In Bloom

 

Tulip

 Tulip

 Collard blooms

Peach

Wild Cherry

 Red Oak

 Wood Sorrel

 Easter Lily (Daffodil)

 Heart's Ease

 Hen Bit (Dead Nettle)

Beauty Everywhere!

Hens and Eggs

What can I say? The picture speaks for itself! The hens are so happy that spring has arrived! It sure took it's time and it's not sure if it wants to stay...but for now, the girls happily buzz all over the yard, finding little bugs and digging and scratching the day away.

Everything is green! Blooms arrive on fruit trees, new grass grows frantically, leaf buds uncurl into tiny leaves, tiny flowers are everywhere. The hills are alive! Frogs croak down at the pond. Tadpoles swim in streams and baby salamander eggs float in the scum near the shore.

 

 proudly strutting

Eggs! The girls are so happy to have fresh food that they are laying more and more eggs. The days get longer...the eggs start popping out! We collect for several days, then we wash them all and store them away, to be used as yummy egg salad, for breakfast meals, or in cakes and pies, or however else you please. These are the best eggs I have ever eaten in my life. It's so hard to buy store-bought after seeing the gorgeous yolks in farm fresh eggs.

freshly washed

Can you guess which are farm fresh? I bet you can! Their rich, dark yolks give them away. These are winter eggs, too! In the spring and summer months, the yolks are even darker! Just another reason to raise your own hens and have fresh eggs....they are so much healthier for you!

Spring has finally arrived...

and with it, come the babies!

The sounds of cheep-cheep fill the air! Another batch of freshly hatched baby chicks now reside on Happiness Hill. They don't know it yet, but they will have such a happy and good life here. The animals of our farm are dearly loved, petted and doted on daily. They get good pasture for grazing and plenty of room to run around. There are ten fluffy balls of cuteness in all, five of which are Buff Orpingtons and five of which are White Leghorns. These are my favorite breeds of hen.

...and there are goats! Four baby goats!

In the afternoon hours one cold day, Nellie gave birth to twin boys. Since it was her very first time as a mom, her sweet sister, Bonnie, was there to lend a helping hoof. She took care of everything....from cleaning up after the mess, to helping lick the babies clean. Me and my son rushed down the hill and sat and watched for the longest time. We finally decided it was too cold and we put a small heater in the goat house. We grabbed towels and ruffled the babies fur, to finish drying them off completely. Then we left them alone, to do whatever it is that goats do. Within hours, both babies were warm and standing and nursing well.

 one of the sweet baby boys (we castrated both males)

 Cinnamon (the boy), being licked by Bonnie and 

Blue Beauty (the girl)

After several days of anxious expectation (when *is* she going to have those babies!?), Bonnie gave birth to a boy and a girl. It happened in the wee hours of the morning, long before we were awake. She had accidentally knocked over the heater and it had turned off. She didn't have any help from Nellie and she had obviously had a hard time giving birth to the HUGE, long-legged boy. He was a little bigger than Nellie's 3 day old boys! 

I had rushed down to the goat house that morning, after dreaming that she had had her babies and they were dead, having frozen to death. The ground was covered in frost and I had to be careful not to slip. Imagine my surprise when I opened the door and off to one side, all alone, was a baby, curled up in a ball. And off to the other side, huddled alone, was another baby; eyes wide open, head hanging to one side, looking decidedly dead also!

I saw blood all over Bonnie's backside and two placentas laying on the ground. 

I picked each baby up and they were ice cold. I began rubbing them and motioning frantically out the door for someone to come and help. Finally, I saw my son walking down the hill and I yelled to him that the heater wouldn't come on and he needed to grab some towels.

To make a long story short......they finally came around, though it took much coaxing and rubbing. We weren't sure if sweet baby Cinnamon was going to make it. It took him over a day to find his feet. Meaning, each time he stood, he sprawled out on the ground like some cartoon goat, a foot going in each direction of the compass. We plan to sell Cinnamon in a few months, when he is weaned.

  

All of the baby goats have blue eyes.We named the sweet, tiny baby girl Blue Beauty....after her mother, Bonnie Blue. We are keeping her.  She is half Saanen, one quarter Nubian and one quarter Boer.

We also got a batch of fourteen baby buns a few days after the goats were born. It was Queenie's third litter of babies. Unfortunately, five have died. This is the way it goes with rabbits.  Despite losing a few, life goes on for the rest. The cycle continues and a new year begins on the farm. New grass, new growth, new babies and new adventures are waiting to be had on Happiness Hill.

Winter 2013

Winter in the country. Snow and ice and biting wind that takes your breath. Thoughts of summer seem far away, deep in the recesses of your mind. Snuggling under blankets, knitting the day away. Listening to my daughter play piano. Reading stories to the children.

 ~a brown thrasher~

Outside, after a big snow, the animals are almost afraid to step foot out of their cozy homes. I see our goats, large with babies (possibly twins), peeking out of the door, almost as if to say, "No way am I coming out there!" Goats do not like rain. They do not like the drip-dripping of melting snow. They do not like to stand in mud. They are fairly particular. They munch on hay and lay down carefully. Their bellies are big and they are slowing down, waiting patiently. 

The chickens don't mind rain. Or mud. They scratch away at the mud, still searching, ever hopeful. 

Our doe rabbit, Queenie, had two litters of babies last year. Her second litter produced 14 babies! Of which only 6 survived. Out of that batch, she had two snow white bunnies. We kept one and named him Prince Thistledown. 

Plans to improve the farm are under way. Last fall, we built a mobile chicken house. We move the hens every few weeks to a new spot. This keeps the chickens healthier, lessens chances for disease and worms, and also improves our soil. Preparations for spring, believe it or not, are already under way. Fences are being mended, gardens are fixing to be tilled (tilling snow under helps aerate the soil), gardens will be completely planted by the end of March and new chickens will be ordered. Our baby goats will have been born and we will have a new hog.

Though plans are being made for the months ahead, we have also enjoyed the holiday season from the end of October with our Annual Fall Party, through Thanksgiving (one of the best yet!), a peaceful and happy Christmas and quiet New Years (yes, quiet) We are enjoying the flavors of this season, with wonderful meals and desserts. Happy traditions and fun and laughter. But still, I long for spring. 

I anticipate the birth of babies on the farm. I look forward to beautiful blooms on the trees, leaves so tender and new. I look forward to the smell of honeysuckle and the bright green grass. I relish watching my animals enjoying the wonderful new assortment of foods to eat. I can sit for hours outside watching them. Maybe this year we'll get a cow. Maybe a horse. We want both. We shall see. Until then, we'll keep dreaming....and planning....and living the country life.

Fall in the Country

 There's just something about fall where we live...the colors are rich and vibrant. 

Yellow, gold, orange, burnt umber, red.

 Every year, we go around our neighborhood, taking in the beauty of the season. 

There are so many things to see. Ducks on a nearby pond...

A lovely duck house on the water....I think it's a grand place for a duck

 to live, don't you?

A lake at a nearby state park; a short, winding and very spectacular drive

down the road.

 I think this tree is having a lovely "fall", don't you?

 There's just something about textures and water and the changing of the leaves...
so thought-provoking and mysterious in a way...it's on days like these that 
wonderful plots are imagined and great novels are written. At least I like to think so. 

The beauty of fall surrounds us now...though it's days are numbered. Already the colorful leaves are falling to the ground, leaving many trees bare. But oh, while it lasts, what wonder and glory to behold!!

The Chicken Adventures

 Warning: This is a long post with images of dead animals (not graphic)

The chicken adventures...where do I start this story?
It all began with a dream I have had since I was a little girl.
My grand-parents had chickens. And I knew that someday, when I grew up, I, too, would have chickens. I didn't know I wanted a farm with lots of animals. That came later. I just knew that I loved the sound the rooster made in the mornings and all through-out the day. I loved the gentle cluck of the hen as she scratched the ground. I loved collecting the eggs and holding and petting the hens.

So when it was the right time in my life, we decided to build a hen house.
I will never forget that late winter. Me and my son did most of the work, digging ditches and pounding nails and putting up wire and tin and siding.

Finally, the big day came and we went to the farm store. We were going to have chickens! The children were so excited. Chickens of our very own, in a pen we had made just for them. The dream was finally coming true and our hearts were happy.

Three days after bringing them home, dogs from a neighboring yard came and killed all of the babies, except for one, which we named Blessing. I was so upset. I had not expected that to happen! 

We fixed the pen even better before going back to the farm store and getting more babies. This time, we got fifteen and with Blessing, we had a total of sixteen babies. They grew up and began laying eggs for us that fall. Now, we could sit back and reap the benefits of all our hard work and patience and collect eggs all winter.

It was not to be. Slowly, the hens began missing. One night, a hen was just gone. We could not find her anywhere. What had happened?

The next night, another was missing.

Some mysterious creature was taking our hens. It was the only explanation. But there were no feathers on the ground, no blood, no signs of distress. We did not have a roof over our chicken run. It was a five foot tall fence outside the hen house. What could possibly get inside and leave no evidence it had been there? We wracked our brains. A fox was not strong enough to lift a hen over the wire. A coyote would only dig, not climb a tall fence. But there was no evidence of digging. We were truly stumped.

We realized that if we didn't close the door to the henhouse early enough, something would get in around dusk.

One evening, before dusk, my son went down the hill to lock the hens up for the night. He couldn't believe his eyes...he saw a cat standing over a chicken. A big cat, he said. When he told me the size and coloring of the cat, I knew then that it was a bobcat. A bobcat? Around here? We'd heard stories of coyote and you can hear them late at night, off in the distance. But a bobcat was unheard of. Needless to say, the cat saw him and ran off into the weeds.

After locking the hens up every night for weeks on end, before dusk...we had no more casualties.  We would let the hens out in the morning and feed them. Eventually, the cat outwitted us again. As we would still be inside doing our morning chores or eating breakfast, the cat would jump the fence and grab a chicken and away it would go. One morning, my son saw the cat jump the corner of the fence with a hen in it's mouth. He chased it on a path near our pond. It dropped the hen and disappeared into the foliage.

We found three dead hens, buried in the brush nearby.

We decided to put a roof on the chicken run. It was hard work, but the roof worked. No more deaths. Sadly, we were down to only four hens. Yes, before it was over with...almost all of our sweet pets had died. I cried at first. That is what a new farm-girl does. She cries when her pets die. But eventually, over time, when there have been so many deaths and you see so many things happen, you stop crying and come to realize that death is part of life. This is farm life. It's not always the lovely image you see or read about in books.

My husband was walking to our bedroom one morning and glanced out the kitchen window. What do you know? A big bobcat was walking around the hen house, sniffing the ground. The roof was on and now she couldn't figure out how to get inside. He ran down the hill and shot at her. She jumped and took off into the brush. For months, it was quiet. No more sightings.

In early spring, we got twelve more chicks. Time to start again.

Several more months went by and one early June morning, a young bobcat got into the pen and killed one of our new hens. 

He had squeezed through the wire but could not get back out. As my son meandered down the hill and went in to check on the hens that morning, he saw them huddled in the corner. He said, "What's the matter with those hens?" and about that time, a bobcat ran in front of him. Surprised, he jumped back and slammed the door.
Moments later, he came barrelling into the house and grabbed his gun. Yes, we killed the bobcat. I hate to take the life of any animal, but we had had enough. We did not want any more hens to die. We had spent so much time, money, effort and energy on having chickens. It seemed our dream was not meant to be. No matter what we did, they always died.

After such loss, we learned what to do and what not to do.
If you ever want hens, a word of advice: Keep them in a pen that is well-built and has no openings or weaknesses in the wood or wire.

Where the wood is weak, dogs can bust it down.
Where there is a small hole, weasels and 'possums can get inside.
If there is no roof, hawks can fly down and grab a hen, bobcats can clear a six foot
tall fence, coyotes can dig under wire, foxes can climb a wire fence with their paws and raccoons can, too!

You will not want your pets to die and you will not want to have to take the life of an animal who is only trying to survive. 

We figured out the story of the bobcat. The first one was a female who was fixing to have a litter. She was hungry and trying to store some food for the winter. When the babies were weaned, one of them came to the hen house for an "easy" meal. This is the one we shot. We have not seen the big bobcat anymore. I am sure she is still out there, along with others. But thankfully, no more have come calling.

Guessing Game

Do you know what this is? I will let you try to guess for several moments before I tell you......

It was so soft and tiny. That is my hand holding it when it was only 3 days old. It weighed about 3 oz. It was hairless and blind.

O.K. do you give up? Or have you guessed a baby bunny? Because that is what it is!

It is so much fun to have baby buns, as we call them. We've never had baby rabbits before this year. Queenie was pregnant for exactly twenty-one days. I knew she was fixing to give birth because she had pulled out all of the fur from her tummy. I had marked the day she was "due" on the calendar and we skipped down the hill to check on her. Lo! and behold, we saw three babies in the nest box.

 a box o' buns...a week old

about four weeks old

But there were eleven babies total! We found out soon enough because several had died. We had to clean out the nest box and put in fresh hay. Slowly, several more babies died. Some were very small and had not been fed properly. One fell out of the box and was trampled. Eventually, eleven babies dwindled down to only four. This is actually not as sad as it may sound. As a first time mom, it was better for Queenie to have less babies to deal with. She was not as over-whelmed as she would've been with eleven. I personally cannot imagine having eleven little babies needing my attention all at once! Oh dear!!
They always have a few "extra" babies...it is just nature's way of ensuring that some survive. 

I have always found it fascinating that animals just know what to do. No-one ever tells rabbits to rip out their tummy fur so that their babies will have a soft, safe nest to keep them warm and so that their teats will be exposed and easily found by the new nurslings. No....no-one ever tells them and yet they figure it out, all on their own. 

 six weeks old

The four who lived are thriving and growing big. They hop and jump and flip through the air. The children like to sit in the rabbit pen with them and pet them and draw pictures of them. They will be finished nursing in just a few short weeks and they will be considered fully grown. It does not take them long to grow up, unlike human boys and girls who stay with their parents for eighteen years or longer.

When they are fully grown, they will look like their parents...like this:

Often, wild rabbits on our property come up to the fence where our tame rabbits are and "talk" to them through the wire. I wonder what they are saying?