Get back to work...

It took almost two years but I finally got a job. Hooray!! I know I should be thankful, and I am, but going back to work has made me realize just how badly I want to make my dream a reality. I had two years to make it happen and as it turns out, that wasn't long enough. Or maybe I didn't try hard enough. Maybe both. So, even though I am behind the eight ball now, I want to make it work more than ever. I miss my chickens. I miss my sewing room. Yes, it will be harder than ever to make this dream come true, but I also have lots of motivation. My boss is a very good business man. He is making his dream come true, through lots of hard work and dedication, and with lots of help from devoted employees. I want to do a good job, but if I'm going to bust my butt making somebody's dream come true, I want it to be mine. So, I will put in my time at the office, doing my job to the best of my abilities, but I'm going to make my time off count more than ever.

While I've been at work, my son has stepped in to help out with the chickens and he's been a great help indeed. I really don't know what I'd do without him, poor guy. Fortunately he really likes eggs, so it's kind of a trade off.

The Silkies finally have full run of the chicken coop. We moved the quail out into their own cage and removed the partition so the silkies are free to roam around and play in the grass. They have a lovely second story on their house, but they never want to go up there. They don't seem to like roosting like the other chickens, they just sleep in a pile in the corner of the hen house, like kittens. It looks nice and cozy, so I can't say I blame them.

Silkie Palace

 Busy busy busy!! We're all cleaned up after the flood and I finally have my sewing room back. Too bad I've been tied up with another project and haven't been able to enjoy it yet, but today is the day. I've been poring over my books looking for the next fantastic sewing project to tackle and I think it's going to be a messenger bag. I made a kid-sized one for my 5 year old nephew for Christmas and he really loved it. He won a wallet in a "white elephant" raffle at a Christmas party, unfortunately it was a ladies wallet. Fortunately he didn't know or care. He was so excited, he started carrying the wallet around with him everywhere he went. Being a ladies' wallet, it didn't exactly fit in his pocket, so I crafted a custom "man's bag" for him so he could tote his giant wallet in style.

Yes, I've been busy remodeling the duck pen into a Silkie Palace.  As you may recall, construction is not my forte'. But I did it, all by myself and I am very proud. It doesn't look half bad. It doesn't look great, mind you, but it is completely functional and secure, which is the most important thing, and the baby Silkies like it.

I am fairly new to raising chickens, so everything is unfamiliar. I can only go by what I've read (which can be quite contradictory), instinct and observation. The chicken flock has been pretty textbook so far, the ducks were vastly different from the chickens and my expectations, and the Silkies were different still. Different from the ducks and different from our first batch of chicks. The Silkies are Bantams, which means they are much smaller than regular chickens. You could tell right away that the day old chicks were very small. They ate and drank so politely, no flinging feed everywhere, no splashing in their water. Much neater that baby ducks, and even baby chicks. They peeped nonstop, even when nothing was wrong. I had doubts that they would ever be the docile lap-chickens that they were made out to be. It didn't help that one of the chicks arrived with a crippling injury. That poor baby was always crying, but sadly there was nothing I could do for her. I had to make a choice to either put Baby out of her misery or allow her to tough it out. I went with toughing it out. She has struggled and she's much smaller than the others, but she manages well enough.

Day old chicks willingly allow you to hold them and even seem to enjoy the warmth and closeness, but with each passing day they like it less and less. After just a few days on this Earth, they are less than thrilled with being picked up and make sad pitiful noises when you catch them. These Silkies were terrified of me. When I would try to hold them, they would freak out and trample the Baby, so after a while I stopped trying. It wasn't until they decided they liked spinach that they began to like my again. Now they have no problem being picked up, even Baby is cool with it. Actually, there is still one, Penelope, who hates to be held. Her nickname is the Screamer because of the awful sound she makes when you pick her up.

And now, some Silkie pictures to get you through the day.

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Duckling Pictures!

Baby ducks are super adorable, in case you didn't know that. They are actually cuter than baby chickens in my opinion. I mean, it's a pretty close contest, for sure, but ducklings have the edge. And they are easier in some ways than raising chicks, They are not so fussy about temps, which is a really good thing because the ceramic heat lamp that I just bought in June is acting up. The first night in the brooder I could not get the temp up above 72º.  The ducklings will only need to be in the brooder for about 3 weeks, as opposed to 6-8 for chicks.  Another key advantage to raising ducks is that we can keep a male duck in our flock for breeding ducklings (fingers crossed).

A definite disadvantage with baby ducks is that they are even messier than chicks. Chicks make a bit of mess by throwing their food around and pooping in their water, but ducklings throw water around like mad and can turn an ounce of food into a pound of poop. I exaggerate slightly, but they are little poop machines.

Here are some adorable pictures to get you through the day...

that is 15 minutes worth of poop right there...

two days old

learning to drink water

Something New!!

I have been slacking in my blogging duties in part because I've been working on getting certified in MS Excel 2007 (which I did. yay!) but also because I was sitting on some fantastic news. Five baby ducklings have joined our flock! They arrived last night, but not without some drama.

They were scheduled to be shipped Tuesday the 7th, due to Monday being a holiday, and since the hatchery is in California, I expected them to arrive Wednesday. Wednesday morning came and went, and no call from the Post Office telling me my babies had arrived. That sucked, but no big deal. I chalked it up to the holiday mail delay and planned on picking them up Thursday. Thursday morning rolls around and I'm feeling pretty anxious. I really want to play with my ducklings! And I knew this was holding up my blog. Remember how I told you I'm very methodical? I already had it in my mind that my next blog would be about ducklings and nothing would change that. But mostly I was worried about those poor little birdies. If they were shipped out on Tuesday, they haven't had anything to drink for 2 days. Fortunately we were experiencing unseasonably cool weather here in SoCal. 8:30...8:45...9:00...I told myself I would wait until 9:05 before I called the P.O. and convinced myself that everything was fine, I'll call and they will say, "Oh yes, they are right here. So sorry." But they didn't say that, instead they said they had no birds and they had received all of their inbound shipments for the day. Gasp. Now what? I called the hatchery to see if maybe they didn't get shipped out on Tuesday as expected, but they had. There was no way to track them, so i just had to wait until the next morning.  I was devastated. That bit of news ruined my day. I just kept picturing my poor little ducklings languishing in a tiny box somewhere and it was breaking my heart.

About 4:00, my phone rang and I didn't recognize the number, but I have been applying for jobs every day so I was hoping it was a call-back. Even better! It was the Post Office distribution center! They had my ducks! Oh happy day! They wanted to know if I wished to pick my package up or wait til the morning and get it from my local PO. Heck no I don't want to wait! My babies are thirsty!

We got them home safe and sound and seemingly healthy. I dipped their beaks in water and offered them some chopped up greens and they went to town. Two and a half days in a box is a long time.

Chickens Are Not Smart...

I like my chicken flock. They have lots of personality and are fun to watch. But they are not smart. I read a lot of books about backyard chickens and did tons of research online before making the commitment to raise my own flock, and I read more than once that chickens are much smarter than people give them credit for. With my limited experience in raising chickens I feel I can say with confidence that chickens are not smart. Some are clever, I will go that far. Nickie knows that I set the colander full of treats on top of the coop while I dole them out, so she jumps up on top of the coop and help herself. Maybe that isn't a good example, since Nickie prefers it when I hold her treat in my hand so she can daintily nibble on it. See? Not smart.

Every night I go out into the yard while the chickens are roaming free and I bring them treats in an old yellow colander. They are smart enough to recognize that this colander holds chicken goodies, like spinach or tomatoes or pasta or some such. Every night I sit in my same chair along side the coop and set the colander on the coop. Nickie gets that, none of the others do and actually that is probably a good thing. Just about every night, Nickie and Shirley rally at my feet and demand a snack, while Esther, Mary and Bev run back inside the coop and pace excitedly back and forth along the chicken wire barricade, peeping loudly and wondering where their yummy treat is. I have to get out of my seat and guide them to the outside of the coop and over to my chair. Esther will snatch a treat and run back into the coop at least two or three times before it finally clicks that the goodies are being distributed on the outside. Not smart.

Probably the not smartest thing that chickens do is they poop in their food and water. I mean really, who does that? Just about every other animal in existence realizes that pooping in their food is bad policy. It's not even like they are pooping in their dining room or kitchen, they are pooping in their dinner plate. Totally gross. I still like them though. They are hilarious and watching their silly antics is a great stress reliever. But they are not smart.

Home on the Range...

The fence is fixed and so the flock was free to range! We let them out about an hour before dusk last night so they had a little more time to explore. We're trying to ease them into the notion of free-ranging because our yard is so big and crazy. It's a quarter of an acre, but it's not a nice flat rectangle of a yard. We live on a hill, so the yard slopes back to front and also left to right, and it's terraced so there are four levels. There are trees and shrubs everywhere. It's pretty cool, but it would be fairly easy for a chicken to get lost back there. The first night we let them out they stayed right close to their coop. Last night, they must have felt a little braver so they expanded their circle a bit. I brought out a colander full of spinach and tried to get them to sit on my lap and let me feed them, but only Nickie was into that. The others sat there and took some bites, but they weren't really enjoying it.

After a few minutes outside, they got a little more daring. They were running around and goofing off like kids on a playground. There were a few minor scuffles as they challenged each other for position in the pecking order. I'm still not sure if they've got that figured out yet. There is no clear order as far as I can tell.

Nickie was the only chicken to figure out where the spinach was coming from. Alas, Darling Nickie prefers to nibble her spinach like a lady whilst you hold it for her, so this was not working out in her favor. She mostly just flung spinach everywhere to the delight of her flock-mates awaiting on the ground below.

Backyard chickens...

So the foxtail crisis was dealt with, however, both dogs are now having sneezing fits. It seems they have allergies, according to the vet,and have to be on allergy meds. I find that kind of amusing.

The chickens have taken their first tentative steps out into the yard. We've only let them out in the evening because we don't want them to go too far just yet. The yard is still pretty messed up and dangerous for chickens. In fact, when I walked the yard last week to survey its condition, I discovered that one section of the fence was basically hanging on by about two nails and that the ground underneath it had eroded pretty badly. Poor Greg got dragged away from whatever he was doing that day to repair the fence. Ah, homesteading.

So far, the chickens have only explored the area right around the coop. Maybe it's because we only let them out just before dusk, or maybe they are just very cautious, but they like to hang out close to home. And they travel around in a tight little cluster almost like a school of fish but with more personality.

Ripe Tomatoes!

Moving the tomato plants was surely the right thing to do, because we finally have ripe tomatoes!! Nothing beats home grown tomatoes. If you have never had one, you need to get yourself a tomato plant right now and grow some. You don't need a big garden. As you can see, they will do just fine in a pot, as long as they get lots of sunlight.

  When I went to water them today, I got a very pleasant surprise. See those tiny little green tomatoes? They were as big as BBs just two days ago, now they are the size of grapes!

I gave the first ripe tomato to my niece on her birthday. She absolutely loves tomatoes, so I always give her the first ripe fruit of the season.

Don't want to jinx it....

One of the areas of 'self-sufficiency' I have been struggling with has been my garden. Every time I try to plant something, it gets eaten up before it can even get started. I was about to throw in the towel when I found some super cheap gallon size tomato and pepper plants at the Home Depot. Some of them already had fruit on them, which is normally not a plus, but it was so late in the season I knew if I didn't get cracking there would be no tomatoes this year. What the heck, they were only two bucks each, so I went for it. I decided that putting them in the ground was not going to work out so I would try to grow them in containers on my upstairs deck, out of the sight of those devious squirrels and rabbits.

 I'm afraid to even say anything. but so far moving the plants to the upstairs deck has worked out beautifully. I am knocking on wood now. The two tomato plants have three tomatoes each and several more flower blossoms that are in the process of becoming tomatoes. The basil plant is suffering, only because we just don't use very much basil so the leaves are just getting droopy. The pepper plant has lots of little buds which I hope will all turn into peppers. Or maybe not...when I bought the plant I chose it for its lovely green and curly leaves. I had never heard of "Caribbean Red" peppers before. Did a little research and discovered that they are one of the hottest peppers in the world! Twice as hot as habeneros! No bueno for me, I am a real lightweight when it comes to spicy food.

I picked up a couple more of those super bargain plants at the Depot yesterday. This time I went with what I knew and got "California Wonder".

The Chicks Have Moved Out...

Out of the house and into their henhouse, that is. It's about time, too. They were getting mighty stinky. We don't have a garage, only a carport and I didn't think it was safe enough to move them outside in just a cardboard box. Even though we live in the suburbs, there are lots of critters roaming around. As I've mentioned before, we have two or more well established squirrel colonies in our backyard as well as a bunny family.  I doubt squirrels or bunnies would do more that just scrounge chicken feed, but we have also seen raccoons in our front yard and they would love a free chicken dinner for sure. So, we had to wait until the chicken coop was finished before we could safely move our little flock out of the house and into the carport. It's been pretty cool at night so they are still using their heater, but I think that by next week the nights will be warm enough that they can be moved out into the yard.

It may seem small, but when we move it to the yard, there will be a secure chicken run attached to the coop.


One phase of my "simple life" that I have been avoiding is growing a garden. My half-hearted attempts have been met with crushing disappointment, and my very fragile self just cannot handle it. Everything I've planted has been devoured by squirrels or rabbits or raccoons. I have no idea who the culprit is, I just know that when you go out to water your seedlings and some jerky animal has nibbled them to the ground, it is not a good feeling. I am usually a positive person, sometimes delusionally so, and it takes very little to bring me joy. It also takes quite a bit to really crush my spirit. Even with the hardships we've been facing lately, I know my family has it pretty good, and I have so many wonderful people in my life, I feel very blessed and happy most of the time. But a girl can only take so much. Last year, when I poured my heart and soul (I'm also a little dramatic) into my tomato plants only to have very single tomato eaten while still green was almost too much. This year, they've been nibbled to nothing before they could even bloom.

About a week ago I noticed that a bird or squirrel had dropped some sunflower seeds into the planter box where we dump our dogs' water bowl, and the seeds had sprouted. I was so excited! I love sunflowers! I told everyone in the house about the miracle sunflowers that just sprouted up all by themselves. Isn't nature wonderful? Uh, no. About three days later I went back to check on them and guess what...Gone. Eaten. All that was left was a forest of green stems poking out of the soil. Without leaves, plants can't survive, so I knew they'd be shriveled up in a day or so. I felt like crying. I wanted to kick a squirrel so bad that day.  It sounds dramatic I'm sure, but a feeling of doom just poured over me. I want a garden so much, but I have no idea how to stop the squirrels from destroying it.

I scored some cheap tomato and pepper plants from Home Depot a couple of weeks ago. Knock on wood, they are still alive and well. I decided to move them to my upstairs deck. I've had some pretty good success growing tomatoes in containers there. I guess until I solve the squirrel problem, I will just have to be a container gardener and not a farmer.

Baby Chick Watch...

Baby chicks are hilarious. Every time I pass by the brooder box I have to peek in. They are so comical,  I end up standing there for several minutes watching their goofy antics. It's hard to get anything done! They just crack me up with their child-like exuberance. I know, I know, it's because they are chicken children but it's still funny to me. Maybe it's because they're birds so you don't really expect them to have much personality but they do. They act like pre-schoolers on the playground. They run everywhere they go, scuffle with each other, and scurry around in little packs. The way they hop off their perch totally reminds of a kid, because kids don't just step off of stuff, they jump off of it. Hilarious.

The chicks turned on week old on Monday and I can't believe how much they've changed! They're growing real feathers and losing their baby fat. The changes happen overnight. On Sunday, none of the chicks had tails. By Tuesday, they all did. It's pretty cool.

We Interrupt This Purge to Bring You Baby Chicks....

Yesterday as I was getting ready to start my chores, I got a call from the post office informing me that my shipment of "live birds" had arrived. Baby Chicks! Ooh, darn, I wasn't quite ready. I had the brooder box built, I visited the feed store last week and bought chick starter, and I had the waterer and feeder in my possession, but I hadn't yet put it all together. It wasn't a big deal, but I was so anxious to finally have my chicks and I wanted everything to be just right.

 The babies arrived safe and sound from My Pet Chicken. They were even more adorable than I had imagined!! I carefully removed them from their mailing box one by one and dipped their beaks first in water, then in chick food as I had seen Martha Stewart do on her recent show devoted to backyard chickens. And then I just watched. It was fascinating! I was mesmerized! I wanted to share it with someone, but nobody was home except for my son Julian. He had worked until midnight the night before and was sound asleep. I so wanted to wake him up & make him look at the chicks with me, but I didn't. Besides, Julian doesn't get excited as easily as I do. I knew he wouldn't adequately appreciate these marvelous little fuzz balls. So, I sent a text with a picture to my friend Timbrely because I knew she would share my joy. I think if I had encouraged her, she would have left work just to come over & see them.

I had so much to do but it was nearly impossible to tear myself away from the "Baby Chicken" show. They are just so stinkin' cute! I would do some work, then check on them, do a little more, come back for a quick peek. Fold laundry, pick up chicks and pet them til they fell asleep in my hand. Not a productive day, to say the least.  Oh well. Tomorrow is another day.