Beautiful December day

It’s a beautiful day here in Michigan.  For the 26th of December it can’t be better.  It’s about 45 and sunny, the little snow we had melted and left behind green grass.  I wanted to be outside this morning so I did some barn chores, moving hay around to make room for my little wagon inside, cleaning a dog kennel, digging a hole under the water dish in the chicken coop, spreading clean shavings in the coop.  Not really outside all the time but the sun was shining right inside that barn door.  

All the chickens, turkeys, ducks, guineas were outside in the “greenhouse annex.”  The plastic isn’t totally clear but there is filtered sunlight inside and they were enjoying it.  I dug the hole under the big water dish to make less of a wet spot.  I covered it with a grate and set the water dish on it.  Now all the duck splashes will go in the hole hopefully.  The clean shavings may reduce some of the mud in the dish.  The hoses all ran which makes cleaning things easier.

 I sat down to rest a moment and the momma stray cat came into the barn with a little bird in her mouth.  One of the half grown kittens ran up and she gave the bird to it.  It completely ate that bird in less than 5 minutes, only a few feathers left. It was either a sparrow or a chickadee, hopefully a sparrow - they are still flitting around in the chicken coop despite cats.   I talked to mamma cat and told her I was leaving her plenty of food for her and the kids and I’d appreciate it if she left the birds alone.  I doubt she cared.  She is constantly hunting.  Some cats are good hunters, some aren’t.  The mice and rats have pretty much disappeared around here too.   If the sitting frizzle hen hatches eggs I was going to let her raise the chicks but the cat may be a problem.  They are in a pen but I have no doubts the cats could get in if they wanted to.

 My canaries like the spring like weather even though they are inside.  The young male is finally getting a stronger song although it still is a little strange.   For a while I thought it might be a singing hen because he sang so softly and the song is weird.  But I think he is indeed a male because today he is much louder and has been singing a lot.  Petey the older male has been singing up a storm.  They will be ready to breed soon.  The hens are carrying feathers around.  I need to get some better breeding cages.

The dogs have been running in and out all day, and I bet half of their new Christmas squeaky toys are outside.  Our run of good weather is supposed to end tomorrow with a couple of inches of snow.  The toys will all be buried.  But hopefully the snow will be short lasting - warmer weather is predicted again by New Years.

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.

Birds and Cats

When I sat down at my desk today to write I noticed that there were several slate colored juncos outside my window eating the seeds off weeds.  There is a dog run just outside my office window for my dogs Cricket, who can’t get along with other female dogs and Gus her companion, who is elderly and has a heart condition.  They have a doggie door to the run. 

 Back to the birds.  It struck me that the little birds were eating the seeds of some lambsquarter, a weed I had worked hard to remove from the dog run as it gets very tall and blocks my view.  A single small plant was left because it grew through a cinder block and was hard to remove.  They were also eating the seeds of some grass that grew close to the fence and had escaped the mower and weedwacker. 

 Those little birds were feasting on weeds, weeds that somehow managed to escape my efforts to control them.   There is a bird feeder in the front of the house and fields are only a few yards away.   If I hadn’t worked so hard to get rid of the weeds near the house however, these tiny grey birds would have entertained me more often just outside a window I spend a lot of time near. 

 Since the weeds were few, I decided to encourage the tiny birds by opening the window and tossing out some canary seed mixture I had collected from my canaries seed dishes when I refilled them.  They don’t eat all the seed and I generally throw the “waste” out under the bird feeder for the birds to pick through.  Now it’s outside my office window where it will probably attract mice instead of more tiny birds.  Cricket and Gus knew I threw something out there and they went out to check it over so the birds won’t be back for a while anyway.

 I bought a new bird feeder this week.  Our old one had been badly damaged by constant deer visits and the barn cat hanging from it as she tried to catch birds.  This is sturdy molded plastic in the shape of a white barn with cheerful red and green trim, very Christmasy.  The design is such that I think it will discourage deer and now that its colder maybe the cat won’t be hiding under the ramp waiting to pounce on birds so often.

 Until the stray cat moved here with her 5 kittens I always had dozens of birds at my feeders in front at all times.    The type and number of birds I see now has dropped off considerably.  We allowed the cat to move her family into the barn and we have been feeding them quite generously, so she no longer has a real need to hunt.  But being a hunting type cat at heart she continues to supplement their meals. 

 The cat was probably a pet before she was dumped but she is quite wild now, as are her kittens.  They hide in the hay in the barn and watch my every move.  I crack the tiny eggs from the frizzle chickens to give them, bring them table scraps and keep a full dish of dry cat food out for them  but they still won’t let me touch them or even get close.  They look plump and healthy and are so pretty but if I tried to cuddle them I know they would tear me up.  There are 5 of them and I hope they are all males!

I need a crystal ball

The snow has come to Michigan.  It’s melting a bit today, prompting some scrambling to get some things done we missed before the first snowfall.    Snow is supposed to make a comeback in a few days.  It’s not that we procrastinated, we have been plugging away at winter preparedness, just running out of time.

 The night before the big snowfall momma turkey who raised her brood in the yard, came into the barn to roost but her 4 youngsters, now as big as her, stubbornly took to their pine tree to roost.  In the morning I was able to shoo mama turkey into the chicken coop inside.   Her youngsters had been waiting outside the barn door, calling to her.  They seemed quite unhappy about walking in the white stuff with bare feet.  A little corn inside the barn and it was done, I trapped them inside and then shooed them into the coop also.

 The ducks are the only hold outs now.  Most of them stayed outside the night of the storm, around the pond edge.  I got 5 of them in the coop at various times but 11 are still out there.  The back of the barn has a run in horse stall- where the horses should be now- and the ducks are using it.  I am trying to run a tight schedule between catching up all the ducks and bringing the horses out of the pasture to the paddock behind the barn. 

 The ducks are scheduled for the butcher- all those we aren’t keeping, on Wednesday. I need to get them inside to make it easier to catch them and I need to get the horses back by the barn before the next snow storm.  But if the snow could just hold off and let us catch the ducks in the run in stall it would be so much easier than catching them in the bigger coop.

 We also have to get the riding mower over to the shed the horses use as shelter now before the snow gets deep, there’s no room inside the barn after expanding the chicken coop.  I am putting the push mower inside the frizzle chickens outside run, which we covered in plastic, and maybe a chair and the ladder too.  Tight quarters until some of the hay is eaten up, and the horses are sure working on that.

 I’d like to leave the horses in the bigger pasture and I’m sure they’d like to stay there but it is hard for Steve to feed and water them when I can’t in the winter over there and hard for me to carry water to them.  When they are in the barn we can just open the door and toss hay to them, everyone can be fed in one trip.  And if the weather is really bad they can eat inside, it’s hard for us to get hay to the pasture shed when the snow is deep. 

 The plastic roof we put over the outside chicken run held up to heavy wet snow but snow sure didn’t slide off like we thought it would.  It stuck quite well.  The inside stayed dry though.  I am debating on whether I should try to broom it off or if that might do more harm than good.  It stills seems quite light in there when it’s sunny.  The whole thing is enclosed so it’s like a greenhouse for birds.  A heater inside might melt the roof snow but that’s rather costly.

 If I just had a crystal ball to see how this winter will play out it would be so nice.  I’m not asking to change it, although that would be nice too.  Just asking to know what’s coming when. 

redneck for sure

Well its official, we are rednecks.  We just had a satellite dish put up in the front yard, right by the driveway and road.  You see I have been waiting for high speed internet connection for a while and our phone company sent around a notice saying it was now available.  There was this really good deal on combining phone service, high speed and satellite TV, it worked out to be less than we are now paying for the phone and dial up connection.  So we said yes.

 Yesterday, Sunday, the guy was supposed to arrive and put up the satellite dish between noon and 5pm.  He arrived about 5:30, when it was full dark outside.   Immediately he began grumbling about all the trees around the house.  I apologized but no one said anything about trees being a problem when I called to order the dish.    We haven’t had satellite TV in about 6 years and that dish went on the roof.  The installer said his company used  another satellite and the roof location wasn’t any good.

 He was a tall skinny guy with a foreign accent.  He said he never saw a house with so many trees around it.  Really?  Our house has some mature trees on the south and west but we aren’t really in the woods.  I said it was ok if he couldn’t install the dish, we’d just get the internet and phone.  Oh no, he said, I drove all the way out here-( another sore spot with him was that we lived so far in the boonies)- and I am going to get paid for this job. 

 He looked around with his flashlight and asked if he could cut some tree branches.  I said sure.  He proceeded to get a 20 foot extension ladder out of his truck and climb the tree with a hand saw and a light clipped to his hat.  I was afraid I’d have a heart attack.  The ladder was placed so that it was nearly straight up and down, and he would climb way up it - nearly to the top, hang on with one hand and saw away.  Large limbs fell, some hitting the ladder on the way down.  He actually bounced the ladder to move it a couple times.

 I stayed out in the cold and dark watching him because I was afraid he’d fall and impale himself on the sawed off limbs below him.  He acted annoyed when I would gasp or say be careful.  He sawed away on two different trees for about 45 minutes.  Then he came down, cut them up a little and piled them by the driveway.  He was efficient, I must say.

 Next he had to dig a hole for the pole, mix cement and then trench the line to the house, which wasn’t far.  He had to drill a hole into the house run the wires in and hook up the TV.  When he found out we had a second, old TV in the bedroom (from Steve of course) he insisted on installing a double unit and hooking that one up too.  Its free he said,( it better be)  and there’s no sense not using the second one.  We haven’t used that TV since TV went digital. 

 At about ten pm he was finally ready to leave.  I was exhausted.  He did do an excellent neat job.  I gave him a dozen of our fresh eggs and he was very appreciative.  He said there was no charge for the extra work.  All that work for an installation fee of $34.99.  I hope he gets paid more than that.   So we now have satellite TV which pleases Steve no end.  And I wasted an hour or so this am watching Animal planet. 

 Next week the guy comes to install the computer modem.  I wonder if we should plan on that taking 5 hours too?

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.

Early November can you believe it?

Today is my son’s birthday.  When he was born 37 years ago it was a cold, snowy day and a few days later we had a big snowstorm.    This year it was mild and sunny and no snowstorms are on the horizon.  It’s hard to believe its November.  Most of the leaves are now gone, but the grass is green and I still have roses in bloom.

 I picked two 5 gallon buckets of apples off the last tree with apples remaining.  Some of them aren’t ripe yet but this tree ripens so late that many of the apples freeze on the tree before they are ripe.  So I pick them, some on the upper south side of the tree are ripe and the rest make good horse treats.  

 The apples are little because I don’t thin them and they have scab, but they make good applesauce, pies and apple butter.  My husband wants me to make some apple butter this weekend.  I will probably pick some more and sort them first.  The chickens have been standing on the fence rail next to the tree and picking their own apples so I threw them a few also.  And I gave my canaries inside a slice also.

 The apple tree is by our pond and the autumn olive bushes around the pond were full of robins migrating south and stopping to eat the red berries the bushes are loaded with.   They were singing and calling and it sounded like spring.  Our ducks finally found the pond- it is only about 50 feet from the pasture they roam in- and the 15 remaining ducks were all swimming around happily.   Momma duck and poppa duck knew about the pond but for a while no ducks went to the pond for some reason.    They stayed up in the pasture and played in the kiddy pool and their water dishes.

 It may have been that the buzzards finally migrated south and stopped soaring over the pond.  We had some turkey buzzards nest in our woods and a big group of them were always around.  They don’t normally take live prey but birds are conditioned to feel unsafe with big birds gliding overhead.  In the pasture they watched the buzzards warily and there were plenty of things to hide under.   On the pond they may have felt too exposed.  They don’t mind the big blue heron though - he was down there with them.

 Whatever the reason I sure appreciate the cleaner water dishes with less mud around them, ducks are so messy.  But they are fun to watch.

October day

It’s very hard for me to sit in my office and write on a mid October day when the sun is shining and the temperature is reasonably mild.  I know that there will be few of these days left.  But duty calls and a writer has to have some self discipline.  But I promise to get outside later in the afternoon when it will be even nicer I hope.

 We had some excitement at 6 am this morning.  I was lying in bed and kept smelling this odd smell, I knew the smell but couldn’t place it.  It almost smelt like paint and since I could hear one of the dogs scrambling around I decided to get up and see if they had spilled something. 

 
I found Ginger standing in my big variegated leaved geranium plant and she and some of the other dogs were looking up at the shelf filled with plants higher in the window.  The crushed geranium was what I smelled.  I couldn’t see anything but Steve got up and poked at some of the plants and bam- a tree rat ( red squirrel) jumped out.  He didn’t stand a chance once he hit the floor and at least three dogs pounced on him.   That’s one down.   How it got inside I don’t know.

 Those darn things are in the attic, on the enclosed porch and a few other places in the house I guess.  They are getting in the attic someway probably through a hole under the eaves somewhere but we can’t find it.  Rat poison doesn’t seem to kill them and we can’t get into the attic easily enough to set traps up there.  I am seriously thinking about getting all the walnut trees around the house cut down.   I think that’s what attracts them to our yard.  And all the nuts on the ground are a big nuisance as well.

 I was hoping that the stray cat that has her babies in the woodchuck hole under the propane tank would kill some of them.  She sure does a number on the birds at the feeder.  But she must not be able to catch them or at least enough of them.

 Mama duck, that one that’s produced 25 babies so far this year was sitting in a lower chicken nest this morning.  All of her last bunch of babies were under the nest boxes waiting for her.  I told her to go ahead and lay there it would make it easy to collect the eggs since we do not need any more baby ducks this year.

 I am seeing tons of buzzards this fall, they’ve been around all summer but I think they are here much later in the fall than usual.  Maybe they are adapting to global warming or to the fact that there are so many dead deer by the roads all year round.  I think a group of them nest in our woods.

The wind has been so strong the last few days that the redbud tree I wrote about just a few days ago has lost almost all its leaves, as have most of the trees around here.  I can see the neighbors houses now, a sign its nearly winter.

Gold in the air

The redbud tree has turned to a blaze of gold outside my office window.  It’s about the only colorful tree I can see from here.  Our woods don’t exactly put on a fall display.  Most of the outer edge is poplar and their leaves are already gone.  One rusty brown tree is an oak and there is some green from pines.  On the west side of the property there are sumacs and even a maple along with walnut and oak so the color is a bit better.  But the one thing I rather regret is not planning for more fall color.

 It’s mid October and we still haven’t had a killing frost.  My tomatoes are still green although I will soon be pulling them green leaves or not.  The fruit had to be brought inside to ripen on the windowsill but we had bacon and tomato sandwiches for breakfast.  I picked apples from the tree by our west pasture today.  They are scabby because I didn’t spray this year but are good sized and will make a great apple cake later today.  

 The horses have been getting lots of windfall apples.  I actually have to pick them up so Lily doesn’t get too many.  The trees in the north pasture by the pond are loaded with apples but they aren’t quite as ripe and they are a lot smaller.  The deer have gotten most of the pears as usual.  The pears are on the east, and aren’t fenced, not that a fence bothers most deer.

 We put a roof on the new small chicken run this weekend and have started building a roof for the larger run.  I expect to go into the winter with nearly 50 birds and need more space enclosed than last winter.  I have a lot more birds than that now but Steve insists a great many of them be sold or butchered before winter.  Feed bills are really adding up.  I traded 3 turkey babies for 2 canaries, now we are down to 10 turkeys and up to 5 canaries.   I gave a friend 2 of the youngest batch of ducks and we are down to 21 ducks.  I was able to give away one of the frizzle roosters- down to 6 bantams. 

We still have 16 laying hens and 2 large roosters.  We also have 7 guinea hens.  I’d get rid of some of the guineas but they are so hard to sex and hard to catch that I think they’ll stick around.  The larger ducks are flying everywhere now- coming into the yard and garden to eat and roosting on the barn roof.  They are hard to part with- at least to butcher - as they are so pretty.  But ducks are very messy in the winter inside and I think the original pair and maybe 3 more are about all we need to really explode the population next year.

 If it was up to me and I could afford it I’d keep all the turkeys.  Momma turkey still has her four brown babies out in the front; I do have to figure out how to get them back with the other birds before winter.  I thought they were going to be typical bronze color but it now looks if they may be a chocolate color.  They are pretty and tamer than the 3 bourbon red ones left in the chicken yard.   But there are 3 toms so at least 2 must go.  The bourbons are 2 hens and a tom.

 The bourbon red hen turkey never hatched the last batch of eggs she was sitting on.  I feel bad she never got to raise any babies. Early on she hatched some chickens but we took them away from her.  But she is thin and needs to take a break from sitting.  If any more eggs are laid around here from turkeys or ducks they will be picked up and fed to the dogs or cats.  No more babies until spring.

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.

Don't abandon your pets

Well this has been a strange week.  At work someone found a small kitten under the cars in the parking lot and brought it into our office.  We all couldn’t take a kitten home but we made it comfortable by feeding it and providing a litter box.  It was playing around the office and the boss thought it was cute and said maybe it could be an office cat.  But then a client came in and started talking about her 17 year old cat dying and we introduced her to the kitten.  Love at first sight and the kitten went home with her.

That was Tuesday.  Thursday I came home from work and a little dog ran up to meet me when I got out of the car.  Problem is it wasn’t any of my dogs.   It was chasing poor Frizzle my little yard rooster and I was worried that it would get my baby turkeys out in the yard.    I tied it up - no collar but he was a friendly little thing and after dinner we drove around the neighborhood asking people if they lost a dog.  No luck.

My instinct is that he’s a drop off.  Steve said he was outside a half hour before I came home and it wasn’t around then.    The dog is a little black and tan, wire coated thing, maybe a schnauzer-rat terrier mix.  Very loving, but a whole male, so he can’t come inside.  I didn’t see any fleas; he’s real thin but looks healthy.  I put him in the kennel outside with Sarah.  Sarah is really old but still active Jack Russell who has always been an outside dog.  She has a really large outside and inside run.  She loves male dogs, she’s a big flirt.  She can’t get pregnant and they are about the same size. 

I decided to name him Justin Bieber for now.  He’s not really happy outside but only cries for a short time after he sees me.   He wants to snuggle under my arm constantly.  He’s a little big for a lap dog, but not a big dog, just long legged and gangly.  We have called all the vets and put notices up at the stores but my bet is that an owner won’t be found.  I can’t keep a whole male here as some of my girls aren’t fixed and I can’t afford to neuter someone else’s dog.  So we’ll be looking for a home for him.

Then this morning- Saturday- I started outside to go do chores and stepped on a cat. It was lying on our porch steps in the sun, half dead from starvation I think.  The poor thing was skin and hair.  She probably didn’t weigh 5 pounds and was a large cat.  It was an adult female gray domestic shorthair, also with no collar.   I fed her of course and I thought she was going to settle down on the porch but later I saw her walking down the road.  She had a scrape on her back - I wonder if she was locked up somewhere and finally escaped and is trying to go home.  She ate well here so maybe I helped her.

I keep wondering if the two are connected, the dog and cat, someone’s pets that they dropped off.   Or maybe left behind in a house and finally escaped.  I just don’t understand people, there are so many places they could take unwanted animals and to think that dropping them off at someone’s house is the right thing to do is so stupid.  People- just because we are a farm don’t mean we want your unwanted pets!  And yes- one more does matter!    Dropping animals off in the country is about the dumbest, most inhumane thing you can do.  And it’s illegal too.

Bird watching country style

Bird watching at my house is as much sitting outside behind my barn watching my flock of assorted domestic birds as it is watching the birds that come to our feeders, woods and fields.  I get a lot of pleasure just sitting there after I feed and watching the antics in the barnyard.  Right now our flock consists of about 70 assorted birds so there is plenty to watch.

 The baby muscovy ducks are now out in the small pasture behind the barn with the guinea hens, the turkeys and our laying hens.   It’s been interesting watching them grow and feather out.  From our black and white parent ducks we got some barred black and barred chocolate, as well as a chocolate pied and more black pied.   They are fairly calm  ducks and they climb very well.  There was an old van bench behind the barn for sitting on but they have taken it over, climbing up and laying on it like puppies on a couch and fighting over who gets to sit on it.

 Two of the released mallard ducks, looks like 2 hens, come back regularly to eat too.  We see them flying down the road in both directions to visit the ponds of neighbors.

The guinea hens are a real hoot to watch.  They are not as smart as turkeys and that’s saying something.  There are seven of them.  I have been trying to sex them without much luck.  You sex them by listening to their calls but they all look alike so from day to day it’s hard to keep things straight.  

 The guineas go out the gate to the pond to explore under the trees out there.  The gate is on the far northwest end of the pasture.  However when they wanted to come back they usually went up the fence line on the pond side to the closest point to the barn and tried to go through the fence.  For a while I herded them back down to the gate twice a day, I thought they would learn but it didn’t happen.  I ended up cutting a hole in the fence so they could come back through.  They are also perfectly capable of flying up and over the fence but it doesn’t seem to occur to them.

 There are four barred rock roosters that were raised with the guineas and turkeys out there.  They will be butchered soon but for now they kind of hang on the fringes of things.  For a while they were the bullies, keeping the little ducks and guineas from eating but suddenly the guineas have turned the tables on them and chase them whenever they can.  Since the guineas don’t bother the ducks its better for them.

 The bronze turkeys are big enough to butcher and I need to get it done before I get too attached to them.  When I go out to sit in the pasture they come up and try to sit on my feet, pick at my clothes and try to take my wedding ring off my hand.   One is a tom and he gobbles back if I gobble to him then spreads his tail and struts.

 Our big red tom proved his worth.  He was so scruffy and half bare when we brought him home but he’s growing feathers and proved his worth.  Our darker turkey hen was sitting on eggs in my sweet corn patch and despite all odds hatched 10 babies.  I took 6 lighter colored ones away from her and put them in a brooder and left her to raise 4 darker ones.  I thought they would soon disappear but so far she has managed to keep all 4 alive, it’s been 10 days. 

 She hangs out with them in the garden and yard, well away from the other birds.  But she won’t come in the barn with them even though I left the front door open for her where she could get in without the other birds, even though it has rained several times.  I leave food and a flat water pan out for her down by the corn.   The babies seem to be growing well.   Her new night roosting spot is in the middle of my potato patch, which I’m not thrilled about. 

 
Last night I was watching the other birds, trying to interest the baby ducks in the wading pool we put out for them.  I could see mama turkey on the other side of the fence in the potatoes craning her neck to see what was going on.  Little turkey chicks appeared from under her and climbed on her back so they could see better.  And I didn’t have a camera!

 The bourbon red turkey hen is starting a new nest deep in one of my flower beds.  Now that we have a fertile tom she may finally hatch some babies herself.  These turkeys have been sitting on and off since January and have hatched chickens twice for us but they just won’t quit.

 I’ll talk about introducing the young hens to the old next time.

wish it would rain

The sun is trying to break through low clouds here- I wish it wouldn’t.  I was hoping for some rain last night, it’s been about 2 weeks now since we had any.  Just before we turned over to the 11 pm news last night a tornado warning flashed across the screen.  A small cell had popped up just to our north and west.  It was unusual that late at night with no watchs posted and it got the weatherman all excited.  A waterspout had formed over a lake and moved on to land making it a weak tornado but it quickly fizzled out before it got here.

 They had said there might be hail over our area from the storm and I went out in the dark to check things out. Although we had been leaving the light on in the back of the barn to attract the guinea hens and turkeys inside for the night they insist on sleeping outside.  The baby ducks which usually do come inside were outside also.  So I was glad there was no hail but rain would have been nice.

 Guinea fowl are strange creatures.  They are very noisy also.  I’ve learned that females make a two syllable call and males a one syllable call.  Otherwise they look pretty much alike.   Any little thing sets them off and they sound like a flock of strange geese or hoarse dogs yakking away. 

 Our young turkeys, destined to be holiday meals, have become very tame.  They follow me around the bird pasture and if I sit to watch the birds they come up and stand on my shoes and peck at me.  Big Tom the old turkey male pretty much ignores them.   Both of his adult hen friends are again setting on eggs, one in my corn patch and the other in a flower garden.  I have had to water those gardens but nothing makes them move.  I hope for their sakes they finally hatch some turkey chicks.  They have both hatched chickens for us but we took them away of course.

 We have sold off all of the excess hens, the frizzle babies are in their permanent home and the replacement hens are in the back horse stall with a screened opening on both sides for the old hens to get acquainted with them.  The coop wall shares a wall with the one horse stall.  The bottom half is solid but the top is covered with wire.  Last night when I was checking before the storm I saw that one young hen had gotten over the wire and was perched on a roost next to the older hens.  Instant integration!  But she was back home this morning with the other youngsters.

 We opened up part of the area around the pond to the horses since their pasture was dried out and not re-growing because it’s been hot and dry.  We put some hot wire up across the section leading to the apple trees and the gate to the pond because we wanted to let the ducks come and go and keep the horses out of the green apples.  Those buggers walked all away around the top edge of the pond which is a narrow, steep and brushy strip to get around to the apples.  We put hot wire on the other side of the trees so when they walk around they are stopped.  This morning Lily must have waded around the hot wire in the pond (which we extended 4 foot into the pond), because there she was on the other side. 

 The bank she climbed up was steep and she seemed reluctant to go back down so I ended up leading her through the chicken pasture all through the yard and around to her old pasture.  The brat better not be back there tonight.  The old saying that grass is always greener on the other side of the fence must have pertained to horses.

 I’ve been watering the garden but rain is always better.  Our corn is making ears and I can’t wait for some fresh sweet corn.  Baby potatoes are ready too.  I can’t keep up with the weeding because all my time is devoted to watering, water makes the weeds grow- it’s a vicious circle.  All the flowers are blooming early because of the heat - nothing will be left soon.

 Summer just goes by so fast.  

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.

Fishing on Father's Day

It’s Fathers day and you couldn’t have asked for a more delightful summer morning. After doing chores in the barn I checked the pond and saw fish jumping. At breakfast I convinced my husband it was time he went fishing again. He hasn’t fished much in the last few years. Our pond was without fish for a few years and he had mobility problems until he was able to get his electric wheelchair.


But today the stars were in alignment. The pond has fish and he has mobility. He also had a new fishing pole given to him by our son last Fathers Day. It was a cute little set up that folded into a pouch so you could fish anywhere. So after breakfast he started assembling it. The tying on of the hook was a problem- his eyes are worse than mine, so I took over. That’s not easy with my twisted fingers anymore. But we got her done.

Some worms were located. We made our journey to the pond, chickens and turkeys trailing us through the back pasture. I don’t fish, but I like to sit near water and watch for birds and other wildlife. The pond is deep and full this year. I wanted to make sure that hubby didn’t hit the controls accidentally on that electric chair and go flying down the steep bank into the pond.

In the morning there is some shade on the south bank from a maple that has finally grown big enough to do some good. We settled there. First thing he noticed was that the line was tangled on the reel. I took the reel apart and tried to untangle the fine line- but removing the line from the pole was required. That meant cutting the hook off. We checked the nearby bench and sure enough his old tackle box was still under it, with a rusty pair of scissors inside.

With the rusty pair of scissors I managed to cut off the hook then reassembled the reel. The untangled line was then rethreaded through the eyes on the pole and then there was that wonderful task of tying on a hook again. Next came the bobber. With the old tackle box in front of him he had the choice of a small bobber that came with the kit or a larger bobber in the old tackle box. He decided on the larger bobber.

A worm was finally threaded on the hook, he had to do that himself, and the line cast. Whoops, line was catching on a small protrusion of plastic on the reel. After a few frustrating tries to cast, hubby takes the scissors and scrapes off the protrusion. The line is cast, he’s finally fishing.

I wander away to the ponds edge farther west where the bank is low. Teeny tiny frogs are hopping everywhere I step, I have to catch one to make sure it’s a frog and not a spider; they are so small and black. Good thing the chickens have left, they don’t venture this far. But I do see the blue heron down here a lot in the evening - now I know why.

Bull frogs are “bonking” around me and when I settle into a chair by the water two big bullfrog heads emerge from the water, one on the right, the other on the left to watch me. Swallows are swooping over the water as well as big blue dragon flies. I see fish jumping from the water and a bobber landing near the spot.

The warm water next to the shore is filled with tadpoles, ones that will emerge much bigger than the tiny ones I have decided are spring peepers. A few small fish wiggle by and one huge bullfrog tadpole. I watch two chick- a-dees picking something off the autumn olive near the pond, must be bugs. A bird is singing in the taller shrubs behind me whose song I don’t recognize and I squint into the sun trying to see the bird.

A few casts later, I hear he has a bite. Then I hear the line is tangled in the weeds, and then I hear a muffled curse. The thin pole has snapped. Oh well, fishing was fun while it lasted.

A day to remember all right

After just under 2 inches of rain last night we woke up to a muggy day but
the sun was shining for a change. We had to pump out the crawl space again,
low spots in the yard are flooded again, and we'll never get some spots
mowed this year. Our pond is the fullest I have ever seen it. I saw fish
spawning near the shore, the yellow flag iris are in bloom and big blue
dragon flies are skimming the pond.

Flower smells are cloying in this humid air. The autumn olive by the pond
was overpowering. I could smell the sweet woodruff and lilies of the valley
mixed with lilac sitting on my porch. That was much better than the smells
of bloody feathers and fresh killed chicken I dealt with early this morning.

Yesterday morning I found one dead "teenage" chicken from a pen in the back
corner of the barn. It was right outside the door, the other chicks were
fine and I thought maybe it had escaped in the night and an owl or early
morning hawk had killed it. It was shredded and eaten pretty well. I even
suspected a stray cat or even the male muscovy duck that's guarding a hen on
a nest near the chick pen.

I closed up the back door of the barn last night even blocking the gap at
the bottom and hoped for the best. Didn't happen. This morning I found all
the beautiful young birds slaughtered, inside and outside the pen, a big
mess. Torn and shredded. Further more I found my sweet little silkie hen
who was sitting on a nest dead. My other little chicken Frizzle was ok, but
he probably ran from the killer. He has escaped death many times that one.

I was cleaning up and noticed my Jack Russell, Sarah going nuts scratching
at the wall that separates her inside pen from the loft steps. Sure enough
under the steps was a big coon, the vicious killer. It's dark and hidden
under there. I didn't want Sarah to get bitten up, she's too old, even
though she was game. So I grabbed a shovel and went for him. If I had went
back to the house for a gun it would have been gone, and shooting into that
area wouldn't have been wise.

I was mad, and I smacked him numerous times, bashing him wherever I could.
It was tough and fighting back, growling and snarling, but I had it pretty
penned in under the stairs. I tried to pin its neck to the cement wall but
it pulled away. After about 10 minutes of me beating it, it managed to get
by me and run out the door.

Now if any of you think this is cruel you don't know how nasty raccoons are.
He could have eaten cat food or chicken food. There was lots of food around
the barn. There was still bread on the floor that I had given the ducks
last night. He could have killed only one chicken to eat. It wasn't
hungry. He was just damn mean.

I have 3 brooders full of chicks still, laying hens, 2 sitting turkeys and a
sitting duck in the barn, which if I hadn't beaten him hopefully to death,
he'd be back to get. Raccoons kill for the fun of it. They make terrible
bloody messes with what they kill. I have known them to eat the feet off
chickens or bunnies they couldn't pull through a cage or get into. They
carry rabies, distemper, roundworms and other nasty diseases. They are
vicious animals. In the woods where they belong they are fine, and there is
plenty of wooded land around here. But I don't want them in my barn or
around it.

If the one I beat doesn't crawl somewhere to die I hope he stays far away
from here. If I had the pitchfork handy I may have known that my birds were
safe. We are going to put a couple of the dogs up in the loft when it cools
down to see if there are any more up there, like babies. I don't know what
I'll do if I find babies. I hope that was the only one.

Loving the swamp

Swamps and marshes and little ponds have always held a certain fascination
for me. They teem with wildlife; sitting quietly by a wetland area you'll
see all kinds of birds, a host of water creatures and even larger animals.
As a girl I frequented swamps by walking down the railroad tracks, sometimes
with friends, sometimes with just a dog at my heels. For a long time these
swampy areas were forbidden to me so there was also the thrill of doing
something "wrong."

As I got older and my parents less vigilant I spent several evenings a week
making the trek down the tracks to sit on the banks of a small pond and roam
the marshlands behind the Junior High I went to. I liked to go alone, the
swamps were my place to think and escape from a home crowded with siblings.

One of the selling points for the house that my husband and I bought here in
the country was the fact that it had a pond and also a bit of marshy woods.
The pond was newly dug and glaringly devoid of natural wetland vegetation.
The previous owners didn't make the wisest choices in the site selection and
digging of the pond. The banks were steep and the clay sub soil had been
pushed up over the area around the pond, giving grasses and other plants a
hard time taking hold.

We worked hard to stabilize the banks and stop some of the erosion that was
happening. At first we followed the previous owner's instructions about
adding blue dye to keep out algae and for the first two years we often swam
in the pond. You could feel the little seeps of cold ground water welling
up under your feet as you walked on the muddy bottom.

The pond was stocked with bluegills and bass and the grandchildren loved to
fish there, pulling out stunted bluegills which we allowed them to feed to
the chickens. Some nice big bass were hooked by my son and husband fishing
there. There were frogs, tadpoles, and turtles in residence.

Over time things have changed around that pond. Cattails grew, the natural
vegetation filled in along the banks. We stopped swimming in the pond.
Dye was no longer added. Trees grew up around the pond, making it much more
natural looking but also sucking up tons of water in the heat of summer.
There are poplars and willows, white pine and spruce, river birch, maples
and sycamore. There are fruit trees and a redbud on the south side and a
tangled wind break of lilacs, spirea and forsythia.

The fish all died one winter, too much time under snow covered ice depleted
the oxygen in a pond which regularly went into winter at a low water level.
I knew the fish were gone because the water teemed with tadpoles that
spring. For several years we left it fishless, last year we once again
added some blue gills and also a couple koi.

The bluegills managed to spawn last year, there are tons of tiny fish this
spring but I haven't seen the koi. Maybe they are still there; the pond is
very full this spring.

But the best thing about the pond is that I have a thinking and wildlife
watching spot I feel completely safe sitting in and don't have to walk far
to get to. With all the natural vegetation maturing now the pond area teems
with life. I can sit and watch to my hearts content.

We have of all things, a king fisher who has hung around the last 2 years
and I saw again this spring. There are flocks of yellow warblers that nest
around the pond with the red winged black birds. A night heron nests every
year in the marshy woods behind the pond and scolds me as he departs from
the pond as I arrive. Chick-a- dees frequent the woods too and flocks of
tiny goldfinches flit around the high grass areas.

A great blue heron regularly visits and tree swallows nest in our remaining
bluebird houses and barn swallows in our barn. A Virginia rail and
killdeers often scuttle along the pond banks. Crows and red tailed hawks
nest in our woods behind the pond and are frequent visitors. Their babies
are very noisy in the early summer. Frogs of all kinds call from the banks
and we have a plethora of small turtles.

If I quietly sit on my redneck bench, an old van seat, I often see deer
grazing on the other side of the pond. Rabbits are bold, often playing
within 10 feet of me. We lost our barn cats to an epidemic of cat distemper
two years ago and the rabbits have flourished. From time to time we have
muskrats- which swim around in the evenings with just their heads showing.
They usually can't resist coming up to the dog kennels for dog food and
getting killed.

I have watched the antics of ground hogs many times. One large one would
climb into the low branches of some shrubby willows by the pond and stretch
out on limbs to sleep. It always amazes me he can climb up and do that. I
can watch our own horses grazing near the pond too and this year I added a
pretty pair of muscovy ducks. Our free range chickens sometimes venture
down to the pond, but seem a little uneasy there, and it probably isn't the
best spot for them.

It isn't always easy keeping up with a country place, especially as we get
older. But the fact that I have this quiet, safe Eden to sit in makes it
all worthwhile. I feel young again, scouting for pollywogs and identifying
birds. Hopefully I have years left to enjoy it.

Nature has humbled us

Weather is something we all talk about, complain about and can't do anything
about. For all the ways that man has shaped and changed nature, she still
gets the upper hand on us once in a while. Here in Michigan we are having a
cold, slow spring. Farmers can't get in the field; gardens are way behind
in blooming sequence. Last week we had a day of 80 degree weather, too hot,
too soon, and then yesterday we woke up to snow on the ground, and brief
snow squalls all day.

I am impatient to get on with my garden. I have peas and lettuce planted
and I started cleaning out garden beds but I feel way behind. I just need
to be outside, listening to birds and frogs and digging in the dirt. It
probably won't happen this week, we are scheduled ( does Mother Nature
schedule things?) to have thunderstorms, maybe severe weather tomorrow night
, then back to cold and snow showers mixed with rain and finally near the
end of the week a small warm up- with rain.

But I'm not going to complain too much after seeing the devastation Mother
Nature left in the south. There has been some really bad, scary weather
across the country this spring. Many people have died in the storms and the
property loss is astounding. Now many of you might not get to see much of
this on your local news, after all there is a wedding in England to think
about. Our larger newspapers here carried more stories about the two Brits
wedding than the severe weather in the US.

It seems that tornadoes hone in on trailers- have you ever noticed this? Of
course that's not true - (or is it? Has anyone collected any data on where
tornados hit, vs. the damage they cause? ). It's just that trailers can't
withstand the fury of the winds. Do you wonder with all of the other laws
that we have for our safety why the government still allows people to live
in trailers? At least in trailers that aren't on foundations? All trailer
parks should be required to have storm shelters scattered through the park.

Some huge, sturdy stick built structures also felt nature's wrath. With
everyone having camera phones now the videos of tornadoes and the
destruction afterward is all visible. A particularly poignant scene was
shown several times, porch steps with flowers planted along side, all
unharmed and the house behind the steps just gone-blown away.

Tornadoes have this peculiar way of leaving some things totally untouched
and destroying things around them. I think that's why so many people think
of tornados as sentient beings, capable of picking and choosing their
victims and the path they take. We fear them; as well we should, like we
fear no other weather phenomena. Those that don't fear them are just plain
stupid.

Tornados show us that we are small things in nature after all. They humble
us, we can't control them, and we often can't even predict their path.
They stop us in our tracks and change our lives forever and then the sun
comes out.

Pray for the lives that were lost this week to Nature's wrath. Ask that God
comfort the survivors and that their immediate needs be met. And keep an
eye on the sky, listen for warnings and don't take chances dancing with the
storms.

the life of Bubba

I live in a house dominated by dogs. And when I say dominated by dogs I might as well say overran with dogs, 15 of them, 12 are house dogs. And if that isn’t bad enough, most of them are canine senior citizens so I live in a doggie rest home, a geriatric care center for dogs. It wasn’t a business plan; it’s just the result of a soft spot for dogs, and the passage of time.


This week I had to have one of the dogs we loved put down. (That was the 16th dog.) Bubba wasn’t the oldest of our dogs and certainly not the one I thought we would have to use one of our holes on. Before winter we had dug two holes and saved the soil in the barn. We had two 15 year old frail dogs going into winter and I do hate to have them cremated. But they made it through winter and just as I was thinking about filling in the holes, Bubba got sick.

Bubba was a 10 year old black cocker spaniel. He lived in a kennel connected to our barn with Sarah, a Jack Russell and next to Gus and Brandy, also Jack Russell. These are the only dogs that don’t share our home inside. Bubba was always a happy go lucky dog who loved to eat, so we noticed when he didn’t want a meal one evening. Snacks didn’t tempt him either. He had eaten well in the morning so it didn’t seem too significant. But two days went by and Bubba refused to eat anything. Attempts to try to make him take something in his mouth made him disappear into his outside run.

By Sunday he seemed very lethargic, and while he drank water no food tempted him. I checked him out thoroughly, feeling his stomach to see if he felt bloated or would act like it hurt him, I suspected a blockage. But he didn’t seem to have a tender or bloated belly and didn’t react to me feeling his belly. He just seemed very tired. He was favoring a foot that seemed swollen.

On Monday first thing we visited the vet. Bubba perked up a bit for one of his favorite things, a car ride. Blood tests showed that Bubba was very sick. His red blood cell count was so low the machine couldn’t read it. His liver seemed to be failing. The foot seemed to be an incidental thing, maybe precipitating a crisis that was slowly sneaking up on us. The vet guessed it was auto immune hemolytic anemia, something that happens to older dogs with no apparent reason. We discussed the very expensive options for treatment.

In the end, partially because of finances and partly because the vet gave him a very poor prognosis even with treatment, I held him in my arms as she put him down. Poor Bubba had one more car ride home where my husband laid him into one of our holes in the garden. It is a shame that my finances limit heroic efforts to save my beloved dogs, but it doesn’t mean I don’t care. And maybe it’s better for them anyway; there is a time for all things.

Every dog has a story. Bubba’s wasn’t as remarkable as some dogs but still he had a story. So this is Bubba’s story. Bubba was bred in the south, probably at a puppy mill, but according to his first owner, who went to the south to buy him, he was from a cocker kennel that still bred cockers for hunting. Bubba was a tall, rangy cocker, and he did have a very strong hunting instinct. His jet black coat was pretty good, but he had some white markings on his chest and toes. His tail had been docked especially short, with barely a nub to wag. Despite his AKC papers I suspected that somewhere in his lineage a taller spaniel such as a springer may have been involved. Bubba’s full name was Michigan Bubba.

His first owner worked with my husband Steve. When Bubba was a year old he started to get too rough with the man’s children, according to him. Knowing that we had dogs, he asked my husband to take him, saying that he’d drop him off somewhere in the country if we didn’t want him. Steve is as soft for dogs as I am and brought the dog home from work with him.

We never noticed Bubba being aggressive with our grandchildren, but he was a high energy, extremely active dog that could overwhelm small children with jumping on them and chasing them. We thought we might re-home Bubba, but it never happened. We did put him in an outside kennel, he was very happy outside, rather than spending most of the day in a crate as he had been doing at his previous home. Our kennel runs are very large, and he had two high energy dogs next to him to interact with too. Later on grandmother Sarah came to keep him company. They were good friends, with a zest for hunting in common.

Bubba got to run in the larger fenced yard frequently, he would race in circles until he dropped. Turned out by the pond for the first time he dove in and began to swim after the ducks. They were domestic ducks who didn’t fly but had no trouble swimming just out of Bubbas reach. He swam after them until we grew anxious that he would drown himself. He just kept circling and we could see him getting lower and lower in the water. Steve had to step in water up to his waist and grab him as he swam by to make him rest. He was exhausted but very happy.

One night, long after we were in bed, we heard a commotion in the barn, barking, things banging around. Since Steve had to work the next day and since he was having a hard time with his back at the time I dressed and went out to see what was going on. Bubba had gotten out of his inside kennel and actually tore a panel off the wall that divided the kennel room from the rest of the barn. He was under the steps to the barn loft, where he had cornered a huge opossum.

The possum was just out of his reach and it wasn’t playing dead. It was snarling and growling as aggressively as Bubba was. It took all of my strength to wrestle Bubba away and tie him up while I got rid of the opossum and repaired the wall. I didn’t want him to get bitten by the opossum. Opossums plagued us that year, they would get in the large pine inside the kennel runs at night and just sit there while the dogs went nuts and kept everyone awake. Bubba learned to climb up on one lower limb of the pine that summer and he would spend many a day and night perched on it to better survey the world.

Bubba did not like cats or chickens or varmints of any kind. He would kill them if he came in contact with them. He was generally kind to other dogs, even when females were in heat. This was much in contrast to our Jack Russell’s who would fight at the slightest sneer by another dog. He did defend himself if attacked, but preferred to avoid conflict.

Bubba’s joys in life were running, swimming, hunting through tall grass, going for rides in cars, eating and being petted. He didn’t mind going to the groomer, but gave her a bit of trouble when she touched his feet. He had never been sick until his fatal illness at age 10.

About 18 months after we got Bubba his former owner called Steve at home on a Sunday afternoon and offered him another cocker, a female they had bought after they gave us Bubba. This time the excuse was that she kept their new baby awake with her barking and the wife said she had to go that day. Once again he said he was going to drop her off at a farm somewhere if we didn’t take her.

It turned out that Honey, as she was named, had been bred by a rottweiller. We suspect they knew that. And Honey has her own story. But we now had a registered female cocker and after she had healed from the long travail with her first litter and subsequent complications we decided to breed a litter with Bubba.

Both Bubba and Honey were nice looking, healthy dogs and had very good temperaments. They proved eventually to be a delightful match, the kind of unexpected click that produces puppies even nicer than either parent. But at first we didn’t know if Bubba had it in him to be a daddy. He didn’t seem to be too interested in Honey when I took her to his kennel. She was an eager little hussy, but he seemed reserved and aloof.

After a few days of bringing her to the kennel and waiting I decided to leave her with him for a few hours. It worked, although I wasn’t sure until I saw her start to show. He was a shy breeder but a fertile one. I never saw him breed a dog. Honey had three litters with him and all had 7 or 8 puppies. He also had a litter with Cricket, a larger sized Yorkie- Russell mix we own. She managed to get inside his kennel someway when she was in heat. She was fine, although we worried, and she produced 5 puppies.

We still have two of Bubba’s kids with us. Barack is his 2 year old son, a beautiful almost mirror image of his dad and Bessie is his 6 year old daughter by Cricket. She looks like a Scottie. Barack is a delightful dog, extremely good looking and smart, without a mean bone in his body. He is the baby of our dog family.

Bubba was the kind of dog that didn’t cause trouble often. When you have a large family of dogs you try to love them all and give equal attention but I have to say Bubba probably didn’t get all the attention he probably wanted. He was ok with that though, always happy, always ready for a treat. Although a heavy eater he was never fat, always lean and active up to a few days before he became ill.

It’s hard to believe he’s gone. There was little time to prepare for his loss. But he rests in peace in our little pet cemetery. Bye Bubba. Sarah says she’ll see you soon.