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.

white starling

Its 2012, time does fly by.  I saw an amazing thing this week, a white starling.  It flew with a huge flock of regular dark starlings.  I want to catch it, starlings aren’t protected birds, but I doubt that I can.  It was a couple miles down the road and who knows if it even stays in that area.  Actually starlings get a bad rap from people.  They eat a lot of harmful insects.   But they also throw songbirds out of nests and take birdhouses for themselves.  They do eat grain, especially when they hang around barns and in the winter, but bugs would be their first choice.

 They congregate in huge flocks in the winter, which also doesn’t make them popular if you own the area they like to roost in.  They can be quite noisy in these flocks, although a starling’s song isn’t that bad taken alone.  I have heard that they can be taught to talk as well as a parakeet, and I have heard them mimic sounds so I believe it.  

 Their dotted black feathers could be kind of pretty, especially if mutations can be bred.  How about a white starling with dark polka dots?  Wouldn’t that be cool?  I have heard people do breed them.  It’s kind of intriguing.  I want to catch that white one!

Speaking of breeding, my muscovy ducks are laying eggs.  One is under the chicken nests and pulling all the straw out of the nests above her to use for her nest.  That’s the old mama we call Daisy and she nested there last fall.  The other is a young hen who is laying in a chicken nest each day.   I don’t think I will let them brood eggs just yet.  I have two frizzle hens sitting on eggs and I don’t know what will happen if those hatch.  I am going to let them stay with the hens since both are broody and they are the only hens in the pen.  If the cats don’t get them maybe they can raise them.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

The animals are springing themselves!
We had one glorious spring like day on Friday, sunny and almost 70, then it was back to winter. On that one glorious day I was emptying all the frozen water dishes and cleaning up a bit around the yard. I went out the gate to the pond from the horse pasture to dump out the ducks dish. The dogs in their yard could see me and Tiny Tina decided I needed help so she climbed the back fence and came after me, then chased all the wild cats up trees, which incited Peanut, her grandmother to climb the fence too, and Peanut went after the poor old duck. Since only the edges of the pond were unfrozen he couldn’t swim away from her as he does in the summer and she chased him across the pond ice to the bank near where I stood then caught him by the leg. He didn’t fight her at all, didn’t do anything even make noise. I had caught Tina to keep her from joining in and I was trying to get down the steep slippery bank holding her under one arm.

I finally managed to snag Peanut by the collar and now I am laying on the muddy bank, a dog in each hand. I couldn’t stand up, it was too steep and slippery and if I let either of them go they’d go back for the duck, who was alive and not bleeding, a good sign. So I crawled up the bank on my belly, pushing a dog before me on each side while holding on to their collars. What an exciting life I lead!

The duck is 8 years old at least, his last bachelor friend died last spring. He’s a white Pekin, but very wild. I made him a shelter out by the gate to the pond and have been wading through the snow all winter to put food and water over the fence. Last winter the ducks came up to the lean-to on the barn for shelter but we had torn that down and put up new fence since then. So he was kept alive all winter only to be caught by the dogs. He’s still alive actually, but I think a leg is broken. He is staying in the water and on the bank near where they caught him, I tried to catch him but he gets in the water just out of my reach and I can’t trust the ice. I threw him some bread but I don’t think he ate it. He’s used to eating dry cat food. This morning we had a dusting of snow and the gate latch was frozen so I couldn’t even get down by the bank.

The dogs were excited by the spring like day and so were the horses. I let them out in the bigger pasture and they ran and ran, kicking and rearing and having a great time. No grass but a lot more room. They decided they liked that I guess, because when I went out this morning they were out there all on their own, gate still closed. They had pushed some fence away from a post and squeezed through. By the time I went through the barn they were back in their stall area, quite innocent looking, waiting for their sweet feed. I tried to fix the fence but I didn’t have tools with me. Then I thought I would just open the gate to keep them from making any more damage, but its latch was frozen too. Hopefully they will remain in the small pasture today.

As soon as it warms up and the grass begins to grow we are moving them to the west pasture with the run in shelter but that may be a month or so. We have to fix a gate and put up some fence on top of the five foot fence to keep the dogs from climbing the shared boundary when they see the horses. It seems like I am always trying to keep something in or out.

Charlie really needs to be gelded. That’s the next big hurdle, and he needs his hoofs trimmed for the first time too. They both need some work, they have become bratty over the winter. Charlie wants to bite or kick me all the time.
Ah, the sun has come out even if it is cold- Hurray!

It's hot, dogs and turkeys

I don’t know why it is but hot and humid days just make me want to hole up some where until they are over. I can take a little heat if its not too humid but the combination really gets to me. And it has been miserable here the last 5 or 6 days. The plants love it though. The lilies are gorgeous right now.

I had to get up early today so I could run the little Jack Russell pup Tina to the vet. Late Friday night she and the rest of the dogs were playing wildly after it cooled off a bit and she started yelping and hid. I thought she got bit and checked her over but couldn’t find anything. She screamed every time one of her legs was touched. I didn’t see much swelling and couldn’t feel a break so I let it go, assuming she would feel better the next morning. But she laid around all Saturday and Sunday with the one hind leg in a funny position and crying whenever someone touched it.

So I got up early to get her to the vet, our country vet waits in his office for appointments or walk-ins for a short while after 8:30 am then he goes off to farm calls, does surgery or goes home. We caught him and he thought an x-ray was in order. In order to keep her still during the x-ray, he knocked her out. I held her while she dozed off and he ran out to let a plumber into a rental house he owned.

When he came back we did the first x-ray. His machine is really old. While waiting for the x-ray to develop, I decided to cuddle her to make her more comfortable than laying on a cold table. Bad move, she peed all over me, still out cold. The x-ray was too dark and we had to do another one. And wait, me with a wet shirt now. I saw a flea on her and killed it. Our dogs do not have fleas, she must have picked it up off the table. I hope I got the only one. Lucky for Tina the x-ray showed no break or dislocation. So a hundred dollars later I learn she has a bad bruise and now maybe fleas.

Not only did I spend $100. on a dog today I got bit on my left arm by one of my lovely dogs this morning trying to break up a fight. These girls are cranky in the hot weather too. The fight started right beside me in bed, over who would be between me and Steve, the coveted position.

And I had to shoo turkeys home again this morning too. Last week I opened up the pen for the little mallard ducks I raised and told them to go find the pond. They had all their feathers and they sure make a mess of a pen. By evening two had disappeared, although I can’t see them on the pond. Our old white duck came up to eat where the last mallard was, and I thought it would follow him but it just hung around the back door of the barn where its pen is. It started coming in the barn through the hole for the cats and then it found the pen where I had moved the heritage turkeys. They had spent their first few weeks together in the brooder.

Duck encouraged turkeys to fly up over their pen walls and the first day I came out they were all just inside the barn door. I recaptured the turkeys, I thought maybe something had just spooked them. Second night duck led them out through the cat door. I had to chase them around outside that morning. I closed a connecting door between two parts of the barn so they couldn’t get out the back or the duck in by them. Duck circled around outside until he came to the pen where the bigger turkeys and the hens were. Turkeys somehow knew he was there. This am the two lighter colored turkeys were sitting on the 52 inch high rail of their pen and the one who looks like a wild turkey had flown over the inside divider between the hens and other turkeys, went through their door to the outside pen and was sitting next to his friend the duck. I shooed the other two back into their pen.

I don’t want the duck in the hen pen because it’s a wild mallard and should be free and because I don’t want the mess he will make with the water. I can’t catch him now or I would take it down to the pond, which is only about 50 feet away but down an incline and hidden to a duck anyway, by tall grass. The dark turkey will probably be all right with the hens and big turkey. Unless he flies out of there to be with the duck. So much fun down on the farm.

Its June

Today I took the long way back from the post office just to see the beautiful countryside. The dogwood is blooming and the air is full of the scent from blooming autumn olive. That stuff is so invasive but it does smell good. The bees love it which may be another reason to tolerate it to some extent, because bees are getting so scarce. Autumn Olive can take over a pasture in no time at all if it isn’t grazed. Sheep and goats love to eat it, horses and cows will eat it when it’s young. The red berries it makes in the fall are attractive and they are higher in lycopene than tomatoes. They can be made into jelly that’s very pretty- but it doesn’t have much taste. I’ve tried making it.

Speaking of sheep, ours are gone. We sold them including Taco, who went to a pet home. It is dry this spring and our pasture wasn’t supporting them well. Hay was up to $7.00 a bale. First cutting of hay is being made this week around here, but with the weather so dry it will probably be grabbed up at a good price. My husband made the point that we could be doing a lot of home improvements or I could be buying a lot of plants for the $100-$150.00 dollars a month we were spending on sheep. They kept getting out and destroying trees and shrubs and we need to fix many of the pasture fences.

I always feel bad when I send animals off but we just weren’t using the sheep like we planned, which was to make some lambburger for the dogs. I can’t justify spending that much on pasture pets. Now the grass is growing longer, but I have already started planting new young trees in the north pasture- I am going to make it my arboretum.

One of our old ducks died. They had started their walk- abouts looking for girls this spring- two old bachelor ducks trolling the neighbor’s ponds. But he died in our pond- from what I don’t know- maybe just age- they were 8 years old at least. The remaining duck is very lonely. However I was given some baby mallards whose mom was hit on the road and when they are a bit bigger they will go out on the pond.

I bough some more baby turkeys, a cross between Bourbon Reds and Blue Slates, heritage breeds, and put them with the ducks. It helped the mallards find the food better. They all sleep in a little pile together. Our other baby chicks are quite large now and have the run of the inside coop. In about two weeks I will let them go outside. The white turkeys we bought with them developed leg problems, probably genetic, and are in various stages of lameness. They still eat well so maybe we will be able to eat them soon.

We sold all the cocker pups but two. The little Jack Russell puppy also went to a new home. I gave a cocker puppy to my sister, hope that works out, sometimes these family things don’t. We could have used the money from her but its nice to be able to see one of your babies from time to time. We have one more litter to go this summer and then I hope its over with puppies for a while. All the males but the cocker have been neutered.

There are probably 15 kittens in and around the barn. They are all getting around a bit now and I am so afraid the dogs will get them. They are so cute when they are tiny but then they turn into pesty cats. At our place many of them become victims of our dogs, coyotes or owls. I guess its population control.

I have finally had some time to work on the gardens. We built three large raised beds for the vegetable garden. One is 12 x 5 feet and is planted to sweet corn. The others are 4 by 8 feet and I have planted tomatoes, lettuce, onions, a pepper and potatoes so far. I plan to add cukes and a pumpkin or two. We also have a raised bed up by the propane tank that I planted a few cabbage plants and some carrots in.

I covered the paths between the beds with old roofing from the barn addition we tore down. Recycle, reuse. If we get some rain, maybe the garden will grow. Our May was very dry about an inch and a half below normal rain fall totals. I am hoping it will rain tomorrow as predicted.

I have started working on the flower beds finally, what a mess. I still haven’t bought all the annuals etc, I want but I intend to finish that this week. I work on the guideline- get what you have planted before you buy more! There’s kind of a lull in flowers here right now, Dames Rocket and alliums are about all that’s in bloom.

The Orioles and the other birds are going to take what money I saved from selling the sheep. They are going through a suet cake every other day and a jar of jelly a week plus sunflower seed. I hear baby birds everywhere. But I sure love to hear Mr. Oriole sing!