Fox.

Well, there have been no more aerial attacks since the bird netting went up over the chicken run.  But Saturday night we lost a little Silver-Laced Wyandotte pullet to a fox.  We were inside for maybe half an hour to shower and dress, went back out to put the birds away before dark, counted the little ones and came up one short.  Found a few feathers caught in the top of the fencing, and a pile of feathers outside of the run.  No body.  A bit further back into the woods were more feathers, and bowels.  We knew there was a fox den in our woods (one of our friend's kids found it and reported to us about it, bones outside of the hole and all), but we'd hoped the fencing would keep the birds safe.  No such luck. 

I've posted an ad on Craigslist looking for a trapper/hunter who might want to come and take care of it for us, but until then I'll be getting the birds to bed early and perching on the roof with our newly bought .22 rifle in the evenings.  I don't relish the idea of killing it... I think foxes are beautiful and spiritually powerful animals.  But I can't keep losing birds.  One dead fox instead of 20 dead birds seems reasonable to me.  It's my job to keep those birds healthy and safe, and given that every non-lethal option we could think of is ineffective against foxes, we're gonna do what we have to do.

Happiness!

We found a great little farm/orchard about 15 minutes from us loaded with plants, produce, dairy/baked/pantry goods, locally made meads and wines!  AND they have a coffee shop in the local town that shows food films on the regular, has bluegrass/folk bands each weekend and is BYOB.  We might even roll on over there this evening to check it out.  This sounds like the kind of place where we might meet like-minded local folks. 

Today I mowed between the garden beds with the push-reel mower.  The grass around here is absurdly long (really too long for the push-reel mower, honestly) because the gasoline mower is in the shop being fixed... so, we're rocking the whole meadow-in-the-backyard thing until we get it back.  But I HAD to mow between the garden beds before they got taken over again.  I also weeded all four of them and mulched the strawberry bed (well, most of it.  I underestimated how much mulch we'd need and didn't quite have enough licorice root to cover the whole bed, much less all four...).

We let the ducks swim about in the pond, much to their delight.  We cooked some veggie burgers on the grill, and even ate some potato chips with them.  We opened the hive for inspection and found a healthy, thriving colony... even watched a few baby bees chewing their way out of their beeswax nursery cells!  We added the second hive body to give them more room.  Peonies, roses, and many iris are in bloom... It really feels like summer.

This evening a friend came over with a photographer for her maternity photo shoot, and it was a simply beautiful day for it.  I took some photos too!

Sadness, excitement, anticipation, stress!

The ducks moved outside last week.  We put together a nice secure little house with a heat lamp for them, and placed it inside the chicken run.  They were so happy (and clean)!

Yesterday I came home from work to only three of the four ducklings in the pen.  I searched for Squash for an hour before giving in to sobbing.   Then as I strung fishing line over the run (figuring it was probably a hawk), I found his remains in the yard.  That confirmed my suspicion of hawk activity.  I cried and cried and carried his poor little body to his grave, then cried some more.  I found the idea of the other birds seeing that happen to him so horrible... and a couple hours later I saw the hawk flying around above the trees.  I screamed at it, then cried again.

Today, the run is entirely covered in bird netting.  Hopefully that will keep our little critters safe from aerial attacks.  It's so sad to lose little baby creatures like that... I'm gonna miss his little peeps.  At least he got to live his short life as a real duck, with grass and water underfoot.

I spent the last few days out on the unit in the ED.  It was busy, stressful, and humbling... but by the end of the day today I was feeling better acquianted with the way things work.  I took care of a Tier 3 Trauma Alert head injury patient today, almost independently.  A woman came in with an acute MI into our pod, but wasn't assigned to me... so I watched the MI Alert process happen.  It was incredible to see how everyone (assigned nurse, cath lab nurses, cardiologists, ED docs, medics) converged on that room and took care of business.  She had an EKG done and read by an MD less than ten minutes from her arrival time.  From the time she walked in the door to the time she had a balloon in her coronary arteries opening a blockage was 55 minutes.  Amazing.

I have four days off (woot!), and I intend to enjoy them thoroughly.  I plan to mulch my garden, go for a run, check out the closest farmer's market, and sleep in late.  I just hope that the rain stops at some point this weekend!

Ducklings...

... they need to go outside SO BADLY.  The minute I get fresh water, bedding and food into the brooder... they make a complete mess of it, poop in all of it, and make duck soup.  They're messy, stinky, sloppy little things!  But they sure are cute!

Don't mind the cooing, squeeing, and "aw!"s... it was way too cute, and we can't help ourselves.

Wet ducks! and other less savory creatures.

Today I brought the ducks outside and gave them their first supervised experience in water.  I took my biggest mixing bowl and filled it a bit more than halfway with warm water.  Then I took each duckling and put them into it.  Coyote was first.  She took to it IMMEDIATELY, "like a duck in water"!  She started splashing around, dunking her head under, preening... even splashing at the surface of the water with her little itty bitty wings.  Too cute. 

Roadrunner went in next.  First he froze up, unsure of what to do.  Then he stood up to his full runner duck height and started peeping at the top of his lungs.  Then he realized, "wait... this is FUN!" and starting splashing and dunking and playing too.  I put Coyote back in with him to play a bit and they didn't want to get out when their turn was over.

Then Squish and Squash.  Both freaked and scrambled out immediately.  I gave them a break, then tried again, easing them slowly into the water and stroking their bellies.  No good.  They wanted nothing to do with it at all!  How funny is that?  I suppose it's like toddlers learning to walk... some catch on faster than others, but in the end it will become a natural thing for them.

On the homefront... the house is a bit of a mess, and the office isn't yet unpacked and organized.  Our work on the two upstairs bedrooms is on hold until the ducklings are living outside... once that is accomplished, we can clear out the "brooder" room, lay down the floor in there, and make it a liveable space.  Right now, it's plywood floors and duck poop.  Oh well.

One of our little Ameraucana chicks got pecked really badly on her back... a little hole all the way down to the muscle.  It looks awful.  We've been cleaning it and applying antibiotic ointment, and covering it with a big bandaid... so far she seems okay and it's been three days.  Hoping she heals up well.

The asparagus crowns I planted are sending up little stalks, and I filled in the rest of the trenches around them with soil and compost.  The strawberries and blueberries look great, and the raspberry canes are leafing out a bit.  The apple trees are covered in leaves and looking very happy.  We are slowly getting into the ground all of the lovely plants that Honeybunch's mother brought down for us... lilies, dahlias, groundcovers, hops... all kinds of perrenials.  The grass is so tall it's absurd... but we don't have a lawnmower yet, so it will wait.

My second week at the new job didn't start off too great.  We were in class (policies and procedures, policies and procedures!!!!!  Ugh!) in the oldest building on the campus.  The hospital also happens to be near a major local river.  And I learned, first thing Monday morning, that the building has a pest control problem of a very particular nature. 

It was the size of my thumb.
And no, it was not a "waterbug".  "Waterbug" is just another word for "cockroach".

I immediately ran down the hall into the bathroom to begin wretching, hyperventilating and sobbing.  That process continued for more than an hour before I could calm myself enough to walk back down the hall and take my seat in the classroom, tear-stained and twitching.  I have a true phobia, and there is nothing I can do to control my response... luckily the nurse educator running the orientation understood.  I got through the rest of the day, though it only got marginally better as I came home to mess after mess.... but I got through.

The next day, same thing, as soon as I walked in the door of the building.  Another hour, hour and a half panic attack/freak out.  But I recovered, once more, and got a 100% on the 100-question medication test they require of each new nurse.  Apparently I am the third person to ever get that score on that test.  I felt like hot stuff after that!  The rest of the day was better than the former, and I even got more than 6 hours of sleep last night.

Today I was on the floor in the ER (no cockroaches so far.  It's a brand new building, and about 4 blocks away from the old one on the campus...hoping for the best).  It was my first day actually "doing things" there instead of just following, though I was limited in what I could do because I haven't really been trained in the computer system thoroughly.  But I passed some meds, triaged someone, stuck someone for an IV, discharged two people, did some point of care testing, and documented everything correctly in the computer system (even if it did take me a while to find my way around on there).  It felt good to be doing actual nursing again.

We have a queen!  Larvae were confirmed in the frames on Sunday.  Hurray!

Bee update

Well, I'm not sure what is happening in our hive.  When we lifted the lid to check if the queen had been released, she was still in her cage.  There was a dead body of a worker bee (one of her attendants) in the cage with her, blocking the exit on the sugar side.  We removed the twig and put the cage back in so that she could join her loyal subjects.  We opened the hive three days later to see if she was out and working.  We inspected all of the frames, but did not see her.  We tried to search the wax cells that the workers had been busy drawing out for evidence of eggs, but we had poor light and the frames were so thick with worker bees that we could only see bits of peices of comb through them. 

Those blobs of wax comb were built out around the queen's cage.

Look at all them bees!

The good news was that they had been working hard, and there were several frames almost completely full of comb, and cells full of nectar and pollen were visible.  We watched them do their shaky-butt dance that means "I FOUND NECTAR!", watched them bury themselves headfirst in the cells, watched them touch each other and communicate.  It was fascinating... but I am concerned about the queen.  We'll check again next week and see what's up, hopefully when we have better light.

The ducks are getting bigger every day.  It's hard to tell by looking at them, because we only have their fellow ducklings to compare them to and they're all growing at the same rate.  But I can feel them getting heavier when I pick them up to pet their little squishy bellies and stroke them under the chin.  They sure are messy, though.  They want so badly to be in water, so they walk in the trough of their waterer, making a mess of the wood chip bedding AND of their drinking water at the same time.  Once they're feathered out we'll let them take a supervised swim in the bathtub and see how they do.... and then it's outside with them!  They're messy and stinky and I can't wait until they can live outdoors where they belong.... but they sure are cute!

I just finished my first week at the new job, and I feel like my brain is mush from being talked at in a classroom for 8 hours each day.  Next week is more of the same.  I understand the need to get us new folks up to speed on policy and procedure, but I can only absorb so much of that in one sitting. By 1230 my brain is out to lunch and I'm not retaining any of it, I'm certain. 

I'm a little blue, which is probably mostly due to the fact that I'm sleep deprived.  I simply can't make myself go to bed early, no matter how early I've gotten up that morning.  It just isn't natural to me.  So, I go to sleep much later than I should and wake up at 5am feeling like crap.  In addition, I feel a little lonely out here.  I've hardly seen my fiance this week, and starting work at a HUGE hospital where I am a total stranger is rough.  Everyone has been very kind and courteous... one of the staff nurses in the ER even took lunch with me the other day so I wouldn't eat alone, even though I was in class all day and she was on the floor.  But there's not that comfortable feeling of working with people who know you.  I'm sure it will come with time.

I miss my friends.  The trade-offs of moving out here are worth it, I know.  To have the space to be alone, to be quiet... it's something I really can enjoy.  But there is also something to be said for having two of your best friends living right next door, ready to share a cup of coffee or a glass of wine when you come home to an empty house.  It's not easy to connect with our friends in the city with everyone being so busy, ourselves included.  I'll see some folks this weekend, as we're driving that way for a friend's baby shower and a hoop workshop... I'm sure that will make me feel better.  It's just an adjustment of lifestyle, that's all.

How do you folks deal with loneliness?  What do you do to find community in your new rural area when the hotspot is the Beer Barn??

http://youtu.be/sO5APfKnR50

And this is what I'm listening to instead of sleeping like I should be right now.

A wildcrafted luncheon

This is what we ate one afternoon this past weekend: wild morels sauteed in butter, wilted dandelion greens with balsamic vinegar, chickweed and violet salad with pomegranate dressing.

So wonderful!

This little chicks are out of the house and into the coop outside, though they are still small enough to slip through the holes in the run fencing, so we keep them in the coop during the day while the big chickens roam the run.  They have a heat lamp hooked up to keep them from getting a chill over night and seem to be doing just fine, despite the pecks and pokes from the big girls asserting their dominance.

The young ducklings are doing very well, and now have names!  The two Khaki Campbells are Squish and Squash, the fawn male runner duck is Roadrunner, and the blue female runner is Coyote.  They all peep excitedly and stand up on their tip-toes when we enter the room with the brooder, I think they know that I'm mommy :)

I had my first day at my new job today.  It was full of paperwork and presentations on patient safety, compliance and confidentiality, blah blah blah.  Tomorrow I'll be orienting in the ER, so hopefully it will be more interesting!



Happy Beltaine!

I hope everyone is enjoying today's celebration of renewal and rebirth.

Bees and morels

Today began with checking on the chicks and ducklings.  As I held little Coyote (the blue female runner duck), I looked out the window to see the sky darkening ominously.  I told her that we'd probably get a storm today.  Before the words had left my lips, the skies opened up and dumped a tremendous amount of water on us.  We've had a rainy Spring,  but I haven't seen rain like that since our trip to North Carolina last July... it was incredible.  Honeybunch and I sipped our coffee on the front porch to the crack and rumble of thunder.

As the day went on, I grew anxious for the fact that our bees had not yet arrived.  I called the apiary to make sure they were coming, and he said they'd shipped a day late and should be here by the end of the day tomorrow.  I contented myself with planting rosebushes (thanks Katari!) and blackberries (thanks Herr Burmeister!), hauling away sod, and practicing with my firehoop for Saturday night's performance.  Around 5:00pm, my phone rang.

We picked the honeybees up at the post office right after they called to alert us to their arrival, armed with a spray bottle of sugar syrup.  The postman had his wife and son there checking the bees out, they were as fascinated as we were!

We brought them home, sprayed them generously with sugar syrup again, and let them rest in the barn for a bit over two hours.  Those little ladies on the outside of the box had been clinging to it throughout their journey, as there were no holes in the wire to be seen.

We installed the bees into their new home at dusk without incident.  I made one error, accidentally poking the wooden plug at the "non candy end" of the queen's cage into her enclosure, making a hole through which she could immediately exit.  We found a suitable sized stick to reseal that hole so the workers could eat their way in and have time to accept her as queen before her release. 

As we worked, the little ladies were crawling all over us, licking the sticky sugar syrup from our hands and exploring their new digs.   It went smoothly, and it was fun to see the girls get right down to work, clearing out the dead bees that came out of the box with them and crawling all over the queen's cage and the frames.

While walking in the beautiful woods in the rear of our property... 

Honeybunch found this:

It was a little one, so he put a jar over top of it to let it grow a bit before we harvest.  Tomorrow, we conduct a proper search for its kin... where there's one, there's more.  I cannot believe we have morel mushrooms growing on our land... as if this place needed to be any more perfect!  When we were looking for a home and talking about what we wanted, we'd always add on at the end... "...and it would be nice if there was a good morel patch somewhere too, but that's too much to hope for".  I guess we've been proven wrong!



Early Storm Warning

"Storm's a'comin'!!"

"Huh?"

"Run for the hills, ladies!"

I love April.

No bees yet...

... but there certainly are DUCKLINGS!

They are soft, squishy, cuddly little bundles of joy and I can't get enough of them.  The blue runner ruck is a girl and the fawn/white a boy, and one of each for the Khakis, too.  I'm excited to have the chance to let our ducks and chickens hatch out their own young next year... no more dealing with hatcheries or feed stores, and no more brooders smelling/heating up the spare bedroom!

I took two of the chicks to the vet today along with some stool samples, and they do have coccidiosis.  However, since they've had the vaccine, the vet said that they'll likely "develop immunity" and it shouldn't actually make them "sick"... that the ones who died in the first few days probably died from the exposure from the vaccine and the ones who survived should do fine.  I'm just supposed to keep an eye on them and make sure they're gaining weight.  They're all acting fine, eating and drinking normally, but they feel a little thin, so I'm going to entice them with some treats tonight, me thinks.  I split them into two brooder boxes to give them some more room.

Sigh... if I had known that the vaccine itself was so dangerous, I'd have foregone it and just fed them medicated starter feed like I have in years past.  But, lessons are learned.  Now I just have to see how well the little ones do in the next few weeks.  I was happy to have found this vet, given that the many I called don't deal with birds... and she also works with skunks, so our little Flower girl has a doctor nearby if she ever needs one!

I think I'll bring the chicks out into the yard to get some fresh air and grass on this fine warm Spring day.  Hopefully the weather remains fair tomorrow for the (hopeful) arrival of our honeybees as well!

Tomorrow...

... the bees and ducklings will arrive.  I just called the post office to give them a heads up... the postmaster out here is SO much more accustomed to this sort of thing than the postmaster at our old place!!  The hive is set up down by the apple trees, up on concrete blocks to help keep it off the wet ground.  I've read and reread my instructions for what to do when the package arrives, and what to do when it's time to install them in the hive.  I'm excited, and nervous.  Honeybees were what originally interested me in the whole homesteading/livestock thing... I always found them fascinating, and at 16 years old decided I wanted to be a beekeeper.  I read book after book, falling deeper in love with the little ladies, and now years later I am finally fulfilling that dream. 

The baby chicks don't have a brooder light on at the moment... it's easily 75 to 80 degrees in that room without it on and they appear quite comfortable.  It's been raining like crazy off and on here since Sunday afternoon, and the sticky warm air is making it feel more like June than April.  When the thunderstorms break, the sun beats down powerfully, making the second floor of our house a very warm place to be indeed.  The chicks don't seem to mind, and I don't either with an icy cold margarita in my hand. 

The bad news is that I discovered some bloody poo in the brooder tonight... we'd gotten the chicks vaccinated for Marek's and coccidiosis, but I suspect that the latter has made an appearance anyway.  Maybe that's what did in the three little sick ones who died in the first week?  Who knows.  All I know is that I will NEVER order from McMurray Hatchery ever again.  It's been one nightmare after another with the birds we ordered from them.  I have an appointment with a vet tomorrow morning to get their stool tested.  They're all acting fine, eating and drinking and bouncing off the walls... at least that's a good sign.

I'm sure the warm weather will make the ducklings happy as well, I'm sure.  I'm nervous about raising ducks, as it's a new adventure for us.  I'm hoping there will be enough room in the coop for them to hole up with the chickens... but if not, we'll build them a little duck house near the pond.  We're planning to let them free range, and to just herd them into the coop at night.

Mary, our little Barred Rock, passed the impacted egg mess she was struggling with and is doing just fine now!  She passed a bunch of eggy gook, and then a day or two later we found an egg with no shell at all in the coop, just the membrane.  The next day she laid a normal egg again, and is completely acting herself.  I am so relieved!

I am FINALLY going to get our asparagus crowns into the ground today, come hell or high water.  I just hope that the plants haven't died while waiting for the ground to be prepared.  I'm afraid that the raspberry canes aren't looking too great... they haven't been in the ground long, but I'm not seeing any leafing out happening on them.  The strawberries and blueberries are nice and green, sprouting new leaves all over the place... but I worry for the raspberries.  We'll see, I suppose.

Our housewarming party was a great success, complete with drumming, singing and guitar playing around the fire.  The weather cleared up beautifully and with the help of our friends and logs frm the trees we cut down, we successfully moved the coop from up near the road down to the area with the fenced run.  The variety and quality of the people we know never ceases to amaze me, especially when I see them all working together to accomplish something as tricky as moving a chicken coop on rollers, downhill, in the mud.

The sun is shining and the garden is calling, I hope to update tomorrow with ducks and bees and chicks on their way back to health!

Ready for guests

So far...

...so good!  Little Mary, our Barred Rock Hen, seems to be pulling through.  I am cautiously hopeful that she'll live a long healthy chicken life, despite the eggbound situation that scared us so much on Monday.  She has passed a good amount of the eggy nastiness, and seems to be acting like herself again.  The true test will be if she lays an actual proper egg in the next few days...

Our housewarming/coop moving party is tomorrow, and of course they're calling for rain all damn day.  Moving the coop down the hill so that it is adjacent to the fenced run will be pretty much impossible in the rain, it's muddy down there even when it hasn't rained for three days... but we're debating whether or not to go ahead with the party anyways.  It may feel a little bit crowded in here with everyone inside, but it'll be cozy, right?  It'll just be a shame that our guests can't enjoy the beautiful outdoors while they're here.

Kicking into high gear...

... wooooo-wee, High Spring is a-comin'. 

Our Italian honeybees ship to us on Monday, and my order for the hive extender, pre-formed sugar block, smoker fuel and pollen patties arrived today.  We are planning to go in an a bulk "animal grade" sugar order with some friends for future bee feedings, but this week I just don't have time to mess around with trying to make a sugar block the right size for atop the frames of the hive deep body.  4 ducklings (a male and female pair of Runner ducks and a pair of Khaki Campbells!) also ship to us on Monday.  The little chickies are feathering out and needing to be divided into two brooder boxes to get a bit more room.  The black and red raspberries are in their freshly dug and enriched bed.  The ground was too wet these past two days to break sod on the asparagus bed, and I'm afraid to open up the nursery packaging to see what those roots are looking like.  I'm just crossing my fingers that they keep until I can get them in the ground.

We are planning to have our house-warming/chicken coop moving party on Saturday, but they're wanting thunderstorms all weekend.  We may need to reschedule, given that the inside of the house is not prepared to hold a large group of people yet, and moving a heavy coop on rollers in the mud just doesn't sound like fun.  I surely do hope that the weathermen are wrong this time around, because herding the chickens up and down the hill each morning and evening is going to get old really soon.

Our little barred rock hen, Mary, is eggbound.  She wasn't acting herself last evening, and hadn't laid an egg today... and upon inspection and with some gentle palpation, I found she had a sort of boggy mass in her bottom, some egg yolk/white was coming out of her vent in sporadic bursts.  We took her inside and soaked her in a warm bath (which she seemed to like), dried her off, encouraged her to eat some Fig Newtons, and returned her to the coop to be with her sisters.  I left feeling pretty sure that she'd be unlikely to make it through the night, but when I came home from work this morning she was scratching in the grass with her sisters and acting completely normal.  There was evidence that she'd passed some more eggy goo, but I don't know if she'll work it all out or not.  I'm rooting for her, but there's nothing more we can do but watch and wait to see what happens.  I hope she makes it.

Last night was my final night at my job at the Tiny Community Hospital, and I have off for a good week and a half before starting my job at the Giant Teaching Hospital.  I'm going to sleep in as late as my body wants me to today, no alarm clock for me!!  And then TOMORROW I'll get to work on the rest of the projects that need to be completed!

Too fast

Another weekend gone by.  I don't know how it flew by so quickly.  A massive rainstorm moved in late Saturday morning (while I was planting the last of the strawberries) and hung around until the wee hours of Sunday morning, so we lost most of that day for outdoor work.  But that was okay, as we had not one but TWO birthday parties to attend, and it was kind of nice to take that time to enjoy the company and friends without the guilt of knowing there was garden work to be done. 

However, today was bright, sunny and windy.  The wind is still gusting out there, blowing the dark grey clouds over the full moon.  As the moon rose tonight it went through four costume changes... as it first crested the horizon, it was flamingo pink.  As it rose a little higher, it changed to a lovely peach color... then golden yellow, then finally its usual attire of brilliant white.  Positively gorgeous.

Today I finished double-digging the smallest of the garden beds (3'x17'), mixed in compost and soil acidifier, and planted the Atlantic, Ivanhoe and Herbert blueberry bushes that have been languishing on the front porch for nearly two weeks.  The second bed has our Ozark and Tribute strawberries... and I'm hoping that the massive amount of compost I dug in helps them thrive in what was heavy clay soil.  We broke sod on the third bed (raspberries!), but have not tilled nor enriched that soil.  I'm hoping to finish that tomorrow and get the red and black raspberries in the ground, but we'll see what happens before I go in for my night shift.

We did FINALLY get around to painting the beehive, with the help of my mother and sister (who visited today).   Honeybunch inoculated four big logs we cut from one of the felled trees with reishi and oyster mushroom plugs.  Tomorrow I'll seal up the holes with beeswax, and we'll set them in a moist and shaded place... hopefully in a few months to a year we'll have lots of mushrooms.  We've been growing some indoors (shitake, oyster and pompom) with success, but in very small quantities.  We hope to have a more impressive harvest from the logs.

Aside from all that, we got to enjoy just being alive on this beautiful piece of earth we call home.  The daffodils are popping up all over the place, the chickens are thrilled to be scratching around in the seemingly endless grasses and leaves, and the cats have taken over the cushioned dining room chairs as their own personal nap spaces.  Now if I can get the rasberries, asparagus, apple and cherry trees settled into their niches here on the homestead, we'll all be in good shape!  Happy Sunday!