Summer slowly fading....

Today was the first day of school for kids here in town. That's always a sure sign that Summer is walking out the door, while Autumn tries to slowly squeeze through at the same time, like an uninvited guest. Of course, the cool breezes that Autumn brings with her, along with the scents of crisp apples, fall leaves and pumpkin pie, make her start to feel like she should have been a house guest all along.

The leaves are starting to sloooooowly change color. I catch a glimpse here and there on my drive to work, or even in my own backyard. Whenever the breeze picks up, I see more and more leaves taking up dance lessons and falling off the trees. The nights are a little bit cooler, although the day temps still get up to the mid to high 80's. I can hardly believe that this coming weekend is Labor Day! Summer in New England is defined by the period between two holiday weekends - Memorial Day to Labor Day. I never thought of it that way growing up, and then after living in Texas, where the summer is pretty much from April to October, you get used to a long summer season. This summer has been a wonderful summer! Time to squeeze in every little bit left before he makes it out that door for good.

Willowmina Maple Kitty

It's official. My cat is gone. I have had Mina since she was a little kitten. Last week, at 9 years old, she disappeared. I know something must have happened to her, because she isn't friendly to strangers, and her idea of a good time is to snooze all day on one of our patio chairs in the coolness of a screened-in porch. If she wasn't sleeping, she was trying to trick us into feeding her again. Last Thursday, Mina never showed up for breakfast. She is ALWAYS there for breakfast. If not right at first when you open the door, she was always there the next time you opened the door. (And the time after that, and the time after that... ) Today is Monday, so she has been missing now for 4 full days. If something got her, I sure hope she put up one hell of a fight!

If anyone reading this happens to see a cat that looks like this, please let me know!

Warm again!

Ahhh.... It is summer yet again. After a cool, dreary, cloudy week, it is finally warm, muggy and sunny. Have to hang out in my hammock later and just chill, and enjoy. After that bit of cool weather, I realized I'm NOT ready for winter yet!

Relief!

Oh, for all of you worried about Dixie and how she was going to be after almost getting mauled by our dog, you'll be happy to know that she is back up and running around like always. She only limped and rested for a day. She can chase and catch those crickets with the best of them.

Weather

The weather has been unusually chilly for this type of year here in New Hampshire. Starting last week, on Friday, maybe, the temps only got into the mid 60's, low 70's. The lows were low 40's to 50's. Come on! August is still Summer, right? The way the cool temps and cloudy days were, it felt like October and Autumn. I was worried the chickens were going to get too cold. HA! If I'm worried now, just think how worried I'll be when it is officially WINTER...

Today is a little better. Tomorrow is supposed to be hot and muggy again. Phew! I'm not ready to pay for oil again just yet!

Dixie and Ginger

Poor Dixie! The other night, right before time to close them up in the coop, Dixie decided she was brave enough to try and fly out. My son and wife, who had just got back from swimming at the lake, saw her sitting on a fence post. Then she jumped and was FREE! My son, panicked, and wanted to scare her into flying back into the coop, and since my dog was right by him at the door, he yells, "Bella, go get her!" This was the moment my dog has been waiting for ever since we came home with chickens in a box. She bolted out and chased poor Dixie and got a hold of her in her mouth right before she managed to get back in the pen, either by herself, or by my son putting her back. She was okay, but limping. The next day she just sat all day huddling in a corner, and only getting up to limp away if I came close to her. I decided it was time to clip the wings of all of them before another one got out.

So, yesterday, my wife helped me hold them while I clipped their wings. I had taken a sponge out with me earlier because I had cleaned their water container. When my wife came out she freaked a little. I didn't quite understand until she explained she saw the sponge and thought it was for cleaning up the blood after clipping the wings. After we trimmed the wing tips, and she saw how it was painless to the chickens, she relaxed, not realizing what a simple procedure that was going to be. So, all the chickens, (except for Cluckers - I felt he was too small still to trim his wings - hope that's not going to be a mistake,) have their wings trimmed.

Now, Ginger, I just wanted to add, is getting black feathers on her tail and her wings. I tried to get a picture, but this was the best I could do.

Zinnias

The zinnias in our garden are really starting to come out and bloom. Zinnia blooms seem to last longer than other flower blooms. They are bright vibrant colors and the hummingbirds frequently come and visit them. Speaking of humming birds we found a tiny hummingbird feather the other day by our petunias on the front steps. Teeny tiny bright orange feather.

Dixie

I love these chickens! I thought it would be fun to have these chickens, but I never realized how much simple pleasure you could get by watching a few birds scratch at the earth, eat grasshoppers and in general just peck and walk around. Yesterday, I went out around 8 o'clock to get ready to close the chicks in for the night. I just stood by the fence and watched them. Dixie, the Brahma or Cochin (I am leaning more towards Cochin as someone stated she might be in one of the comments on another post), flew up and grabbed onto the metal fence, and then flew right onto my arm and just walked onto my hand from there, cooing, and clucking happily. She let me just scratch her head and scratch behind her wings while she stretched her scrawny little chicken neck, as if to strut and tell her friends below, "Look at me! I get the deluxe treatment!" Then when I tried to put her back down she just tried to climb back up my arm. Finally I got her to fly down and join the rest of her buddies. Yes, it's true - chickens do have personalities and are great fun to have around.

Ginger

Miss Ginger, (or maybe Mr., I don't know yet) is changing color. Her head is starting to become the reddish color the rest of her body is, and she is starting to get black tail feathers. As far as I know, the Buff Orpington has no black feathers. So, we'll just have to see what Ginger looks like in another couple of weeks!

Gosh - who thought chickens could be so exciting??

New Lawn Mower

I tried to mow my lawn last week. I think it was on Friday. And guess what? The mower, POS that it is, fell apart around me again while mowing. Three weeks ago, I was mowing and the new muffler fell off. Then this last time I mowed, the oil started spurtin' out again and the top came loose from covering the engine. When I tried to restart it, the line wouldn't stay taut enough to even attempt to start the engine since the top was loose. Grrr... NOT again...

I looked at what was fixed to hold the top down and saw what broke. (It was all jury-rigged together anyway by the man I paid to F-I-X my lawnmower.) I found some extra pieces of metal strapping and tried to re-bolt the top down again where it would stay. That was successful. I checked the oil since it had leaked all out again. It was way too low. I re-filled the oil, but as I was doing so, I could see it just pouring out of the engine block. It was at this point I knew the mower was dead and no amount of fixing up was going to fix this thing right.

I had only successfully mowed half the lawn by this time, and I was pretty angry and upset. Nothing I could do though, except go have a good cold beer.

Lo and behold, I was talking to a friend (check out his blog, too, by the way, Cyclic Connotations) mid-week, and he just happened to ask the magic question. "Do you want to buy it?" Buy what, you may ask? He was trying to sell his riding lawn mower! Whoa - talk about good timing! I said sure, and a few days later (today) he shows up to give me an impromptu riding lesson, and off I went!

Once again, my lawn is now fully mowed - and I got to SIT down doing it. WoooooHoo! Jason - Geek Squad may suck, but your Karma is back up where it belongs. :)

Create-A-Trail

20 Second Garden Tour

Chickens! (Straight to video at a blog near you...)

Chickens - Smarter than you think!

I worked late last night - didn't get done until close to 9pm. Luckily I was at home, but I knew no one had gone to put the feathery friends up in the coop. I asked my son to go out and please do just that. He came back in (after getting his mom and dog to go with him as he was a little hesitant of the dark) with a big grin on his face. "Guess what Dad? The chickens already were up in the coop!" That made me smile as well. Our chickens, only living with us for a week, had already figured out the routine of going to bed, and they were smart enough to know that their bed, and safe place, was inside the coop. Yay!

Videos!!

Since I bought my new digital camera this year, I haven't taken too many videos. I figured it was best to leave the movies to a device that specifically dealt with taking video. However, my Canon PowerShot SD700 IS has the capability of taking pictures and videos. I've taken a few of my boys and my family in general, just to say I have some family home videos, and they've turned out very well. Now that I have a blog, I thought 'what better place to experiment more with video!'

Chicken Breeds

My friend's sister checked out my blog since she has chickens, and she wanted to see what was up with mine. She looked at pictures of Dixie and Killer and she wrote to me with her suggestions as to what breeds they are. She thinks that Killer is a Barred Rock chicken, and the Dixie is probably a Brahma chicken of some sort.

Do you agree or disagree?

The Chickens are Here!

While I was at work on Friday, my wife and sons went to a local Blue Seal feed store and saw they had chickens that were a month and 1/2 to two months old. They didn't buy any at that time because they knew I wanted to look as well. So, yesterday, after making sure I had some sort of feeder and waterer for the chicks, we went back to the Blue Seal store and picked out our chickens. We also picked up some Blue Seal Medicated Chicken Feed. A 25LB bag was only about 7 dollars. That's not too bad. Not sure how fast 4 chicks will eat this up, but hopefully this will last a month.

Each of us picked out our own. (Except my youngest son, he's only 8 1/2 months old.) I don't know for sure what breeds they are, as the young man helping us didn't know either. I figured (and hoped) if I was buying them in NH, then they were probably ready for the cold winters.

My wife picked out one that she calls Ginger. I believe her to be an Orpington.

She then picked a chicken that will be for our youngest. We named this one Dixie. She has beautiful feathery legs. I don't know what type she would be yet.
My other son, who is almost 10 (one more month) decided he liked the runt of the litter and called this one, Cluckers.

Last, but definitely not least, I picked one that I liked. The one I decided on wasn't the one that I ended up getting because the guy couldn't grab him for me. So the one he did get, which had a diamond on his head, I liked just as well. Just to be different, I named this one, Killer.

So, I really have no idea what breeds these chickens really are. I think Cluckers may actually be the Rhode Island, or NH Red. I guess I'll have to wait until they get a little bit bigger to tell for sure. Unless any of you out there reading this know what breeds they might be. Feel free to leave comments!

In terms of eating these chickens, I don't know if I can now, since every one has a name.... My Aunt kept pigs once that were piglets when I went to go see her. I thought they were so cute I took pictures of them. Then, months later, eating breakfast at home, my mom says, "Did you know that bacon you're eating comes from your Aunt's pigs?" I was mid-chew, and didn't quite know what to think. But, I love bacon so it didn't stop me for long, and I kept on eating.

Here are some more pictures of the chickens:

Check it out!

Silvia, who has a blog titled Casa In Costruzione, has a post that is about chicken coops and has very nicely decided to link to my blog. Can you believe my coop is starting to get some attention?? WOW! Thanks Silvia!

Garden EXPLOSION

By explosion, of course, I do NOT mean that some otherworldly comet came and caused a huge crater, sending plant debris everywhere, but rather an explosion of growth!

Being gone for 10 days in Maine, my wife and I didn't see the garden every day, and didn't know what to expect. When we came back we saw just how fast a garden can grow! Pumpkin vines were choking flowers and tomatoes. Squash plants were hugs, and so were the squash fruit itself. We had to clean up and cut back a lot of the pumpkin vines and squash plants. We then tore up the radishes (since they had been planted WAAAY too close together anyway and so had lousy radish growth) and the mustard greens. We did this to try and give more room for vines to grow. Anyway, I do have a few garden pictures that you can easily compare to the others that were posted to see just how much this little garden of ours took off!

La cage de poulet - elle est finie!

The chicken coop - it is finished!

I know, I know... it's been awhile since I have posted any progress or pictures. Well, I went on a so very nice vacation in Maine and just came back this week. That's another topic. But with all that relaxation, I just had to finish the coop. Monday night after work was wet, sticky and humid, so I waited until Tuesday to patch up my leaky chicken coop roof. There was one spot that was pooling the water and then slowly seeping under the rolled roofing and leaking into the coop. So, I added another piece of roofing and then used roofing tar on all the seams. Now that my roof was all patched up, I finally could put up the small fence so the chickens will have room to roam a little. (And I mean little.) Wednesday, after work, I went straight to work and got my fence up. I made sure top put it down into the ground so no tunneling critters will be able to get under and up and eat the birds. Which, by the way, I soon hope to get. Why have a coop and no chickens?? Anyway, here are more pictures of the coop now that it is complete.

Looking inside at the underside of the roof:



Another view of the roof from the inside, showing the rope that raises and lowers the door:


View of roof with sealant:



Different view of the roof with sealant:



Nesting Boxes and Perch looking from door:



Closer view of nesting boxes and perch:



Here's the fence:



And a picture looking at the entire finished product: