Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Rocky’s Progeny
The 13 chicks that hatched from eggs fertilized by our late New Hampshire Red rooster, Rocky, have now developed enough features to better guess at which breed their mothers were. The batch we’ve referred to as the “Rockettes” will be subdivided to break out six pullets who will eventually be “Baxterettes,” reflecting a plan to share them with my brother’s family in the Brainerd area of Minnesota.
That surprise rooster we were blessed to receive unexpectedly in a batch of egg-layers we ordered online during the pandemic will have quite a legacy from his cut-way-too-short life.
The twenty-five chicks currently sharing the “twin-home” coop divided in half by a plastic netting are all doing well during this span of time when they are confined to quarters. We are currently working to prepare the boundaries of two separate courtyards –one front, one in back– where they will be allowed daytime excursions on real dirt with actual green growth to destroy.
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We aren’t sure yet about how many of the 13 Rockettes are roosters in the making, but we are confident it is more than zero. Looking at the images above, we believe we have the following numbers of breeds:
Quantity 6 Barnevelders; two with darker coloring on head and neck (a difference of gender maybe?). One each of these can be seen on the far left and far right of the image on the left.
Quantity 2 Light Brahmas; mostly yellow with white wing feathers and a hint of feathers growing on feet, seen second from left.
Quantity 4 yellow-headed chicks with reddish-brown feathers that look a mix of New Hampshire Red/Barnevelder, third from left.
Quantity 1 Dominique; easily identified for being black head to toe and almost disappears in the image on the right.
Cyndie has reported seeing pairs of the Rockette chicks chest-bumping already but I saw nothing but happy romping siblings in my extended watching yesterday.
We housed the Buffalo Gals on the backside of the coop where the chicken access door is located, but that lacked ventilation in this record-setting hot weather. I rigged a way to temporarily cover the opening with 1/4″ mesh hardware cloth so we could leave the door open during the day.
The high heat will inspire us to hasten preparations to get their courtyards secure so we can let them out into more open air.
The wild pigeons choosing to nest in our barn lost about a half-dozen chicks yesterday that we found sprawled out on the ground in multiple places, so this heat needs to be taken seriously.
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Birthday Treat
I didn’t realize the destination restaurant just a couple of miles from our house closed by 8:00 p.m. on Thursdays. Maybe that’s a function of COVID times. I wanted to surprise Cyndie for her birthday with Shady Grove’s delectable Salted Caramel Chocolate Tart.
When Cyndie stepped out to walk Delilah and check on the chicks in the coop, I raced to phone Shady Grove to make sure they had a tart available. That’s when I learned they had closed half an hour earlier.
Luckily, my request was simple and I promised I was only a few minutes away.
Without saying anything to Cyndie, I opened the garage door and raced off like a crazy man, wondering if she would see me and be concerned about what the heck I was doing without telling her.
Five minutes later, I was driving up our driveway and came upon Cyndie and Delilah. She hadn’t seen me leave, so was completely flummoxed upon seeing my car arriving.
“Surprise!”
And Happy Birthday today, Cyndie. (We celebrated early last night because there was no holding her back from that caramel and chocolate favorite once she found out.)
Go ahead, sing along… “Happy Birthday dear Cyndie, happy birthday to you!”
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Claiming Time
I suspect that our house cat, Pequenita, is the pet that gets the least air-time on Relative Something. As the lone feline around here, she seems to frequently be at odds with the general vibe happening at any given moment. Usually, that is because the dog tends to be the one setting the vibe.
Pequenita occasionally tolerates whatever it might be that Delilah is looking to achieve, but most often the cat is just trying to be wherever the dog isn’t.
When we arrived home from the lake on Monday, Pequenita was noticeably more vocal than usual. I think she was expressing displeasure with our having been gone. Something tells me Delilah was having a field day or days, taking advantage of our absence to mess with the cat more than she is allowed when we are around to interrupt.
There is one thing Pequenita does every day to offset the hours when she might not always be getting what she wants. She claims time with me the moment I climb into bed.
She wants to be scratched vigorously behind her ears, on her belly, under her chin, rolling the scruff on the back of her neck, across her forehead, and over her eyes. When I work her armpits, she stretches her front legs way out and flexes her feet. She also purrs warmly the entire time.
It’s a festival of shedding all the while.
Pequenita gets up and walks away, so she can turn around and come right back for more. She rubs against the edge of my laptop. She tries to stand on the keys. After another round of scratches, she walks away again. The more earnestly I want to write on my computer, the more repetitions she makes to walk away and come right back.
If only I could master the art of typing solely with my left hand in order to give Pequenita the scratches she wants with my other hand and still get some writing done.
Unfortunately, the time I wish to claim for writing before I go to sleep happens to be the exact same time Pequenita chooses to claim for me to put my hands all over her body.
Honestly, it’s not all that unfortunate. We are blessed to have her unique character enriching our lives. I’m lucky to have a pet who shows such deep appreciation for my attention.
The time she claims is not just for selfish reasons. She claims it for both of us.
I just need to remind myself that writing comes second to the art of fulfilling the desires of our cat.
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Precious Sight
We are so lucky to have these beautiful horses living with us. It’s been a month and a half since they arrived and each day brings them a little bit closer to recognizing us as well-intentioned caregivers. Seeing the four of them quietly grazing together without any fuss is a precious sight.
Just the change from how they originally stood well out of reach when we showed up at the fence to now greeting us with their heads over the top board to smell our breath and accept some touch when we arrive is such a demonstration of their increased comfort.
We’ve taken to temporarily closing gates between pairs during the times we set out feed pans to minimize food related interaction among them, but immediately after open all the gates to allow total freedom of movement. They don’t always regroup and wander off together as a foursome, but when they do, it warms our hearts.
A much less precious sight was discovered upon our return from the lake on Monday. The little pine tree that we transplanted on the rainy Thursday before heading north looked thirsty, with the sprouts of new growth all sadly toppled over. As I was watering it, I suddenly noticed there were two branches smothered with caterpillars that were devouring the older needles.
An internet search revealed these to likely be larvae of the sawfly. The dang things have denuded the upper half of the tree.
If this little pine survives I will be very impressed. We yanked it out of the ground just as it was sprouting new growth, we let it get too dry in its new location, and then it gets infested with needle-eating bugs.
Maybe it will make a good “Charlie Brown Christmas tree” next year.
That could actually turn out to be a precious sight… at least, for fans of that classic 1965 animated television special.
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Chicks Moved
We left the lake place yesterday morning with the weather doing everything possible to make our departure as conflicting as possible. Alas, tasks at home beckoned, energizing us to focus on hitting the road before lunchtime.
Upon greeting our animals, we immediately turned our attention to planting the trillium we brought home with us. Instead of planting in spread-out sets of three, this time we are experimenting with planting them all together in a closer bunch.
They were pretty droopy by the time we got home, but most stems appeared to stand back up after we got them in the ground and watered. Time will tell whether they accept what we’ve done to them and go on to establish themselves 125 miles south of their previous location.
Next order of business was to complete the dividing of the coop space and then move the chicks from each of their separate brooder locations.
The Buffalo Gals went first and acted rather unwilling about getting picked up for the transfer.
We decided to move both sets of chicks to the coop on the same day, combining the shock of a new location and the first exposure to other birds to happen all at once.
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It was hard to tell which troubled each batch more, the new digs or the strange other chirping birds suddenly appearing in close proximity.
By nightfall, they all seemed to be doing just fine with their abrupt change in housing.
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Leave It
There are multiple meanings to the title, Leave It. There is always a little sadness in needing to leave the lake place, but today that is what we will be doing. There is also the old adage about poison ivy: Leaves of three, Let it be. Lastly, leaves are the theme of images for today’s post.
Starting with a sprout of poison ivy in a very inconvenient location.
A leaf shadow that seems about as perfect as the leaf itself.
There was an old oak leaf stuck to the side of this aging stand-up paddleboard.
Finally, a frame-filled immersion in the wonderful patterns of hosta leaves.
I’m going to leave it at that.
Happy Memorial Day to readers in the U.S. We will spend the day driving home and hopefully transplanting a few trilliums after we arrive.
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Co-Favorite Place
For all of my adult life, Cyndie’s family vacation home on Round Lake near Hayward, Wisconsin has been my favorite place. As I wrote yesterday, my affections are now split between our paradise of Wintervale Ranch in Beldenville and Wildwood Lodge Club up north.
I now have co-favorite places.
It is wonderful to be up at the lake again.
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As always, the special feature of the lodge club is communing with the other families and we received an early dose of camaraderie when the next door Whitlock clan showed up just after Cyndie and I arrived. Much love ensued.
There is a lot to do around the property to make it look less neglected as the ravages of winter appear to have wreaked havoc on anything left out in the elements.
Case in point: The front steps to the Friswold “cabin” for which I was so proud to have repaired a single paver block last summer are now failing en masse as the foundation underneath appears to be giving out.
Entire rows are tipping forward. I suppose it’s unfair to blame one winter for this, but it sure seemed fine last year.
I can’t blame the extreme state of the smoke clouded doors of the living room fireplace on anything but neglect to tend to the task of cleaning them in a timely manner. When Marie asked me to build a fire, I figured it wouldn’t add much to the ambience if we couldn’t see the flames. It took a lot of ash-soaked newspaper to rub off the insanely thick baked-on accumulation of smoke on those glass doors.
At least I had the joy of trying to ignite unseasoned firewood that had been supplied for our fire-building pleasure. No wonder there was so much gunk on the glass of the doors.
Maybe, if I love this place as much as I do home, I need to more equally split my attention to maintenance chores. Is the building of a lake-place woodshed in my future?
I would sure appreciate the luxury of selecting dry wood for our fires. So would the chimney flue.
The more immediate concern will be cleaning the beach today. The lake ice pushed a new berm of sandy leaves about a foot high along the full length of our beach shoreline.
What a wonderful location for putting in a day’s work.
My co-favorite place, in fact.
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Divided Passions
I am torn between two worlds this morning. As thrilled as I am to be able to spend the next four days up at the lake for the Memorial Day weekend, I’m struggling over a great desire to remain home to tend the property, grow our bonds with the horses, and work on transitioning our chicks from the brooder to the coop.
When I got home from work yesterday, we decided to take advantage of the wet weather to transplant another pine tree. This one had sprouted just beyond the deck in a spot where there was little room for future growth. While we were pulling up the roots, Cyndie also extracted a fair-sized maple sapling, so we transplanted that, as well.
They are both visible in the image above, despite also being mostly obscured by a similar colored background. Our spontaneous decision to jump into the unplanned project swallowed up over an hour of time that felt like mere minutes had passed. Completing the transplants fueled a strong urge to get right back outside managing the explosion of growth everywhere on our property.
It will need to wait for another day. We are headed north this morning. Lake place, here we come! It’s been far too long between visits.
I hope the chicks won’t miss us too much.
We looked in on the Rockettes last night before bed and found them looking hale and hearty. Their wing feathers are coming along nicely. They are doing a fair amount of my favorite chick leg-stretch/wing-stretch maneuvers that look so yoga-like. Cyndie added a cover grate to their tub to keep the little test-flyers within the confines of the bin.
We want to move them to the big brooder in the barn as soon as we can move the Buffalo Gals to the coop. I expect that will be a project for when we get home on Monday.
Our current animal-sitter, Anna, a student in her last year at UW River Falls, will be tending to animals while we are gone.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be gung-ho about being away as soon as we hit the road, but I am definitely torn about wanting to be in both places at the same time. Too bad we can’t bring some chicks with us to the lake.
They’re just so cyoooooouute!
Go to the lake, John.
Okay, okay. B’bye!
Oh, and bring back more trillium when you return…
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World Within
I offer my highest recommendation for all who have the opportunity to view PBS programs to seek out Human: The World Within.
Cyndie and I will often default to our local PBS channel when we turn on our television, regardless of whether we know what is going to be on at any given time. The first time we stumbled on an episode of ‘Human,’ I assumed it was a one-time stand-alone program. It was very interesting, but I was simultaneously distracted by other work I was doing on my computer, and I didn’t give it my full attention.
A week later, we came upon the next episode and I found myself unable to turn away.
By last night’s episode 5, Cyndie had set an alarm to remind us when the program was going to be on.
The combination of superb animation showing blood cells flowing or electric signals jumping synapses, plain-speaking expert commentary describing the hows and whys, and the incredibly specific topic of our bodily functions provides the classic result of being both informative and entertaining. I lost count last night of how many times I verbalized exclamations of my wonder over some brilliant aspect of how the intricate details of our bodies function.
Take a deep-dive into the universe that’s inside each and every one of us, by exploring a shared biology that we often don’t take the time to appreciate, or understand. Heart, brain, eyes, blood, tears; “Human” uncovers not only the science behind how our bodies work, but how what’s inside powers every moment of what we do out in the world. Personal profiles of people from around the globe become entry points into deeper stories about how the body’s many systems function.
It feels a little strange to discover how fascinating our bodies are, while I go about most of my daily activities unaware of so much of it.
If you are able, pick an episode and check it out. Then, watch all the other episodes, too. There isn’t a single detail covered that doesn’t apply to every one of us somehow. It’s the human body, after all.
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Trimmer Replaced
Much as I wrestle over making purchasing decisions, this one was easy-peasy. When Cyndie received the call from the hardware store service desk, the list of damaged parts was so long, she couldn’t remember them all. Cylinder, piston, shaft… Can you say, ‘catastrophic failure?’
She asked what the cost of repair estimate was. She asked what a new trimmer costs.
It was cheaper to buy a new one.
They didn’t have any stock of the exact replacement model, which is on backorder with an unknown date of arrival. However, there was exactly one unit in stock of the next model up. The additional cost put things equal to trying to rebuild the old engine.
The decision didn’t get any harder to make.
Cyndie had them put our name on that trimmer and hustled her way to River Falls to pick it up.
In the nick of time. We are already behind in keeping up with the runaway spring growth of grass in the labyrinth, along our trails, and under our fences. Unfortunately, he or she who isn’t the one using it has to suffer the endless droning of the precious small gas engine.
If I time it right, I can be under ear-muffs and mowing on the lawn tractor while Cyndie is trimming.
Of course, the glorious quiet when we finally stop the engines is always a little sweeter when the moment arrives. That adds incentive to trim quickly and make short work of the miles in desperate need of being cut.
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