My little Easter miracle :)

Just had to give an update on little Stevie Wonder my blind chickie.
Last Saturday night when I put my hand in the chick brooder I noticed that Stevie seemed to look up at it. Surprised, I put my finger to his right and he turned towards it, moved my finger to his left and he turned towards it again! This little chicken definitely could NOT see and never reacted to my hand before this. His vision still seems to be lacking but he has some ability to see now. Dave & I are truly amazed! I've been feeding him a mash of chicken crumbles, boiled egg, and garlic. I know garlic has some amazing properties but curing blindness? Hmm, we'll never know how he gained his sight but his future looks much brighter now (no pun intended...)
Here's a pic of my little Wonder chicken
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Spring glorious Spring

Ahhhh Spring is in the air in Montana. It's almost as if you can watch the little green shoots of grass growing. My Bearded Iris, Daffodils, and mystery bulbs are popping up in my garden.
Winter and snow were almost non-existant so the frequent Spring rains have been most welcome.

We've found that Chuckie doesn't care for thunderstorms. Hours after the thunder ended poor little guy was still hiding in the bedroom.

Our animal family has increased dramatically since I last posted. We are fostering two wolfdogs Storm & Hope and are considering adding Hope to our little pack permanently. Storm is a big galoof, wonderful with humans but too dog-aggressive to keep here. Queen Luna would not take kindly to being dominated by him the way he does to Hope. We had the opportunity to keep Hope in the house for a week after her spaying and it was quite a challenge. At eight months she's already taller than Luna & Quill and a complete spaz puppy. Her favorite places to be were checking out the kitchen sink and the kitchen table. Sadly, no one ever spent quality time with these doggies and they didn't even respond to their names when they arrived here. Hope eventually started to grasp the word "no" and chose to heed it on occasion while rummaging through the kitchen sink for goodies. She is young though, and with some time and love we think she will be a wonderful dog.

In recent weeks we have hatched out a total of 27 chickens in my new cabinet incubator. Our first hatch was poor due to an inaccurate thermometer reading too low and we only hatched six-two of which didn't survive more than three days. Of the four survivors one has a bad leg (hence the name Pogo) and one developed an ailment known as crookneck. Poor little thing would tuck it's head into it's chest and scurry around backwards. Our thought was that it was having seizures. Thanks to the world of the internet I was able to do research on it's condition and learned that it could be cured through massage. Untreated, the little guy/gal would've died. I spent a week massaging it's neck six times a day (which it thoroughly enjoyed) and now weeks later you never would've known it ever had a problem. The other two chicks thankfully were very healthy from the get-go.

My second hatch a week ago was a much greater success. Seventeen Buff Orpingtons, two Barred Rocks, and mix breed Barred Rock/game hen baby. We also adopted a lone day old chick from a neighbor who only had the single one hatch. Poor little thing was very small and weak so I began handfeeding it and soon realized that it is blind. Didn't know where my fingertip with the food was so pecked wildly at the air looking for it. I tried waving my hand in front of it's face and got no reaction. I've been told by folks in my chicken groups that a blind chicken can survive once it knows where the food and water are so until it figures it out I will continue to handfeed it. Dave said "You don't put down a human cuz it's blind" so we've decided that as long as it shows will to live it will have a life with us. Luckily all the other chicks being just a day older have taken to it well so it gets to happily snuggle amongst them in the brooder.
Got 28 Barred Rock eggs in the incubator due to hatch in just a few weeks too! :) The sound of happy peeping will fil our living room for another few months or so.

The two chickens we allowed a broody hen to set last September both turned out to be roosters. Popcorn & Pitch are just coming into their hormonal teenage stage and are relentlessly terrorizing the girls. Popcorn has the sweetest personality- a real mama's boy. He loves to be petted and held. Definitely not your typical roo.

Other additions to our chicken herd are Whoopee a beautiful Barred Rock rooster and Sid & Nancy, a pair of game fowl given to me as a gift by Sal who I work with at the butcher shop. Unfortunately with Spring in the air and Whoopee and Sid starting to mature at 6 mos. of age they have started to fight so much we are having to keep them seperate. Dave is in the planning stage of building me a big chicken coop with four seperate runs so I can seperate by breed. My plan is to sell chicks next Spring which is why I'm hatching so many babies right now. I need to get a good breeding population of both Barred Rocks and Buff Orpingtons.

I have started a second job working with disabled adults in addition to working at the butcher shop so I have the best of both worlds- a job that challenges me mentally as well as one that challenges me physically. Dave continues to keep busy running the homefront.

Well, time to go put the chickens in for the evening and feed the doggies. Life on the farm continues. :)

Life, Death, and growth on the farm

Well, all four eggs hatched. Unfortunately the first hatched and died overnight in the coop and I found the poor little thing in the morning. As the remaining three hatched (had to help the last two out of their shells) they were brought inside to a brooder for safekeeping. Sadly, Quill got into the brooder yesterday and one of the babies was killed. Our fault for not making it more secure- can't blame the dog for instinct. Luckily, we still have two cute, cheeping, happy, healthy little bundles of joy.
We seem to have aquired a new family member in the last few days as well. A very sweet, lovey young male cattledog showed up at our place. Dave drove all around but no luck in finding his home and as it was a cold rainy night he got to spend the night here in the bed with us and the rest of the dogs. The girls loved having a boytoy around. Dave was able to find the owner the next day who had only had Pete for two days. A very sweet old man who just can't handle the youngster. He was Pete's third home already and I'm guessing him to only be 8 mos. old or so. Dave has returned Pete home every night but we find him sitting outside our gate each morning. Charlie, the older gentleman told Dave to ask me if I want him and after discussing it we've decided to take him in as it seems he has chosen us as his family. Today he passed the "cat test" so it looks like he will be here to stay. The first night Dave dubbed him Chuckie which fits this comical little guy very well so that will be his new name. Dave was telling him this morning all about the drive they would get to take to Billings aka snip-snip as we don't need an amorous young male around the farmstead. ;)

Autumn has arrived

Amazing how the season seemed to change perfectly with the calendar. The air is crisp and cool with puffy white clouds rolling by. My garden got hit by a frost a few nights ago and the squash and melon plants seemed the only ones to take a hit luckily. I've resigned myself to the fact that I won't see a single tomato ripen from this years crop. I hope to take cuttings from all ten varieties and overwinter them indoors to have a better start next year. Next year's garden should be much better with all the chicken poop and straw to fertilize my poor soil.
We get daily visits from a group of over 40 wild turkeys that come in for seed and have gotten quite tame. It has been fun watching the babies grow. It's a funny sight seeing a herd of 40 turkeys running in when you call. We also have three mama deer with twins that are coming by as well. We recognize two of the mamas from last years visitors. The babies have now lost their spots but are still cute as can be.
The chickens are all fat and happy and the Buff Orpington peepers still love to climb in our laps for snuggles. They are blessing us with around nine eggs a day usually. We decided to let one of our 2 yr old Austrolorps fulfill her dream of being a mommy and gave her four eggs from three of our chickens that we'd like to have babies from which she happily tucked underneath her wings while clucking little thankyous. I candled the egglings a week ago and saw the embryos moving in all four so Brewster did his roosterly job of fertilizing the eggs well. He takes his job very seriously....Poor girls...
Today is day ninteen so begins "Egg Watch 2005" as they could hatch anytime in the next few days. Poor Miss Broody is going to get tired of me lifting her up to peer under her every hour.
I sectioned off a little area of the coop today to make a nursery of sorts until we see how the other chickens react to the new little peepers. Dave has been working on insulating the coop in preparation for winter which will be here sooner than we know.
I'm working at the local butcher shop 3-4 days a week in trade for meat so Dave and the dogs are very happy with the arrangement. The dogs enjoy sniffing me and licking little meat and sausage bits from me when I get home at night. It was fun to bring Dave home some summer sausage (one of his most favorite things) that I made myself. Not a job I would have imagined having ( a far cry from dentistry) but I'm enjoying the hard physical work.
Dave is putting our new (used) wood chipper to good work attacking the many brush piles we've accumulated from his wood cutting this past year. He's been very busy cutting down dead trees and splitting wood for the woodstove. We should be in really good shape for winter.

Hot hot hot!!!

Phew, sitting here in 102* heat looking for any excuse not to do any work so thought this would be a good time for an update. :) The garden is doing well- some plants better than others. Unfortunately have had a massive onslaught of flea beetles enjoying anything leafy except interestingly, the squash and tomatoes. I think it's time to whip up some kind of organic spray to deter their numbers. I've hesitated as quite a few ladybugs have also made my garden home and have done a wonderful job of decimating the aphids on my pea plants. I had foolishly hoped the climate here would be to extreme for aphids... Oh well... Got a few peas, zucchini and summer squash on the vine and the melon and spaghetti squash are starting to flower. The beets and carrots are looking good too.
Been a challenge keeping the chickens cool in this weather we've had the past three weeks but hosing down their run and misting them with the hose seems to be helping. They're not real thrilled about the hose but they're definitely much happier once they've cooled down. The peepers are as sweet as ever and love to jump in your lap for cuddles.
We take them out into the front yard every evening for some grasshopper hunting. Dave walks the yard with the whole little herd following him waiting for him to point them out. Very cute! I think the chickens think he's a big rooster. Ha ha!
Our little flock is now up to sixteen. Got five two yr old hens for $1 apiece a month ago and as of an hour ago they've blessed us with 114 eggs. The new girls are four Black Austrolorps and a Barred Rock. Got a dozen eggs on the stove right now for some eggsalad sandwiches for dinner. Too darn hot to think about cooking or eating anything warm today. Brewester crowed for the first time yesterday. Dave & I heard this really odd sound coming from the chicken yard so went out to check on them and there was little Mr. Brewster, neck stretched out, attempting to crow his heart out. He's running around with a crazed look in his eyes these days chasing all the girls around attacking them. He doesn't know quite what to do yet so just attacks them until they run away. He'll figure it out I'm sure... ;)

New kids June 3

Peepers June 1

Peepers April 19

The farmstead is growing!

Well, the chicken eggs didn't hatch... :( Only one was fertile and the heatlamp went out two days before hatch day and the little chickie didn't survive. Got down to 61*-way too cold for an incubating egg... However we are now the proud parents of seven little chickens we raised from a week old and four teenage chickens we got from our local freecycle group. They're happily enjoying the coop and yard Dave built for them. The peepers we raised from babyhood are sweet as can be and love to jump in our laps for attention. The older ones are coming around but need a lot more socializing.
The garden's all tilled and planted and the recent rains have all kinds of little sprouts coming up. I'm anxious to see what we end up with at the end of the season. Hopefully I'll have enough to learn canning skills on. I consider this first year experimental so anything we get will be a bonus.

Hopefully hatching chicken eggs...

Well, driving home from a new friend's house with nine fresh, still warm, fertile chicken eggs sitting in my passenger seat I convinced myself that I should try to "grow" them rather than eat them. This is a first for me and I may well be setting myself up for failure but I just had to try... Everything I've read online was very specific about maintaining 100* temp with only 1* fluctuation and very specific humidity or they won't hatch. I'm really good at justifying things and convinced myself that this probably isn't always the case in nature sooooo we set up a styrofoam box with a water pan for humidity and a heatlamp and I have nine little eggies sitting in there all cozy as we speak. We have a thermometer in with them and it fluctuates between 97 and 102* (still trying to figure out just the perfect height for the bulb). My husband is as big a sucker as I am and is already calling them our little babies. :) Keeping fingers crossed...