Archive for October 2020
Split Seconds
Who knows what’s going to happen in any given second? In this case, my phone decided to capture an image of falling from my hands.
I like it.
.
.
Partial Freedom
When the time arrived to open the fence for our young pullets and Rocky, allowing them their first taste of free-ranging, we had already changed our mind about how we would do it. Soon after, we also altered our thinking toward making the transition in shorter stages.
Originally, based on reading the experiences of others, our plan was to keep the three adults inside in the morning for longer than normal while we let out the youngsters. We actually did the opposite. For our own convenience, it just worked better to proceed normally in the morning, letting the big girls out as usual and opening the coop door so the young ones could have time inside their fenced run.
After our breakfast and walking Delilah, we could put her back in the house and give the chickens our undivided attention. We opened the fence and with very little excitement, Rocky slowly led his brood a few steps outside the fence where they immediately busied themselves pecking at the green grass blades.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Two of the big hens were in the vicinity and took in the activity with only brief interest. Then they wandered off through the trees. The Buff Orpington was in a nest box laying an egg at the time.
After the pullets made their way to the far side of the outer edge of their fenced courtyard, Cyndie decided to show them the way back to the entrance. Once back inside their familiar stomping grounds, we decided to secure them for the day while we tended to other pursuits.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In the afternoon, I was walking through the tall grass in the paddocks with Delilah when she suddenly scared up a stray cat that had been hiding a short distance away from the coop. Was that intruder eyeing our birds? Hmmm.
During the morning session, I was multitasking with some day-job remote communications while being physically present for the chickens.
Late in the day, we opened the fence again and gave the chickens our full attention for their second session out. There was only one confrontation in which one of the adults doled out some aggression to establish her dominance over a brazen Light Brahma that dared to stride up with a bit too much confidence.
When opportunity arose that the young ones all found their way back inside their protective fencing again, we took advantage to close them in.
We will transition them to full freedom over a period of days, increasing their autonomy a little each day.
Based on what we’ve witnessed thus far, it doesn’t appear that Rocky the Roo will be much of a protector if predators show up this soon in the process of orienting the new brood to the great outdoors. We will exercise moderate caution for however long we are able to muster the extra attention to the detail.
Ultimately, we acknowledge the risks of free-ranging birds in our environs. It’s a natural contest of the cycle of life.
Meanwhile, we are enjoying them to the fullest. Chickens are wonderfully fun to have around.
.
.
Main Topics
There are two primary topics dominating life around Wintervale lately: chickens and baking. Each having nothing to do with the other.
Last night it was all baking.
Super-sized apple cider oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and strawberry hand-pies custom ordered by the berry farm.
I contributed to the best of my ability. They both tasted delicious.
This morning, the chickens will get our main attention.
I suppose the dog and cat are feeling a little left out of things. Pequenita has been relentless at seeking attention whenever I venture near the bedroom –our bed being her preferred domain. Delilah will get some extra adventure later today when I take her exploring off-trails in our woods looking for evidence related to the raucous coyote howling we endured Wednesday night/Thursday morning.
I’m hoping that pack of predators are all well-fed now and won’t have any reason to hang around our property on the very day we plan to let our chickens get their first taste of free-ranging.
It all serves as a reminder we are living the country life.
I guess the two main topics could better be labeled, baking and pets.
.
.
Looking Ahead
We have decided to try releasing the eleven pullets and Rocky to free-range our property tomorrow morning. Our plan will be to let them out of the coop before we release the three hens. Then we’ll open the fence around the courtyard that has been their run since we moved them from the brooder two months ago.
After they all figure out their freedom, we will open the back hatch to then let the hens out. We kinda hope the hens will take their usual immediate jaunt to the barn overhang to get fresh food and water and wait to investigate the roaming young ones later. I’m not counting on it, though.
Based on previous experience, I expect the pullets will be so thrilled over access to green grass blades again, they won’t wander far in the early minutes of their newly-granted freedom.
You can see in the accompanying image that they do quite a number on anything growing inside the confines of their fenced area. That was all luscious green grass when we put up the fence two months earlier.
Now it’s a vast wasteland. There isn’t a crawling critter that would dare enter that space.
On Monday, I watched one of the barnevelders try to chase down an Asian beetle that showed up inside the fence. Merciless.
The beetles become overwhelming pests this time of year after the soybean fields get cut. They are incredibly successful at breaching any and all seams around our doors and windows intended to keep bugs out. We can’t vacuum them up fast enough. I wish the geniuses who devised using these insects to control aphids would have also figured out something to occupy the spotted orang half-rounds after the crops are harvested.
I saw or heard at some point that in this phase of the beetle’s life they are on a quest to find water. Nothing is frozen solid yet, so why do they instantly all want to get into the house? We’ve got a perfectly good landscape pond beside the deck. Drink from there. Geez.
Maybe the chickens lose interest after tasting just one beetle and that’s why so many survive to reach our dwelling. Otherwise, I expect our feathered pest controlling omnivores would neutralize the threat of beetles as well as they do all the flies and ticks in the vicinity.
.
.
Alternative Route
I don’t know how long it will last, but on Monday I stumbled upon an alternate route to the “classic editor” I prefer and have used successfully for years prior to the so-called great [cough] “block editor” that became the WordPress default as of October.
Aah, the good old days.
This week we are enjoying an alternative October in the form of very summer-like high temperatures outside. It is strange to have the hours of daylight rapidly changing when the weather is so warm. The two phenomena don’t usually happen together to this extreme. Isn’t it odd to have weather behaving wacky at this point in the history of the planet?
Oh, I guess it’s not odd at all. Scientists have been predicting this for decades. Gee, if we don’t make significant changes in our reliance on fossil fuels, icebergs in the polar regions will melt, weather patterns of storms, droughts, floods, fires, and temperatures will become more extreme, and geographies and economies will be at risk.
Throw in a model of a global virus pandemic at the same time and you have the makings for a real stomach churner.
I suppose the insidious rise of extreme ideologies in multiple nations around the world touting white supremacy or fear of any diversity at all could be the icing on this growing mess of craziness.
The scourge of social media platforms enhancing the idiocy and ignorance could be viewed as the sprinkles on that icing.
Might there be an alternative route to love and enlightenment awaiting discovery by a collective of seekers?
It seems to me that a fair number of individuals find ways to grasp that golden ring, but can diverse populations of multiple nations ever make the bold leap en masse?
Cyndie and I practice an art of recovery from angst-producing situations that our horses helped to teach us by their ability to swiftly return to grazing calmly after a disturbance. When things appear to be spinning out of control, the vocalized phrase, “get back to grazing” helps us to put things in a healthier perspective.
It’s a way of paying heed to the bigger picture. Playing the long game.
Things might be out of control right now, but we don’t need to dwell in the worst of it all.
What I am wrestling with lately is the challenge of claiming my peace of mind in an immediate moment when so many others are enduring terrible suffering.
One alternate solution I experiment with is to fully embrace my good fortune of knowing infinite love, mindfully doing so in proxy for those who are not able.
To the innocents who have been unjustly confined, to those who have become prisoners of their own hate, to people who are victims of every manner of social injustices, I send love into the world in your honor.
It’s an alternate route that I dream someday might grow to become the main highway for all people of the world.
.
.
Merger Discussions
After a stressful Monday at the day-job yesterday, I was more than eager for a little chicken therapy when I got home. Cyndie and I climbed into the net-fenced courtyard for a leisurely visit with Rocky and his 11 pullets.
While enjoying the chaos, Cyndie and I talked over some ideas of how we might proceed with the merging of our young ones with the three hens.
This is our first chance to go through this experience. Interestingly, neither of us recall any details of the two previous times we have gone through the process of simply moving our same-aged broods from confinement to free-ranging.
Now we are at a point of doing that again, but with the added complication of simultaneously merging them with existing hens.
While we chatted and lingered with the birds, they began to mellow out. There was a bit of preening at first, and then a lot of settling down for a little afternoon rest.
That’s when I noticed two of the adult hens had settled down at the same time, just outside the fence. The main reason I noticed is that the New Hampshire pullet had wandered over to be right next to them, yet inside the fence.
It appears that the weeks of perching together in the coop every night, separated by that same netting, have achieved our goal of getting them comfortable with each other.
Soon, other pullets joined the New Hampshire until there was a group with one of each of six breeds snuggled together in the late afternoon sun for a little downtime.
I think this bodes well for our coming merger where we remove the divider in the coop and teach the youngsters the fine art of free-ranging the grounds during the day and returning to roost securely at night.
.
.
Yard Birds
********** (Yesterday, an otherwise wonderful Sunday morning, I failed in my battle with learning the new “block” system of editing a WordPress post. I lost my temper, threw my computer, and went outside without publishing a post, where I would be able to work on projects I could control.
Try as I might to format the text and images to achieve my intention, the results consistently foiled me. After repeated unintended results which looked ridiculously wrong, from which I could not find the “undo” option that would at least return to the previous look, I boiled over.
Without going back and striving to accomplish my goal, I am, for now, resigning myself to living with whatever result this new editor mode produces, whether I like it, or not.
The following is the text and images I wanted to post yesterday morning, not as I intended it to look, but as the WordPress software allows me to present.)
**********
The pullets and Rocky are still confined to a fenced courtyard attached to the coop, but the big girls –a buff orpington, an australorpe, and a wyandotte– wander the property freely.
Saturday, while Cyndie was cleaning up the pine needle aftermath left from our removal of another dead pine tree, the three hens showed up to get in on the action.
Never one to pass up an opportunity to offer food to her loved ones, Cyndie had a treat ready to serve.
The girls rarely pass up the offerings of anything edible.
I think it shows in their not-so-svelte silhouettes.
.
.
Change’s Sake
My immense aversion to changes in software that was working just fine for me leads me to think that perhaps I am getting old.
Is it a problem for you, dear readers, that I don’t have little icons on this blog for sundry social media sites of the latest trend? Has my neglect to format the appearance to best suit the portrait orientation of mobile devices left you frustrated?
Ever find yourself wondering why my blog doesn’t include links to sites for purchasing products I promote, or a button allowing you to donate money to sustain my lifestyle?
These are all features that I have chosen to ignore, despite frequent WordPress marketing messages encouraging me to incorporate.
In March of 2009, I searched for a platform to publish my “take on things and experiences” and found a template ‘theme’ that matched my tastes. I’ve seen no reason to change since.
The word-cloud I selected for the side margin of my posts slowly changes over time, not always to my ideal, but it’s simply a reflection of what I write about the most, so I let it go.
Truth in advertising.
After some trial and error tinkering, sometimes requiring mystery clicks on vague icons with unclear popup titles, I have reached a mostly functional equilibrium that reasonably matches my previous editing experience.
I do miss the running word-count information that previously displayed at the bottom of my view as I typed.
With time, I will learn whether or not that’s a feature I can add back, as I explore the myriad other repackaged ways WordPress has changed my blogging experience to make it so much better.
Okay, never mind. I just clicked the “help” icon at the bottom of my view and learned I can click an information icon at the top of the screen to find that information.
That was at 308 words, if you care.
Which is more than enough to call for an end to my whining about change for change’s sake.
How about a bit of boasting about the other burden I so often face as the spouse of one who loves to bake?
I keep getting asked to sample and review the latest delicious morsels being baked under a constantly changing mix of ingredients and techniques.
My judgements might be influenced unfairly by the fact I usually enjoy the advantage of performing these tests on goods fresh and warm from the oven, but the taste analyses are probably universal.
Cyndie is gaining proficiency with each refinement she makes.
We make a pretty good team.
I credit our ability to change with the times, albeit sometimes kicking and whining all the way.
.
.
Planting Acorns
When all around you the world appears to be unraveling in every direction, try planting a tree.
In our case, we’ve decided to take a crack at planting many. Last week we buried over a hundred acorns in a line outside the fence of the paddocks.
Since nature does such an amazing job of producing oak sprouts everywhere on our property, we decided to see if we could organize some of them to pop up right where we’d like to have them growing for the shade they would eventually provide.
***********************
Note: WordPress has done another update to their format, changing the look of my editing space and eliminating options that I previously used when formatting my posts. I do not have the control I once had, so things may appear different from what you were used to seeing until a time when I figure out a new way to achieve the results I desire.
Already, I miss the good old days of composing my posts.
Disgruntled-ly yours,
JWH
.
.
File Transfered
Without further delay, I now present the first recorded audio of one of Rocky’s early crowing practices:
.
.
Cyndie reported that this was his third of three calls he made on Tuesday morning.
You gotta agree, that sounds pretty cute, eh?
It’s going to be interesting getting used to having a rooster for the first time. Seems like not a day goes by that we don’t learn something new living in the country.
Yesterday, Cyndie reported that she hand-delivered our completed ballots for the November election to our town clerk at her home. We have successfully voted! Glad to have that civic duty completed early. In so doing, Cyndie met our town clerk for the first time. It’s only been 8-years since we moved here.
I guess it could be seen in a good light that we haven’t had much need to be interacting with local officials for any reasons.
With the pandemic looming large throughout the entire summer, we have seen very little of any nearby neighbors.
Wintervale Ranch may not be receiving a lot of visitors lately but soon the neighbors will be hearing a lot of crowing coming from our little patch of paradise.
I look forward to learning what winter has in store for us. I suspect many hours will be spent sheltering in place.
.
.
Relative Something 