Cleaning The Chicken Room

The day arrived when I could no longer put off cleaning the chickens' room. I let the little hens out again:

They enjoy their time outdoors, but I can't do it on a regular basis because we have so many ravenous foxes. Also, the hens are kind of ravenous themselves, and attack my seedlings and new plants:

The flock made a break for the front of the house:

  They ran past the car:

And stopped on the lawn, where they searched for edibles:

When I thought I could trust them to stay out of the road, I went into their room and removed the feeder and waterer. This photo doesn't make it clear, but I can tell you that the crap and bedding on the floor was 8" to 24" deep. The 24" part was beneath their roosts, and it was both heavy and stinky:

Other places were more dry, but this was still an unpleasant job:

I had to shovel the poopy mix into a plastic tote and then carry it out through the pigeon room, down an aisle and dump it into the tractor bucket. By the way, the little hens have shown no interest in their xylophone since the first day:

Each time I drove a tractor bucket load out to the compost pile, I also pushed some waste hay to the pile. To my surprise, there was still ice beneath the hay:

Three of the hens got tired of being outside and came back into their room where they felt safe. They're used to me moving around, so it didn't bother them that I was still cleaning:

When I was done with the chicken room, I used a leaf rake to herd the hens back inside. This is a routine we used to follow every day, and they still remember what to do. The dogs would have loved to chase them, but the fence prevented that:

Once all the birds were back in their newly cleaned and comparatively sweet smelling room, I once again locked them safely inside - but left three windows open for ventilation:

Birds And Plants

Just when we thought spring had arrived, we got another cold spell. The fantail pigeons, though, stayed safe and warm in their room inside the barn:

The little hens, similarly, had their own room in the barn and hardly noticed the weather. I even turned on the light for them on dark, cloudy days:

There are now three Easter Egger bantams and seven Barred Rock bantams:

  The Barred Rocks are getting too old to be good egg layers, but that works out well for me as I have no use for lots of eggs:

The six little baby roses were positioned in the back room, next to a window. One of them, a variety called Watercolors Home Run, surprised me with a flower just a few days after they arrived:

 

It's a pretty, pastel color mix and apparently a highly floriferous variety. I'm already pleased with it:

The hardening off process has begun. On mild days, I put the little roses outside to become accustomed to our weather. After all, they surely were grown in a greenhouse:

The Day Lilies are emerging. Now I need to do some weeding:

And the old fashioned Iris are coming up. The big, modern Iris on the other side of the house have not yet emerged:

I let the little hens out for a day and they explored everywhere:

They pecked and scratched. They clucked and ran and flapped their wings. They lay on their sides and basked in the sun. A couple of them fought like roosters until I broke it up. Spring is arriving:

Around The Farm

My camera is working again, so I've resumed taking photos around the house and farm. As always, the "hottest spot in town" is the kitchen corner, with its floor pillows and dog beds:

 And the second most popular spot in the house may be the yoga mats. They were put there because Seamus could no longer walk on the hard floors without slipping and falling, but they've since become playthings for the kittens and sleeping places for all the pets. In this photo, Sammy was demonstrating his total trust of gigantic old Seamus. I was nervous, but Sammy's faith in his big buddy proved valid:

 Little Caspar, when he isn't running full speed all over the house, likes to sleep in the pet bed atop the bureau:


 The sheep farmers up the road had a bale and a half of expensive, good quality hay which their sheep refused to eat. They brought it down to me and dumped it in my pasture in three loads, hoping my animals would eat it:


My animals balked a bit at first, then began eating it. It lasted seven days, helping make a crisis at the end of the season less likely. I am still worried about running out of hay this spring, however:

 Ah, the look of green grass, something we can no longer see because it's now all covered with ice and snow:

 The two miniature horses' hooves began to get sore again, but when the pasture grass stopped growing, they had to eat hay. I got their hooves trimmed and they again began to heal:

 Blue still likes to recline on the wasted hay when he gets the chance:

 The white fantail pigeons raised two end-of-season babies to maturity:

 It's getting kind of crowded in the the pigeons' room now. I may have to sell some birds this spring:

 The little hens are molting but I still get an occasional egg:

 Notice that brown Easter Egger hen at the top of the picture. She's molting so much that she looks like she's going bald. She needs to hurry up and grow new feathers because it's cold, cold, cold here!

Autumn On The Farm

The bantam hens are safe and warm in their room inside the barn:

And yet they still climb up on the ramp to the door which they used to use to get outdoors. I can't let them out, though, because of the bold, ravenous foxes we have here:

The white fantail pigeons used to have free access to the outdoors during the day but never used it. Now that it's turned colder, I just keep the window closed - but I haven't yet braced it against the winter winds:

One day I heard peeping and followed the sound to this mother and two new babies:


I braced myself for their death, knowing they wouldn't live in this cold, but so far they have done well and are growing rapidly:

Blue and Remy were released from wearing their grazing muzzles and I began putting out hay bales. Alas, I have fewer bales than last year and had to begin feeding them out three weeks earlier:

My sun-activated tchotchkes used to sit on a windowsill but that didn't work with cats in the house. Then one day I saw this shelf unit on a lawn with a "free" sign. I put it next to the window and so far, the cats have left it alone:

Yes, we've had several overnight snows (and many frosts), but for a long time, everything melted and the grass stayed green. The last two nights, however, have changed all that as we had both snow and extreme cold:

My Christmas Cactus (really a Thanksgiving Cactus) burst into bloom early this year and seemed to be a very happy plant:

It's always a beauty:

They began harvesting kernel corn in the field across the road, so I took this photo from my upstairs bathroom window:

Pre-Halloween Visions Around The Farm

We had our first hard freeze in October, requiring me to break the ice on the stock tank with the handle of a flat shovel. I had to use the handle because the blade was covered with dried manure:

We also had our first snow one night. It didn't pile up, but it lasted most of the next day:

I noticed, as I have in past years, that some of the autumn leaves of Bittersweet Nightshade turn a beautiful purple color:


Combined with its red berries, Bittersweet Nightshade is a lovely plant:


 The pigeons continued to get a screen in their window during the days, but I closed the window during the nights:

The little hens don't seem to care about the cold. They just wish they could go outside. Of course they have no concept of roving, ravenous, chicken eating foxes:

I'm often outside, doing chores, just as the sun breaks above the trees in the morning:

And there's a new vision each morning. This photo was taken about the same time but the next day after the above photo:

I pass this house every time I drive to or from Massena, and they always decorate extravagantly for holidays. But this year they outdid themselves, with a plethora of skulls and skeletons. This is the view from the road, showing human, horse, dog and vulture skeletons, not to mention what appears to be a winged ram skeleton:

I walked up the driveway for a side view, where the cedars supported bats on strings and some of the skeletons were easier to see:


But that wasn't the entire display. On the other side of the driveway they had ghosts, tombstones, vampires, ghouls and pumpkins. Now that's what I call a Halloween display!: