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.

Happy Talk...

2011 is off to a rough start, but I really can't complain because I've still got it pretty good. My backyard chicken flock is doing quite well. All three ladies are now laying. Shirley was the last one to begin laying. I think if Shirley were human, she would be an old spinster. She's ugly, for one, and cranky as heck. Chickens do this squatting thing if you move up on them suddenly. From what I've read, it's a submissive posture and a sign of sexual maturity meaning they are ready to breed and/or lay eggs. Nickie and Esther squat quite happily and let you scratch their back and right above their tail. Nickie gets really into it. About a week before Shirley laid her first egg I noticed that she was squatting too, only she was not so into it. It's like she has the instinct to do it, an instinct so strong that she can't help but squat, but she hates it. She'll squat, begrudgingly, but if you try to scratch her back, she bites you. I think she has intimacy issues.

the landscaping crew

My chickens have brought so much joy into my life. It's really hard being unemployed after a lifetime of successful employment. Applying for job after job and getting no positive response takes its toll on your self esteem. It is just delightful to be able to step out into my big beautiful backyard and be greeted by a happy flock. I know that they rush over to me to see if I am bringing them a treat, but even after they discover I've come empty handed, they don't bail on me. They hang out and scratch around for buggies while I keep watch over them. They know I am protecting them and that feels good. Another thing I am so grateful to my chickens for, and some people may not think this is a plus,  they have finally killed off the clover that takes over my yard every year. My husband doesn't understand what I have against the clover, but I just can't stand it. It takes over every year, smothers out all the other plants, then after a short life, dies down, leaving brown strings strewn everywhere. It looks good for about a week and then looks terrible. So, good job flock! Hopefully they've killed off the grass too, because that's another nightmare. Our backyard, or "Wild Kingdom" as my sister likes to call it, is rolling terraces, trees, shrubs, rock walls, basically random chaos. It looks cool and natural, but when the grass starts to grow in the spring, it is impossible to mow. We have to weed-whack and it's about a third of an acre back there. Patches of grass are able to grow tall and sprout foxtails. So far we've had to have foxtails removed from Lola's' nose, twice, and Gladys' ear. And it's dang expensive. But so far, my dutiful birds are keeping the grass in check. Way to go, Ladies!

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.

Search Amazon.com for chickens in your backyard

And a Happy New Year!

Let's hope! So far it's been pretty much the same. I made it through the holidays without getting sick, and that was awesome, but it finally caught up to me. I woke up this morning feeling like a truck must have run me over. I overslept and was awakened by the sound of a boasting chicken proudly telling the whole neighborhood about what she'd done. Farm girls don't get sick days, so I  dragged my behind out of my warm bed and into my chore clothes. It wasn't so bad.

Southern California was hit by storms the week of Christmas, and as a result, our house got a little flooded. It rained practically non-stop for 3 days. It was a very surreal experience to see the water coming up into the patio and just keep coming and know there is very little you can do to keep it from coming into your house. We've had problems with flash floods before because of the way our house is situated, but they come and go very quickly, hence the name. But this was different. So much rain and nowhere for it to go. Our backyard was a lake. It hasn't rained in days and the yard is still soggy. We spent Christmas Eve tearing carpet and pad out of the downstairs bedrooms and hall, but at least we were all together.

Christmas 2010

Darling Nickie

Christmas 2010 was, like everything else, a mixed bag. Sure, our house flooded and we had to move furniture and rip out carpets on Christmas Eve, but we also got together as a family and made candy to give as Christmas gifts. And even the act of cleaning up after the flood done as a family put a silver lining on a dark cloud.

Nickie's pretty brown egg

Nickie began laying eggs a few days before Christmas, and now she and Esther lay almost an egg a day. It's been two weeks since they were medicated, so their eggs are now safe to eat again.

Bumble

The silkies started eating from my hand a few days ago, and now they go nuts whenever they see me, not because they love me but because they love spinach. Although, today, Bumble jumped out of the brooder and onto the table and when I picked her up to put her back in, she didn't freak out. In fact, I even got her to eat from my hand while I held her for a minute. That felt like progress.

Happy Holidays!

It's Christmas week and I'm not quite ready for it. I've been sewing and stringing my little heart out, but somehow I am not quite prepared. Christmas sneaks up on me just about every year but this year it was almost Ninja. They say that time flies whether you're having fun or not and it hasn't been that fun on the old homestead of late. We lost two of our beloved birds, Mary and Bev. Mary was such a sweetie, and so beautiful I was thinking about showing her. Her silver feathers looked like someone outlined each one with charcoal pencil, really quite lovely. Bev looked like a picture from a catalog. Classic White-crested Black Polish. She was also very sweet and she was my little pal in the yard. Being virtually blinded by her giant crest, she would get separated from the flock and then would cry like a kitten. I would call her,  "kittykitty" and she would rush over to me so I could lead her to where the rest of the girls were gathered.

Bev's loss was so sudden it really caught us by surprise. When I let the girls out Friday morning she seemed quite healthy and was patiently waiting for Esther to finish using the nest so that she could lay her egg. Saturday when I went to let them out, she was obviously quite ill. I did what I could, but she was gone by noon. I did more research and settled on the theory that the ladies had succumbed to tracheal worms. Yes, it sounds disgusting, but most animals have parasites, including humans. All of the research and planning I did convinced me that free ranging was the best and healthiest way to raise backyard chickens, but in the end it's what did them in. Now the birds that I had hoped to raise free of chemicals needed to be given poison, basically. The eggs that we had waited for now were unfit for consumption for two weeks after the treatment. Sigh. Live and learn.

We wormed the flock and now we are trying a more organic anti-worm regimen, diatomaceous earth, cayenne and garlic. At least it makes their poop smell a little better.

No Such Things As a Chicken Expert...

Our lil flock lives in a coop made from re-purposed materials, put together with barely a plan other than to make it comfortable and secure. It's set in the yard is an unobtrusive spot where it sort of blend in with the landscape. It looks nice and homey and it works for us. If I had it to do again, I would have designed it a little better. It would be impossible to get power to it where it is in the center of our large yard and solar is out of the question so the birds are only exposed to natural light. My family came over for Thanksgiving dinner, and everyone wondered about the eggs, so I explained how their laying is directly affected by the hours of daylight and since they get no artificial light, they probably wouldn't lay til Spring. I'm fine with that and my husband told me he didn't care if they ever laid eggs, as long as they make me happy. Which they do. The day after Thanksgiving I was cleaning out the coop when I noticed that the grass in the nest box was very trampled. I thought it was odd, so I peeked inside and found three eggs! Needless to say I was shocked. I had given up checking it because I was so sure they wouldn't lay til Spring, and they never gave any of the 'signs' that they would be laying soon. No shell-less eggs, no squatting, no new chicken sounds. One of the main lessons I have learned through my recent experiences is that there are no absolute truths when it comes to raising poultry. Just a lot of probably. For example, everything I've read says that chickens lay their eggs usually by 9:00 or 10:00. Not my girls. I've seen them lay in the afternoon, and in fact I went to clean their coop a few days ago and there was Bev, laying an egg. It was 4:00pm.

My 'egg-citement' was short lived however, because I noticed that Mary wasn't acting quite right. I went online to see if I could find any help. Based on the symptoms and the fact that the girls were starting to lay, I was leaning towards a diagnosis of egg binding, a condition where the egg gets stuck inside the chicken. Sounds awful and unfortunately, it can be fatal. I didn't feel an egg inside her when I rubbed her belly, and she was pretty skinny, but I tried the home remedy anyway. At least it wouldn't harm her. I gave her a nice warm bath in my old dish tub. Surprisingly, she really liked it. I rubbed her belly while she soaked and when the water cooled off, I dried her off and wrapped her it a towel and carried her around for a while. The next morning, she acted a little better, scratching and pecking with the other girls. But soon she was off by herself, displaying sick symptoms again. I felt again for an egg, but didn't find one. I went online again to see if there was any information out there. Very few vets will treat a chicken, and I don't have money to run a bunch of expensive lab tests anyway, so I had to rely on home treatments. It seemed there was no definitive diagnosis out in cyberspace. I didn't know what to do except to isolate her and try to get her to eat and drink. I fixed her some "chicken soup" which is made FOR chickens, not FROM chickens, but she didn't really want it. She passed that night. She was such a sweetie, and she was so pretty. I was sad.

The next day, I was giving the flock their scratch and I noticed Bev wasn't joining in on the feast, so I called her, "Kitty kitty!" That's how I call my birds. I think it sounds better than "Chick chick". Bev is almost always that first to come running when I call out. She is so blinded by her crest that I frequently have to lead her around the yard to the food. No Bev, and I started to worry, then I saw her huddled up in the corner of the side yard and my heart sank. She was laying down with her feathers all fluffed up, just like Mary had done. Oh no. I picked her up to comfort her and to my astonishment, uncovered a clutch of five eggs. Bev was setting on a nest of eggs. Whew!! What a relief.

I realize now that there is no such thing as a chicken expert. Chickens are all different and do pretty much what they want. My Easter-egger, Esther, is not sweet and lovable like the 'experts' said she would be. She is a nice bird, but does not want to sit in my lap and be petted. My Polish pullet, Bev, is a prolific layer, even though the experts say Polish are only so-so. And the Dominique hasn't laid yet. Of course, with these short days, I wasn't even expecting any eggs, so they are all welcome surprises.

 

R.I.P. Mary

Ups and Downs Part II

They quail were happily living in their new home and I just love to listen to their sweet songs.  Time to roll out Phase 2 of my plan.  Trust me, I have a plan. See, the whole thing with the ducks was that we wanted eggs, but we also wanted meat. I much prefer chicken, but my little flock is part of the family, and there will be no baby chicks because there is no rooster. That's why we went with ducks. Male ducks are no more noisy than female ducks, which, as it turns out, are kind of noisy. Although I would have loved and cared for my ducks, once they were gone I didn't want to replace them with more ducks. It was a failed endeavor, so I scrapped that plan and came up with another. Quail will lay eggs with no males present, but they will also breed readily, or so I have read. We are still waiting. My quail flock was about a mix of male and female so the plan was to split them into breeding groups of one male to two females and, gosh I hate to say this but we'll probably eat the extra males. Sounds harsh, I know, but I eat meat every day and I think it would be hypocritical of me to balk at killing and eating animals I raised. The fly in this ointment is that domesticated quail rarely set on their own eggs. The eggs must be incubated, or set under a foster mother.

Phase 2: Silkies. Doing research online I found that overall, Silkies were thought to be the best foster parents for hatching the eggs of other birds. There were a few other choices such as Cochins, but since quail eggs are so small, I thought Silkie Bantams would make more sense, plus they are super cool looking and have a reputation of being very sweet birds. Time to get some Silkies! Of course, mid-Fall is not the best time to order day old chicks. And there is only on place that offers sexed day-old Silkies, My Pet Chicken. No problem, really, because that's where my lil chicken flock came from and besides having an amazing selection of chicks, they are super nice and give great customer service. As Fate would have it, just about the only chicks available in November were Blue Silkies. After my experience with not being able to tell the ducks apart, I would have preferred to order a variety of chick colors, but since that was not possible I felt the next best solution was to order the Blue. Having ordered three Blue Polish chicks for my lil chicken flock, I knew that they can turn out looking quite different from one another, and with the Silkies, it would be even more so. There were color variations, as well as possibilities for different crests and beards.

Two weeks later I was picking up a peeping box at my local Post Office. So exciting! The chicks were incredibly adorable. They were so tiny and fuzzy. I got them all set up in their nice warm brooder and just stared at them most of the afternoon. The first day they sleep a lot, but it's still hilarious to me. They will just fall asleep, mid action. So cute. That night, I noticed something was a little off. One of the chicks seemed to have a hurt leg. It wasn't as active as the other babies and was having a hard time getting around to the food and water. I knew that chicks can live for a few day without food, it's what makes them perfect for mail order, but soon this baby was going to need to be able to feed itself. The next morning I called MPC to ask them what I should do and they were super helpful providing me with information sources, but basically my only option was to try some home remedies and let Nature take it's course. I tried stretching the leg to get the tendon back into place, to no avail. I tried to splint it but the chick freaked out. I tried to isolate the chick but it wasn't having any of that either. It seemed like my attempts to aid the chick were only causing it pain and stress so I just decided to back off and hope that it would get right on its own. I was beside myself with worry over this chick, meanwhile I was eating chicken for dinner. It made me feel even worse.

The chicks were two weeks old Monday and the injured bird is still hanging on. It is terrified of me. I really wanted these chickens to trust me and be very comfortable around me, after all I need them to adopt my quail eggs and hatch them as their own. I chose them for their loving personalities, but they are scared whenever I put my hand into their cage. I'm hoping this fear will fade once they realize the food they eat comes from me. It's a great way to win over just about any creature.

Ups and Downs Are Great...On a Merry-Go-Round

Wow, it's been pretty crazy here at the homestead these past couple of weeks. Let's travel back in time and I'll explain it all.

Way back in October, a terrible tragedy occurred when my little dogs snuffed an entire flock of ducklings while I was out running an errand. I didn't really have time to properly grieve, because my husband and I were taking a road trip to the Bay Area just two days later and I still hadn't done my laundry. We were headed up north to check out some neighborhoods in case we did decide to make the big move. We needed to see if our 'Plan B' was a possibility or a pipe dream. Suffice to say that the trip did not yield any hopeful results as far as that went, but we did have some enjoyable moments. The day before we were set to leave, we made a quick trip to Chinatown in search of a calendar scroll. I collect them and I have one for every year for the past ten years, always bought on one of our trips. I never cheated and bought one of the Internet, so I really needed a 2010 scroll if I didn't want to break my streak. No luck finding a 2010 scroll in October if you can imagine that, but one shop had something I found even more amazing. A little cage full of little quails. The shop was selling dressed birds and quail eggs, but they also had live quails available for purchase. My husband is really the best ever because I said to him, " I want one!" and he said, "Get one." No, no, no, that would be ridiculous, right? I mean what would I do with 4 quail in a hotel room (they were 4 for $5) and then on an eight hour drive? In my old age, I am finally acting like a grown-up, because I resisted the very strong urge to buy four quails that day, even though it would have been super cool to have quails from my very fave city!

Although I abstained, those quails were all I could think of. I kicked myself for days for not buying those special SF quail. What a coup that would have been! I am not exaggerating that probably half of my knick-knacks & decor is from San Francisco. I love it that much. But I told myself to get over it, those quail were no longer a possibility and we were never taking another road trip to the Bay Area. I knew there was no way in hell my husband was ever going to make that drive again, because he told me so. The duck pen looked so empty, I just couldn't bear to keep seeing it that way. I did research on keeping quail and decided I could totally pull it off. I began looking daily on Craigslist for quail. I had seen them before but, of course, now that I was looking for them they were not to be found. It took a couple of weeks before I finally hooked up with a lady who had hatched and raised some Coturnix Quail, and now was re-homing them. That's what they call it on Craigslist because technically you are not supposed to sell animals. Whatever. She needed to find a new home for them because they were being picked on by her flock of tiny button quail. Coturnix are so docile that they were being abused by the much smaller button quail and they looked mighty raggedy. Some of them were completely bald on their backs. It was a pathetic sight.

We got them home and into their new pen. They seemed to really like it. No more bullying by birds half their size and lots of grass to burrow in. Watching them joyfully frolic in their new home made me feel happy.

Time to face facts...

When I started this blog, I was hoping it would be a chronicle of the start of something new and life changing. So far, it hasn't worked out that way. I know it was naive of me to think that I would be able to make a living without having to get a real job. Now I am trying to figure out how to keep  my creative outlets rolling while working a 9-5 job. If I ever get one. I put in a lot of effort to keep my Etsy shop going, but realistically it's a business that has to be grown slowly over time. Selling a bracelet every once in a while is not going to cut it. I have branched out and have begun to sell supplies to make the bracelets and I even put together a kit you can buy with all the "ingredients" to make your own very personal bracelet. I am constantly reading and researching ways to grow my business. It just takes time, which is something I have a lot of, and then again, something I don't have much more of. I need a job and soon.

So, my garden has never come to fruition. All I really have to show are a handful of tiny tomatoes and some peppers that are very pretty but way too hot for me to enjoy. I haven't given up completely, but I know that when I get a job, it's the first thing that will suffer. I forget to water all the time. It's probably the biggest reason my garden is so pathetic, my poor plants are always subjected to drought.

And I've given up the notion of making soap or cheese, at least for now. The soap I could probably get into making. If I took a class to walk me through the process, I would probably feel comfortable and confident enough to try it at home. The cheese making is on hold mainly because raw milk is impossible to find in California. I decided that cheese making would be practical only if I had a dairy animal and consequently my own steady supply of raw milk. So those two "homestead standards" are on the back burner, at least for now. Who knows what will happen in the future? Certainly not me.

The one thing I know for sure that will continue is the backyard flock. As scatterbrained as I can be at times, I'm not going to forget to feed and water my birds. I have been a very responsible farm girl, getting up and tending to my animals no matter how badly I want to sleep, no matter how cold it is or how hot it is. Like they would let me off the hook anyway. Maybe the quail, but the chickens are very demanding and they squawk loudly if I'm not out there early enough with their scratch. They are spoiled. I just love them. I'm sure it's just that they want food and they know I' am often a source for it, but it just makes a person feel good when their animals rush out to see them as soon as they step into the yard. Even if I'm not feeding them, they hang around with me while I do my backyard stuff. I never thought I could be so attached to birds, but they bring a lot of joy into my life. I need that.