Easter Egg hunting

September 18, 2018

When we got our first chickens we had a few issues with getting some to lay in the nesting boxes. The Buff Orphington especially liked to lay hers in the field. We thought that was solved but a couple days ago I caught her trying to make a nest in our hay shed. Today the Rooster crowed right by the shed then the same chicken came out of the shed, on a hunch I checked, yep, she laid her egg there. Silly chicken!
We might have to keep them locked in their area until noonish to see if that helps make sure she lays in the coop.

5 Seasons

September 16, 2018

We all know there are 4 Seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

At times Idaho seems to have 3 seasons: Winter, Spring, Fall. 

Some years Summer seems to be missed.

It seems that our small town might have 5 seasons: 

Winter, Spring, Summer, Dust, Fall

The farmer who owns the field behind us said he burns his field about every third year. 

 He kindly warned us the day he was going to burn the field,

 so we could close the windows to keep the smoke out.

We did not expect that a week or so later,

 the wind picked up all that ash and deposited a bunch on our property. 

Sadly I did not expect that, and a fair amount came in,

 before I got the windows shut. 

Even with the windows shut, 

every time the door opened, 

 we got another layer on the kitchen counter.

I spent the week cleaning up the ash.

Saturday thought I had finally gotten most of it cleaned up...

Saturday afternoon had wind advisories, and we got another layer of dust, 

thankfully, mostly minus most the ash that was deposited the previous week. 

Also a little wiser we shut the windows quickly,

 and minimized the dirt coming in.

I think this year more than most, 

I will be looking forward to snow, to hold down that dirt :)

Good bugs

September 14, 2018
Our youngest child has long loved Ladybugs and often tells people as they leave not to step on any ladybugs or rolly-pollies. We have an abundance of lady bugs, much to her delight.
Our chickens love to eat grasshoppers and crickets. We have plenty of them too, one of our sons and our youngest child like to catch them to feed the chickens.
Lately we have seen several Praying Mantis, both green ones and brown ones.

In other adventure

Our youngest has a grand time catching chickens. 

She loves collecting eggs and checks several times a day for them.

She keeps as apprised as to who the Rooster has mated with. 

(I did not think about the fact that having animals would be teaching this to her:)

Yesterday she was super excited when she got a very shy chicken to eat from her hand.

Our children were upset when I mentioned that the one that is still lacking a significant number of feather is in danger of freezing come winter and it might be a good idea to have her butchered. 

She is the ugliest, yet favored chicken because of her personality.

Two of our daughters decided she just needs a sweater for the winter with a neck scarf...

(It is really a thing, look it up online)

They tried taking a sock and cutting the end off to cover her neck.

It did not go well. They got it on alright but it is not tight enough to stay up.

I am interested to see what they try next.

The chicken have been allowed to free range some.

The Rooster and the youngest chicken (Malibu), 

(My sweetheart says she has a teenage crush on him) 

were adventuring together and tried to check out the shop. 

They were not happy when I shewed them out.

It did feel a little like chaperoning a dance, 

and having to find those sneaking off by themselves.

My poor sweetheart was not happy when Crazy Malibu,

 somehow got herself lost on the far side of the fence,

 and was running herself into the fence trying to get back in. 

He had to go around through thistles to try to chase her back to the gate.

Sadly he was wearing flip-flops at the time 

and did not think to come back to swap shoes until it was too late.

I was not thrilled when the chickens discovered my little garden,

 and helped themselves to some tomatoes. 

Thankfully, I have enough for us to eat and to share,

 and don't expect enough to can this year.

We have a series of compost piles we have been running this summer

 to kill off weeks under

 and to build up some good soil to go in raised beds for next year.

The chickens decided to help us turn them 

and dug in them so much,

they flattened them all out.

We were kind of confused at first as to how the piles got so flat, 

until we let the chickens out 

and they headed over and started digging there again.

It is fun to see what they get into and see their personalities.

Growing the Flock

August 25, 2018
Yesterday we decided to grow our flock a little.
We found 4 chickens on Craigslist. 2 were older, but 2 are younger. The 2 younger ones were the ones we wanted, they should start laying anytime now and should hopefully be laying next year. If we are really lucky we will get some baby chicks from these, and our other girls next spring.  That is the real hope...
We got 2 Barred Rocks. One is older and our children named her Grilled, the younger one I name Malibu (as in Malibu Chicken, Malibu Barbie and Malibu an escape/vacation destination because when we went to pick her up she escaped and led us and her previous owner on a wild chicken chase through their neighborhood.). We also got a 2nd Buff Orpington that our daughter named Baby Nuggets (our other Orpinton is called Nuggets). We also added a Rex Sex Link named Buffalo (as in a type of spicy chicken, I like that name better than the original name our daughter picked of "Burnt")

The pictures are not great but you get the idea.  Malibu is CRAZY!

Grilled has already layed us an egg. Buffalo and Baby Nugget are pretty afraid of us.

I hope these new girls settle in ok.

Funny note:

Our first chickens include two we named KFC 1 and 2. 

2 was missing feathers when we got her and is still in the same condition. She is a pretty sorry looking chicken, but in many ways she is the smartest! Our son catches crickets in a jar and takes them out to the chickens. KFC 2 is the only one who has figured out how to stick her head in the jar and take the crickets out. Once she gets one the crickets just cower in the jar, free for the pickings but the other girls don't go for the jar, they try to steal them from KFC 2. Sometimes they are successful, but more often than not, she gets to eat most of the crickets while the others are confused.

She now comes running and will follow our son with the jar.

Looking back, feeling blessed even amidst some failures

August 23, 2018
Looking back over the past couple months I feel so blessed. We took a big leap from "city" living to going out to the country, and trying new things.

We have had a few failures.
We tried to set up our grey water pipe with a hose. finding fittings for it was a challenge. Then the first day it was finally set up, it backed up into the bath tub while our 3 year old was in it. She was slightly traumatized by it and the next few times she bathed she had to be reassured it would not put "that yucky stuff" in her bath water.
Not so much a country thing, but a new house thing. Our 12 year old was showering for the first time and we were running a load of laundry and suddenly noticed water leaking downstairs. YIKES. We had flooded the basement of our last house the first month in. Thankfully this time the only "guest" was our exchange daughter. After much stress and searched it turned out to be as simple as she did not put the curtain in the tub right and the water from the floor was just seeping through a space in the wall/floor under the baseboard.
We bought a pallet buster to be able to up-cycle pallets for free wood. Maybe we just don't use it right, but it is not as easy as seen on TV -- duh. It was lots of Youtube videos, but apparently still not to be trusted. Though we will still use it some, we will not use it as much as I wish.
Our sad tragedy with the baby birds, me having to be the one to find the snakes (my children laugh they can sense my fear), losing our first barn cat -- possibly to a Hawk/Eagle/Owl/Falcon...

Still feeling so blessed. We have a coop up and producing. We have learned a lot. We have had a lot of time together. Our 3 year old is blossoming here, our 12 year old is too amidst some preteen mood swings, our 16 year old is proving to be a hard working genuinely nice and helpful guy, our 18 year old got to try new things before heading off to school, Our other older children might think we are a little loony doing all this, but are still generally supportive and having had them visit we feel reassured that it would not have been the right life for them but the Lord knew it was the time now...

We are so much farther now than we expected to be at the end of our first summer in so many ways.
We can see the Lord blessing our feeble efforts and helping us do so much more than we would be able to do otherwise.

End of summer projects

August 21, 2018
Last week we did three end of summer projects.

Reclaimed wood laundry poles.
We looked at buying laundry poles and they were 100 or more.
We built this one for less than $10 with eye bolts, line and screws

Front step hand rail
Again looking to buy the parts was over 100, but we just used reclaimed wood and screws and paint we already had.
It is not fancy, but it is functional.

Chicken feeder and water post. 
We might need to alter the buckets if the chickens do not figure them out.
The feeder has a bolt out the bottom is suppose to be tapped to release grain.
The water bucket has "chicken nipples" for water.
We need to take away their other waters but until this week is was too hot and
we worried they would not figure out and get sick from not having enough water...

Predators, chickens, snakes, husband and son

August 12, 2018

This morning as my husband went to let the chickens out he heard and saw a hawk. 

The chickens recognized the call and ran to where they consider their "safe" place. 

I have to wonder about their intelligence. 

Under or in the coop would be safer but they went over by the fence,

just in the shade of a tree, not actually under the tree.  

They all have survived so I guess it is fine. 

There do seem to be a large amount of predatory birds around here. 

Fun to see until you have to worry about your animals. 

We think one might have gotten our outside cat. 

She stopped coming for treats and we have not seen her for a couple weeks now. 

She was pretty scrawny. 

It could have been other things too though. I don't think we will ever know.

While I was coming back from bringing leftovers from breakfast to the chickens,

 I saw a snake. 

It was only a small one but startled me enough I stood there and yelled snake, snake.

It was between me and the house. I was afraid to even try to go around it

 for fear, we would both chose the same path. 

My sweetheart and a couple of the children came. 

Our son used a large stick to scare it out of hiding, 

and them my hero husband used a shovel to chop it then feed it to the chickens. 

They liked the treat. YUCK! 

I have to say I am grateful for my sweetheart, son and the chickens though!!!