily and son have a nice 10 by 12 box stall that opens to a roughly 12 x 20 pen outside.[ The picture is of Lily in her previous home.] I have been putting her out in the pasture for a short period at a time, which they both love. Twice Lily has managed to get out of the pen into the pasture, the lure of green grass is so strong. Once was in the afternoon and I know she wasn’t out more than 2 hours. The second time was at night and I have no idea how long she was out but she is fine.

She eats like a horse- she went through a bale of hay in about 5 days- with very little waste. She isn’t thin- even nursing she is well padded. I don’t want her to get too fat, mini horses look awful with big pot bellies and then they founder easily. I would like to get her out on the pasture more though, Charlie loves racing around and rolling in the grass. And hay is so expensive, we bought it at the feed store and it cost $7.00 for the bale. I have to check with the neighbors to see who has hay for sale. At least she will be easy on the grain – 2 cups twice a day- the bag should last for a while.

I am going to have to mail order a halter for Charlie. You can’t find a mini-foal halter very easily in stores. He is quite friendly and loves to be scratched but is already giving me a bit of a hassle when I try to bring them back into the barn. He follows Lily to the gate then runs off. It takes a lot of coaxing to get him inside.

When I let them out in the morning I have been letting the hens out in the pasture too. The horses don’t seem to mind them, although Lily chases cats. The turkeys look so funny out in the grass. They have been flying out of the pen for some time but they like to go where the hens are going. They roost outside every night on the top rail of the pen. Steve tried to put some chicken wire there yesterday because we are afraid they will get hurt out in the yard but they got out anyway- one was on the barn roof calling its head off this morning.

Tomatoes are about gone but pears and apples are getting ripe. We have some runty grapes too. I need to dig up the potatoes to see what’s there. Cucumbers succumbed to downy mildew. No pickles there. I did make a few pints of tomato sauce but the tomatoes really struggled with the fungal diseases this year. Our pumpkins are small and green. I doubt they will mature. I need to harvest some sage. My moon flower is finally blooming- we haven’t had frost yet although it has come close a few times. Got to get the porch ready to bring in my plants. The zinnias and morning glories are looking good. The ornamental kale is coloring up but I doubt we get to see much of it as the turkeys have found it. They seem to like big leaved plants. They eat a lot of comfrey and that’s fine by me.

We have had a very green summer. This last 5 inches of rain will make the plants and soil moist going into dormancy. Since the ground was pretty dry before it started the flooding around here was minimal. I am just glad the rain wasn’t snow we would have been buried. Summer has been fairly mild too, the way I like it. I hope fall is long and mild.