We've had absurdly warm weather for the past few weeks, so lows in the 20s this weekend were not what my garden wanted. The camellia flowers are browning. The apricot blossoms are shriveling. I dumped mulch on both of the artichokes that are out in the raised beds in the hopes that they will survive, but I won't know for about a week. If they don't ( Read more... )

I reported here that the chickens were back online. Unfortunately, they appear to be working only at 50% productivity. I'm only getting small brown eggs right now, not big tan ones. I'm thinking that there is a power supply problem, and that I need to add more solar energy into the mix.

The chickens stopped producing in the middle of November. They went into molt and basically ended all other activities. I got two random eggs across two months ( Read more... )

I thought my chickens had gone into an early molt with the really cold temperatures. I didn't do anything about it besides change their water and their bedding a little more frequently. Then I saw one of the chickens had the shafts to three feathers without the feathery bits (not uncommon in a "hard molt") and had a dusting of white on her wing. ( Read more... )

you get up at 5:30 am and immediately do the barn chores because the weather is the warmest it is going to be right now... and it's 24 degrees ( Read more... )

This morning brought with it another bear visit. The front trash was strewn across the walkway and some of it was missing. The pole for the bird feeder was down and the feeder was missing. (I found it while on my way to my car, smashed to pieces behind the truck.) The dog was fascinated by the front yard and a little disappointed when I picked up ( Read more... )

It's been more than a year (374 days) since I got the new set of chickens. I have not kept up on my spreadsheet with how much chicken chow I've purchased, so that number is currently invalid. The two chickens produce distinctly difference sized and shaped eggs. I'm only assuming that Big Chicken is producing the bigger eggs, as I have not witnessed ( Read more... )

It's been pretty darn cold lately. It was another 8-degree morning today. I'm very glad that almost everyone has at least one bucket that doesn't freeze. And the baby boys don't seem to mind the personalized delivery of warm water.

( llama )

Emma has not been doing well in the shag shack group. She's been steadily loosing weight from being picked on and pushed out of the food area. Rather than fail at my lesson from Penny, I pulled Emma out of that pasture and put her back in with the baby girls and Jessie. While Jessie will bite to defend her chosen bowl, Emma certainly can push the ( Read more... )

Lately, the chickens have been really freaky, fluttery, and generally out of their heads. They've been dumping their water dish repeatedly, to the point that I am also filling a large goat food bowl with water and leaving that in the pen, too. I don't know if there is a very persistent fox/skunk/raccoon, or if they are suffering problems from the ( Read more... )