Birds (and a Cat)

Feeding time at the bird feeder.   All the free range chickens gather round to get any seed that drops.

 Mavis, our wonderful cat.   She is an outside cat and a great hunter.  Amazingly she is 11 years old!

 Jungle Birds! (that's what my dh likes to call them when they wander in the woods)

Birds and Snow

Aaron, our bird lover, went outside to fill up the bird feeders.   He stood very still for a long time and was finally successful.

 If you look very closely, you'll see a bird eating out of his hand.   It was a brave and hungry chickadee.

 Our chickens really love the ground under the birdfeeders.   But they don't like walking in the snow.   So Aaron shoveled a path from our coop to the bird feeders.

 The chickens appreciated the path very much.

 But it was a narrow "one chicken wide" path.   Whenever two chickens going opposite directions met, neither one wanted to give way and step into the deeper snow on either side of the path.   It made for entertaining viewing from the window.

20,000th Egg

Today Aaron collected the 20,000 egg produced here at Cold Feathers Farm.

Now we're trying to decide what to do with it?   Fry it?   Make it part of a quiche?

Fun at the Fair!

We participated in the county fair again this year.   No best of shows this year but we still did well.   Aaron got an "A" award for his eggs.

I got a second place for jelly (opal basil herb jelly), second place for pickled carrots, and third place for my cherries.

Stephen, Deborah and Aaron all got "A" awards for their vegetables.

 We took our traditional Ferris Wheel ride...

... and bumper car ride. 

 We saw the animal show - this year it was elephants!

Easter pictures

Since Aaron was still on crutches for Easter, we postponed the egg hunt at home. When he was walking, the three youngest hid eggs for each other.

See the camo egg hid for Stephen by Aaron?

Deborah is reaching very carefully into the blackberry brambles for her egg.

Aaron contemplating his egg?

Remember the chick with the pompom on her head? Take a look at this great Easter bonnet!

Chicks and Chickens

Last week, we had a quick snowstorm and our silly chickens got trapped by the bird feeder. The chickens don't like to walk on snow so they stayed under the feeder where they had a little bare spot of ground. Finally after some snow started accumulating on their backs, I sent Nathan out there to shoo them into their coop.

We have new chicks as well. This Dominic is a couple of days old.

We got a healthy batch this time - all strong and walking around almost immediately out of the box.

With our order, we elected to receive the free exotic chick. We're calling him (her) Pom since he looks like someone glued a pom-pom on his head. We're guessing he/she might be a Polish or a Silkie.

More fall chickens

The new flock is doing well. None of them are flyers which makes doing the chicken chore a lot easier these days. Now that the garden is essentially finished, we've let them out so they can scratch around in among the stalks and dead tomato plants. Hopefully it won't give them a taste for escaping their fenced yard.

New Chickens

We switched flocks recently and put the newer chickens over to the old coop and took the old birds to the butcher. I was very glad to get rid of this flock. The rooster and about half of the hens were always trying to get out of their yard. And into my garden! This new flock doesn't show any signs of flying over the fence so perhaps they will stay where we want them.

We have a new rooster. No name yet. I think he is a Old English Game Bantam. He was a bonus chick added to our order. It is always a mystery as to what it might be.

We went back to about half Dominiques which are our favorite breed.

This white and black hen is a Columbian Wyandotte.

This is a Partridge Rock. They are pretty good birds also.

15,000th Egg

Yes, we have hit Egg number 15,000. Actually it was in June, but better late than never is my blog philosophy.

Star Wars and Squirrels

Aaron created this Star Wars picture (with a little help from me). I helped him with the concept and showed him how to use the compass to make a perfectly round Death Star. He drew all the TIE fighters and X-wings and B-wings himself.

The chickens are enjoying the warmer weather and since the garden isn't in yet, they have the freedom of the whole yard and woods.

And finally, the squirrel stew made with Nathan's squirrel. It really does taste like a tougher chicken. Deborah said that it tasted delicious!

Chicken Coop Cleaning Day

Yesterday was a cool dry day and we cleaned out the chicken coop in preparation for winter. Though we've had such a warm fall that it doesn't seem like winter is coming.

We had some friends who wanted to come help us. My children were amazed that anyone wanted to come help clean out the coop. But it did make it more fun and it went much faster with more hands.

We took the dirty litter and spread it on the garden for next year.

Deb and her friend posing once they saw I was taking pictures.

And now for the best part! Spreading the new litter makes the coop smell so good.

A chicken checking our her newly cleaned coop.

We're very very busy and we've got a lot to do ...

Between a trip to see one set of Grandparents and a visit from the other set and the start of baseball season, I've fallen behind on my posts.   So I will try to catch you up on what we've been up to.

First my dh prepared the garden.    First the cultivator...

... then the tiller.   We planted all the early crops the middle week of April and almost everything is up despite the chilly weather we've been having.

In homeschooling news, we made butter for science class.   It was pretty easy and tasted very good.

All of us enjoying our butter on crackers.

Also in science we made models of alkanes, alkenes, and alkynes using marshmellows.

Science is great when you can eat it!

My mother helped us out alot and together we finally got the big signs done.   We had made these big signs in woodworking class 2 winters ago but hadn't painted them.

Aren't they nice?   My mom gets the credit for most of the painting.

This is a Dominique Rooster.

And just today, Deb lost her second front tooth.   Hopefully they grow in before sweet corn season!