Just a Light Dusting, Please...

As predicted, we got some snow during the night... just an inch or so... a light dusting.  Enough to make everything pretty this morning, yet it has nearly disappeared even as I write this at noon.  I am still recovering from inner ear/vertigo, which got the best of me this past weekend.  Went to one of those walk-in clinics Monday, and they fixed me up pretty darn good!   Other than fatigue from the insomnia (from the Decadron injection), I'm doing well.  Got a lot accomplished yesterday; not as much today, but that's okay.

Moxie, visiting the Peeps cage; Peeps one week old

This morning, when I first saw the snow, Pretty Face and the Peeps were all peeking out of their little coop just opposite the back door. And, I realized that while the Peeps had seen snow, they had never been out walking in it.  So, of course, we had to see what they would do... It's always amusing to see animals walk in the snow, especially the first time.  They don't want their little feet to touch that weird, white, cold stuff, but there is no other way to ambulate than to ambulate!  They stood around a big dog bowl, eating cracked corn, then herded themselves up the back steps and onto the porch. So, there they were... ten chickens standing on the porch, staring in through the sliding glass door, and knocking on the glass with their little beaks.  ("Let me in... Let me in...")  Cute.  Too cute.  These are the Peeps that lived in the big cages in our office until they were about two months old.  They KNOW what wondrous pleasures lurk in every corner of the Ben-David household.  They remember us holding them, hand-feeding them, playing with them.  They remember falling asleep on our laps... with Moxie next to them, washing them like a mother cat and her kittens.  They know.

the back of the doll house

I have this old doll house on the back porch.  I originally had it as a "safe house" for my cats before I moved up to the mountains.  The three cats would get in the three rooms  and be protected from the elements.  Since I don't have three cats anymore, and the one I do have hardly ever goes outside, we had filled the rooms of the doll house with spare wood for the wood stove. But, this morning, I said, "What if..."  You see, the Peeps were all hanging out on the porch, on top of the doll house, atop flower pots next to the doll house... Even perching on pieces of wood that jutted out of the doll house rooms. What if I took the wood out of the rooms?                     Would they get in like the cats used to do?

Where's that "No Vacancy" sign???

So I carried the wood inside and have been using it for the fire all day.  Meanwhile, Pretty Face was the first to find a spot - left lower bunk, thank you very much!  Since then, various birds have been spotted in various parts of the house.  It's been another of those quirky little amusements to see who is where from time to time as the morning progressed.






Last I looked there were no chickens on the back porch.  They have a daily routine, which involves nap time.
I kid you not!  They all go back into the coop, hunker together in a big mound of  feathers, beaks, and feet, and sleep for about an hour.  They will be back out in a little while, ready to investigate the yards once again.

Meanwhile, Moxie and Beau are "guarding" the Peeps' chicken house.  They have stationed themselves on the hillside, just above the coop. Moxie, of course, considers herself their mother... But, Beau - bless his timid heart - is actually afraid of the chickens.  Yesterday I spotted them following him across the back yard, the way they would follow Moxie. Or me. Or Moshe.  Poor ol' Beau would  walk a little faster, and the Peeps would speed up, too.  Finally, he ran around the corner, apparently overwhelmed with the entourage.

Yes, I am easily amused.  I live a simple life.  But, it's a good life.  I laugh more deeply and more often than anyone I know.  The animals are a big part of that laughter. So, thanks be to God for giving us that light dusting of snow and providing me with a light dusting of laughter as well...

The Sky Is Falling

left to right - Blondie and Chicken Little

    Okay. What a strange day.  The oddest thing happened this afternoon.  I was in the kitchen and had just put the lasagna noodles into the pot of boiling water when Moshe came in the back door.  He had the funniest look on his face; somewhere between incredulity and being in on a private joke...
     He said, "Come outside."  I hesitated.  He said it again.  A bunch of thoughts raced through my mind... Did we have unexpected company?  Maybe someone I hadn't seen in a long time?  Or, was there a new puppy or kitten out there?  He said, "Turn to your right."  I did so.  He then instructed me to walk down the side of the house and toward the chicken arks.  By the time I got to the steps leading down to the yard, I spotted her;  a pretty little white chicken.  Almost identical in size to our peeps.
     Moshe got some corn and pellets to throw to her and we approached her from opposite sides.  She was REALLY easy to catch - obviously not wild like some we've tried to catch.  I picked her up and held her, carried her to the coop and put her in with the peeps.  She got up on one of the roosts, and seemed pretty happy there.  The other peeps tolerated her presence without many ruffled feathers.  "Blondie" made a point of letting her know that he IS the boss of her,  but moments later they were side by side eating. 

"May I have this dance?"

 
 I've decided to call her "Chicken Little".  She looked so tiny when I first lay eyes on her... AND, the sky must be falling, 'cause it seemed as if she fell out of it!  A week or so ago, I wrote in my blog titled, "Reigning Cats and Dogs", about windstsorms carrying animals and depositing them in odd places.  But, there wasn't any wind today.  We suspect that someone who knows we have chickens needed to get rid of this little chickie for some reason, and they just dropped her off, much like people drop off unwanted puppies, kittens, and - sadly - babies. 
     And so we have one more peep to add to our menagerie.  Next time somebody wants to drop off "spare animals", how 'bout a pygmy goat or two???
               Shalom Y'all - Twyla

Ahh, The Peaceable Kingdom

Pretty Face

     Life is a learning experience.  And life on the farm is certainly a learning experience!  We never cease to be amazed at the occurrences here on our little homestead.
     Last weekend we moved all the baby chicks together -  3 that Pretty Face recognized as the ones she'd hatched, and the 6 that she rejected having been brought in as newcomers when a week or so old. We put all the Peeps together, thinking it would be best to combine them before they got to an age where they'd fight. (Admittedly, we don't know what that age would be, but we were basing it on the fact that the girls are acting like hens and the boys are acting like roosters.)
      So, together they went, and they did very well as one big family.  But, poor Pretty Face.  She remained in her little broody coop.  Alone.  She could see and hear her babies, but couldn't get to them.  It made me sad from the first moment. She cried and paced in her courtyard.  I was certain that she wanted to be with her babies!  Moshe kept saying, "Oh, she'll be alright."  But I just didn't think so...  More out of concern for me than Pretty Face, Moshe agreed to try putting her in with all the chicks.  It didn't work at all!  She pecked ferociously at the 6 "intruders", while happy to see her 3 chicks.  She went back to her solitary life.
     It bothered me all week.  It bothered me every time I looked out the back door, every time I went out to get in the Jeep, every time I went to get firewood, etc.  Ohhh, it bothered me.  I knew that Mamma chicken was mourning.  She paced nervously and talked incessantly.  I knew - like only another mother could - that she was missing her babies terribly. But, neither Moshe nor I could figure out what to do about it.

Peeps and the Peep hole

 

 Then, last night insomnia stuck.  I solved 2 or 3 problems during my middle-of-the-night-sleeplessness.
One of the solutions was the Pretty Face situation.  My idea was confirmed later in the morning when I spoke to my parents on the phone.  Mom grew up on a big farm with lots & lots of chickens.  When I described my idea, she said it was exactly what they used to do with the broody hens.  So, here it is:  We moved Pretty Face's broody coop adjacent to the Peeps coop, cutting a "Peep-sized" hole in the chicken wire so that the Peeps can go from cage to cage but Pretty Face has to stay in her territory. We figured Pretty Face's 3 Peeps could visit her, yet still interact with the other Peeps.  And, if the other Peeps came into hostile territory they could escape through the Peep hole. (No pun intended.)  My hope was that they could ALL learn to get along...
    

the combined coops

When the deed was done, sure enough several chicks went through into the broody coop.  Pretty Face immediately took her babies under her wing.  She started out scolding and pecking at the other Peeps, but in less than ten minutes she was accepting them all!  At one point I looked out the back door and Pretty Face had 6 chicks with her - and, only 2 were her original chicks.  Another time she was drinking simultaneously with 4 chicks, only one of which was "hers". 
     Moxie was really helpful during the transition.  While Moshe was cutting the chicken wire and moving the broody coop, he let Pretty Face walk in the back yard.  We knew she wouldn't go far... not with her babies so close by.  Moxie the Wonder Dog walked alongside Pretty Face, keeping track of her like a shepherdess with her sheep.
     And CassPurr?  He slept on the dining room chair that he has claimed as "his", totally oblivious to any and all the world's problems.  A total success story.

                 Shalom Y'all - Twyla

Update on the Peeps



Me, feeding three chicks in a saucer,  10/20/10 = 18 days ago

  
 The  peeps - that is, the six that Pretty Face refused to adopt - have graduated to a cage on the the screened-in porch. The other three remain in the little chicken condo with Pretty Face.  All the peeps are growing beautiful colorful feathers which change on a daily basis;  they are growing up!  The six that were indoors with us are still very human-friendly.  When we open the cage to give food or water, they fly out and onto our arms and shoulders.  Yesterday, we had out of town visitors who got to witness them doing just that!  It was very humorous;  they ALL flew onto Moshe... He was covered with little chickens.
     A couple weeks ago three chicks could stand on one saucer and eat their mash (as per photo to left).  Today, one chick would be too much for a saucer.

      And, so it goes.  The cycle of life. Fast.  Way too fast for lil' ol' me!  Before ya' know it, they will be out in the new chicken coop, providing us with more eggs and more peeps.  I only hope that they continue to enjoy our company the way they do now.
     Shalom, y'all -     Twyla
   

The Funny Farm Gazette

CassPurr  and  Sophia

  I didn't blog yesterday.  I couldn't blog yesterday. Yesterday was one of those "Funny Farm" days...

     You see, the day before I had thoroughly cleaned the house. Everything except our office was in order, neat, clean, pretty.  (The office is another story for another day.)  All the floors, especially, were just swept, mopped, and vacuumed.  The only chore left to do was laundry... a piece of cake, right?
     So, once breakfast was over, my plan was to start the laundry and to work on some little decorating touches in the bathrooms, maybe hang a picture or two in the living room, kind of putter around between loads of laundry...
     Then, Moshe said he was going to re-vent the clothes dryer so that the heat would return back into the house during the winter. Just a little project, right?  I postponed starting the laundry because he had to move the dryer out from the wall and remove the canned goods from their corner so that he could work in the little laundry room.  We found new "homes" for the canned stuff and some of the other things that had been stacked  in the tiny little laundry room. Anything that couldn't readily be put somewhere logical got piled either on the screened-in porch or in the guest room.
     In order to redirect the dryer vent into the house, Moshe had to cut through the wall, into one of the hall closets, then put the vent hose in and secure it. Simple, right?  Except that this particular hall closet was piled with stuff floor-to-ceiling.  It had been a catch-all closet. A giant junk drawer. A hiding place for whatever it would hold.  Ugh.  We moved all that stuff into the guest room. 

    
     Moshe, of course, had to go out to the shed and get his power drill, etc.  Every move Moshe makes, his shadow - Moxie - follows.  So, the two of them made a few trips back and forth to the shed. (Oh, did I mention it had rained the night before?)  Leaves, twigs and muddy dogprints now decorated my floors...
     Around noon, Moshe realized he would need to buy a part in order to finish the dryer vent project. So, I gave him a small grocery list as well, and off he went to town.  Still in my PJ's, I debated whether to get right in the shower or clean up a few things first.  I decided to clean house for a while.  Someone knocked on the door. Mortified, I answered it.  It was a fellow looking for Moshe, and he said he would try to get him on his cell phone. Okay, enough humiliation for one day -  I went immediately to the shower, got dressed, put on makeup, etc.
     Moshe returned just as I was finishing the dishes. Things were still chaotic, but I was beginning to think I would get things straightened up. CassPurr, who had been sleeping at the foot of our bed all day, got up, ate some canned catfood,  used the litter box, then went back to our bed and threw up on one of my antique quilts.  Deep sigh. Another load of laundry added to the collection, which, by the way, had still not been started.

 
       But, I must also back up and remind the reader that we have six baby chicks in a big birdcage on the work table in our office.  These babies talk.  Alot. They have different sounds.  There's the morning singing while they are eating.  There's the conversational sound, which is a bit louder.  And then there's the distress call, which is ear-piercing.  Like all babies, the peeps need food, water, warmth, touch and talk.  About once an hour, I take a break from whatever I'm doing and check on the peeps.  I make sure they have all these things. This involves sitting down, holding two or three chicks in my lap for a few minutes to quiet them down.  I try to remember which ones I had last time and rotate shifts so that they all get some personal attention.  Moshe helps alot with this, too.  Often, we both are sitting at our desks, each holding three peeps. We bring out their little food bowls so that they can eat in our laps. The chicks scatter their mash everywhere.  This is minor compared to the fact that baby chicks poop almost constantly. Oh, what-the-heck.  At this point, a few more tee-shirts, added to the laundry pile won't make much difference, will it?
    The dryer project DID get finished!  It was about 3 in the afternoon.  I had washed one load of laundry in anticipation of the dryer being usable.  So, I started drying that load and washing another.  By now, it was 76 degrees outside.  Quickly, it became  80-something degrees inside. Ugh.  Reminder: until it gets really cold out, use dryer only in early morning to prevent overheating of house.
  

      Sometimes Moshe can be a little absent-minded... At one point he was the one who put the chicks back in the cage after a chick-sitting episode... About half-an-hour later, I was in the kitchen putting together the lasagna for supper.  I was busy, but realized that the peeps' noise was getting louder, and louder, and LOUDER.  I looked up from my work, and all the peeps were marching down the hall towards the kitchen!
The office and hallway  are carpeted. ( Did I mention that peeps poop almost constantly?)  I gathered them up and put them back in their cage.  And I closed the door to the cage - this was the step poor Moshe had omitted.
     Okay, so it wasn't exactly a "Better Homes & Gardens" day.  Maybe I need to start a new magazine.  How 'bout  "The Funny Farm Gazette"???