Nom Nom Nommmm.

Biggest zucchini ever.

Found this squash hiding amongst the leaves...

R.I.P.

R.I.P Jasmine Chicken.

She became suddenly ill with chest congestion. Yesterday she was scratching and pecking all over the yard, despite her congestion. Then when I went out to shut them in the coop I found her. She was flat on her back in the coop with her feet in the air. It looked like she had tried to fly up to her spot on the roost pole but had a heart attack or something, and then collapsed backwards and died.

All the other chickens in the coop were staring down at her silently. The ducks were hiding behind the coop in the dark afraid to go inside. Benny was saying, "Mwak mwak mwak" in urgent staccato, unlike his usual pleasant, "Mwak-mwak, mwack-mwack."

I took her body up to the front porch so I could see it in the porch light. Her eyes were closed. She was stiff as a board.

I ran to get Tyler, and Rosie followed him out. She gently stroked Jasmine and told her goodbye, and she then told me, "Jasmine died. Now she's in heaven with my Poudan chicken." And she went through this long list of memories about Jasmine, everything from how Jasmined talked to her and ate from her hand to the time Jasmine watched Dora in the living room and ate corn on the cob.

We can't bury her here, because if she is diseased it will cause the disease to live in the soil. We can't burn her here either. So we had to bag her and throw her away.

Tyler held open the bag while I lifted her in. Rosie insisted on helping. She very gently put her hands under Jasmine's back and lowered her into the bag and blew her a kiss goodbye.

Now I just have to live in fear that this is the start of a disease in my flock. I have no idea how Jasmine got sick or why. I have been incredibly careful about biosecurity, to the point of not even wearing the same shoes to the feed store as I wear in my backyard. I regularly lime the ground out there, even.

I don't know why this is happening to me again.

I should get the results of the mucus swabs back on Monday or Tuesday. I am so nervous.

I spent forever this morning watching my birds and checking them for signs of illness. None of them seem sick at all. I did notice that one of the brown leghorns wasn't running for treats, but those are odd birds anyway so who knows.

When I was holding a chicken up to my ear trying to listen to see if it had a rattly chest (like Jasmine had, her only symptom) it pecked me in the eye!

Chickens don't usually do that, but she got me right in the pupil and it hurt. Luckily my contact took most of the peck. While I was squinting in pain she went for the other eye!

My eye is ok, it's just sore, like a bruise or something.

Anyway, yesterday before the traumatic Jasmine death we...

Built a marble run inside and had marble races!

These are goofy.

In between thunderstorms we played outside.

Rosie pretended she was Pa and her doll was named "the little boy."

I've learned to stop questioning where she gets these things.

While she was swinging I picked some green beans for supper this week.

Rosie went inside and got a grocery bag and had fun filling it.

Kentucky Wonder bean plans make so many green beans. There are still plenty of immature ones growing and tons of blooms that haven't sprouted actual green beans yet. I have a feeling we'll be eating a lot of green beans in the near future...not that I'm complaining.

Tyler and Rosie are at the liquor store right now getting some boxes so we can start boxing things up! This week Tyler has to call and see what kind of mortgage we can be preapproved for based on his new salary, and we have to make an appointment to see the inside of the house. I also want to go see the smaller, dumpy house with five acres...just in case.

This is the outside of it:

The inside...

Out back...

The land...

The house isn't that great, but the land and the barn are! It has 5 acres.

Look-see.

We are seriously starting to plan on moving!

The only problem is there aren't very many houses for sale right now, not like there was back in January when I was looking. I wonder why? Everything for sale now is a cookie-cutter new subdivision house with a 1 acre plot of land. I do not want to live in a subdivision, at all.

There are some places with a few acres that are not in subdivisions, but they are all out of our price range by about $20,000.

I know what's happening--they are building a new huge shopping center there. Previously, when I lived there in college, there was a Walmart and a Kroger. That was it. They also had a run down building with a couple stores in it and that was the mall. There was literally nothing to do there at all. Now that this huge shopping center is going up, they will have a Meijer, a Home Depot and a Lowes, a big Cinemark movie theater, a number of department stores like Belk and JC Penny, several big chain sit down restaurants, and pretty much every fast food place in this area. (This is where the new store Tyler is working at is located.)

It's insane the number of businesses suddenly springing up there. And as a result, they are dribbling those subdivisions over all the nearby farm land, the ones where every single house looks the same.

In some ways it's good, because now the students at the university will have something other to do for fun besides alcohol and drugs. The university is well known as a big party school. Most of the student population gets wasted each Thursday night, no exaggeration. Then on Friday night everyone goes home and it's a ghost town. Now though, with all the new businesses, they can stay on the weekends and hang out at the shops and go to the movies...

But it's also sad, because what was once a small town on the edge of the mountains, surrounded with hills on one side and mountain skyline on the other side, is now turning into sprawling suburbs.

We found this house, about 10 minutes down the road from the new shopping center.

It's far enough out that the 2-lane road turns to one lane. The rolling hills are beautiful. It has neighbors and a 1 acre plot of land, but it's not in a subdivision and the yard backs up to a big barn. Hopefully no one there will care if my roosters are crowing. Someone just down the road had a horse in their backyard, and there are cows everywhere in this area.

I wish it came with even just one more acre, but that's ok. Tyler pointed out that we can save up to by the perfect farm of our dreams, and in 5 or 10 years we might have to move anyway if he gets to own a store. Who knows where that will be.

This house is 1,700 square feet with 2.5 baths and the attached garage Tyler so desperately wants.

We haven't looked inside yet. Which means it may very well be horrible inside, I don't know. You know how that is...

It looks ok in the pictures though.

The backyard looks huge in the pictures, but in person when we glanced at it the space didn't look that big. Rosie was crying though, so maybe I missed something.

I don't think there's room for a cow, but if I can talk Tyler into it (and we can afford it) I think I could keep goats here. I will also plant a very large garden--maybe I can get someone to plow it for me with a tractor.

I'm not sure what that little road is on the right side of the last picture. When we went to the house it looked like the driveway kept going back behind the house, but we didn't drive back there because we weren't sure if people were living in the house or if it was vacant. That would be the road in the picture...but where does it go? To the barn back there? But the barn isn't listed with the house...hmm.

We have to pack up most everything in our current house and then put it on the market. I wnat to start doing that in the next couple weeks, and we can also look at the inside of this house and see if it's nice. The description says move-in ready, which is a good sign. If it's not nice there are a few other houses I have listed to check out, but none are as close to work for Tyler. One of them does have 5 acres and a barn, but it's in another town 12 miles away and the house is much smaller and it looks kind of dumpy.

So that's that. It's not a dream house, but it will do, assuming the inside is nice enough. And also assuming we can sell this house. *sigh* I am not looking forward to showing our house, especially because a) I have a million chickens and b) we will have to be out of the house while it's being shown and it will have to be sparkling clean on a moments notice. I wish I could afford to just send my dogs to the kennel for two weeks when it's first on the market, but we need that money for moving. It will be amazing if we manage to pull this off.

I am dreading and looking forward to packing all at the same time. I can't wait to organize everything into boxes, but it will be so much work!

July Days, continued.

We're taking a break from being outside and eating popsicles. Rosie is watching the Sword in the Stone while she snacks.

We played outside for awhile. Rosie didn't want me to take her picture today, she specifically told me to bring my camera out and she brought her plastic princess camera out. Then we took pictures of the chicks and a couple chickens.

Shelf Head is huge, and he now crows...a lot. I plan on keeping him unless someone specifically complains.

This is one of my favorites. Rosie calls her Silver, don't ask why because I have no clue. She does have silver legs, at least. Several people asked me what breed these are on a previous post. They are Appenzeller Spitzhaubens. I LOVE them. They're such a great breed, and unique looking too.

This is Gerri. She suddenly has huge wattles! What in the world? She's a Crevecoeur. My other Crevecoeur pullet is older than Gerri, already laying eggs a couple times a week, and she does not have hardly any wattles at all. But I am 100% Gerri is a pullet. (Otherwise her name was going to be Jerry. Again, Rosie randomly assigned her that name one day.)

These are my 9 chicks. Three of them are buff brahma/easter egger crosses and four of them are salmon faverolle/easter egger crosses. The big one in the middle is Mr. Big, he's the first chick I ever hatched out. He's a pure buff brahma. (I'm not for certain he is actually a rooster, but I don't want to get my hopes up that he's a pullet only to be disappointed.)

I'm afraid almost all of my baby chicks are roosters. Aside from Mr. Big who is 8 weeks old, the babies are only 4 weeks old and they already have very blazing red combs! Oh no! How could I have hatched 8 little roosters?

Look at that comb! Egads, that is a rooster for certain. This is a brahma/easter egger chick.

The other two brahma/easter egger chicks look like this:

They are more barred, where as the first one is solid brown/red with some black. Interesting. I love seeing what the mixes look like as they feather out.

This is one of the faverolle/easter egger chicks.

They are really cute. They're all feathering out pretty much the same, a dusty brown with some black marks and a little bit of cream on the wing tips. They all have green easter egger legs, and some of them have five toes. See the funny fifth toe in the picture? Aside from a few breeds, most chickens have four toes. This chick looks like he has little black horns, haha!

Abby and Hank could really care less about the chickens. The only time Abby pays attention to them is if she sees a chance to eat their mash, or if they are in danger she will protect them. She likes to lay out in the grass, and they will lay next to her. Sometimes she gives them an affectionante lick and a bit of drool while wagging her big fat tail. Hank just knows that I will shake the coffee can of bolts and screws if he so much as mouths one feather, so he makes it a point to not even make eye contact with a bird. When we first got them, he thought they were play toys, but The Can put a stop to that. If you so much as utter the words, "Dog, don't make me get The Can," he will run and hide behind the grill.

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words.

This child grows larger by the day. It happens over night while we're sleeping, as best I can figure.

Other things seem to grow in leaps and bounds over night as well...

They're finally getting ripe, one by one.

The zucchini sneakily hid its first squashes deep in the leaves, and they got super large before I finally discovered them.

They taste better when they are smaller, but oh well. We will still eat them and enjoy!

Everything in my garden is growing huge! The corn is there on the left. Since I took this picture last week, the corn in the back on the right has now grown up tall as well. So have the squashes planted back there. The zucchini is in front next to the corn, see it? It's now covered in baby zucchinis and big orange blooms. There are also string beans hidden in there, a ton of them. They are now heavy with beans. I am going to harvest them in a couple days, and then they will grow more beans!

And towards the back there is a mess of tomatoes--big ones, cherry ones, and yellow stripers. Okra is back there too. There's a row of sugar snap peas along the chain link fence, you can't see them because they're behind the tomatoes.

The strawberries are down there in the very front (bottom) of the picture. They aren't growing any more berries until next June.

Just to my left, out of the picture, there are 3 wild black berry bushes which will grow berries next year, and at my feet (safely outside of the fence because they take over) there are some pumpkin plants. There are also raspberry plants at the far end of the garden, along the chain link, just outside of the garden fence.

I also have a 4x4 foot garden box on the side of the house with peppers and more tomatoes in it.

I also have five raspberry plants growing elsewhere in the yard that will make berries next year, and a blueberry plant which takes 2-3 years to make berries at first, and my pear tree out front. If we move, I plant to dig up most of the bushes and take them with me. Shhhh.

I also have a 4x4 foot garden box on the side of the house with 3 kinds of peppers and different kinds of tomatoes in it.

Goofy picture of me. The wide angle lens causes distortion.

My back yard is looking a little white trash lately. Oh well, worse things have happened.

You can see the garden way back in the left corner next to that white chair and blue ball.

The chicken pen really needs tidying up. The ducks are molting, hence the thousands of white feathers coating the ground.

The only people who can see in my back yard are the neighbors behind me, and they spend half their time on their farm in the cabin they built, which has no electricity or running water. So I don't think they view my chicken pen as an eyesore...

Those are only some of my birds, eating up some scratch grains I tossed to them. And apparently a long piece of twine!?! Where did that come from?

Here are the rulers of the backyard.

Hank loves to trick me into thinking he's lazily basking in the sun. Then when I turn my back he climbs the fence and runs all over the neighborhood at top hound speed, peeing on every post and treeing every squirrel. Then he comes home and takes a nap on the front porch.

Abby reminds me of the term "dog days of summer" because well...she spends all her time in the back yard enjoying long sunny summer days.

She's such a funny pup.

Egg Shots.

I saved these from my broody hen.

Suffice to say, she is not a good broody hen, as these are the only two survivors of the eggs she was sitting on.

I'm not sure what day they are on, but we have swimmy chicks!

I do believe the dark spot you see in each egg is the eye. If you look closely you can also see some of the veins.

Egg #2...

I hope they hatch! A surprise is inside. These are the first bantams I've ever had, and the guy who gave them to me didn't know which hens laid them. He had all of his bantam breeds in breeder pens by type and coloring, so they will be purebred. I am hoping for a pair. I really want a pair of Sebrights. The Sebright roosters are hilarious.

Let me google you a picture...

Ah, here ya go...

When they crow it almost sounds like a loud whistle. They are about the size of a Coke can when full grown.

7/7/09

I laid awake last night wondering if things could really work out like we hoped.

I finally fell asleep around 1:30 in the morning.

Tyler woke me up at 4:30 to tell me that he could hear Shelf Head, the Rooster, crowing his head off while he was getting ready for work.

I laid awake until it got light out, at first listening to see if I could hear Shelf Head, worrying that he was bothering the neighbors. I couldn't hear him while laying in bed.

Then my mind shifted to moving--if only we could move, then I wouldn't have to worry about the crowing at all.

And then my mind took off, worrying about where we would move to. If we could afford to move. Selling our house.

Move first, then sell our vacant house? Or try to sell our house while we live in it, with chickens, dogs, cats, and a toddler?

If we move first we would have to risk paying two mortgages.

And then I worry that there won't be a good house to move into. There are only a few houses that have acreage and a house with two bathrooms in our price range, yet there are plenty of these sorts of houses just $10,000 out of our price range. But there's nothing we can do about that.

I don't want to settle for another house I will just be itching to move away from.

Is it so bad to want it all? I want land for my chickens.

I want to own a cow. A black and white Holstein with a pink nose and a big wet sand paper tongue.

Then I fell back asleep, and I dreamed we owned a horse. I was giving Tyler specific instructions on how to groom the horse, put the saddle on, how to ride...

Rosie was riding on the horse.

Then I woke up. It was 9 in the morning. We slept way too late.

Rosie watched Max and Ruby, and I laid there thinking of the kind of childhood I want to give her.

I want her to grow up with garden fresh food, eating food packed with sun ripened nutrients. I want her to learn about life, about sustainability, about fun and laughter.

There are so many things I want to be sure she experiences.

She's so big suddenly. She's not a baby anymore.

But in many ways she's still so small, with so much to learn. She's still so dependent. She asks if she can snuggle me multiple times a day.

She still needs milky.

Just like child led weaning...it's an interesting dance, letting her grow up.

Closer together, farther apart, then closer together again...always maintaining a vital connection with each other, still in sync with one another.

Whenever I get overwhelmed by everything--moving, planning, the future...I step back and remember what really matters.

Who really matters...

But it's hard. There is still that lingering worry, anxiety, the unknown.

Kitteh Kitteh...

They may shed all over everything.

They may leave disgusting hairballs right where I will step in them, barefoot first thing in the morning.

Their poop might smell like toxic waste.

But....

I love my cats.