Another Year has Turned

And all of the sudden, it's 2025!

Blogger tells me that I have done over 2000 posts from my little home here in Kansas, and I wish I still had the fortitude to blog daily.  

My last post was just before Thanksgiving, and now Christmas and New Year's has come and gone. 

Today we sit at 37 at 1:00 PM, but we are headed for single digits, starting Friday, I believe.  I just went out to the shop (barn) and connected a heated water bowl... and now there are two warming cat beds (if they will use them) as well as the hanging chick brooder lamp over the Kuranda bed (used every day). The cat beds are on two by fours, so they are not resting on concrete.  I bought a new heater last year, but it blew a circuit when I tried to use it, so I am depending on the Lasko heater I have used for three years now.  It keeps it liveable in there, but I am really, really worried about the weekend. 

There is Mama, who prefers dry food, and Cleo, who prefers wet... eating in the shop.  Teeny was out of sight of this picture.  She still sleeps in the old woodstove, and it is bedded with deep straw. 

These two prefer the Kuranda bed under the light, but I saw Mama investigating one of the heated beds today, and I am hoping she uses it.  That plastic dish is their water... it was empty this morning when I walked in, because raccoons and possums come in at night.  I cleaned and filled it, but the heated bowl is now connected, out of sight to the left and rear of Mama.  Yes, the doggone wildings will spill it too... in fact, I am thinking I need to move it closer to the drain, but if it is really, really bitter, they won't come out. 

You can actually see behind this finch feeding on the railing that we had a smattering of snow in early December. 

There was a beautiful full moon. 

There are two cardinals in this picture, but I took it of the bittersweet growing in my front hedgerow.  

This was in my memory on Facebook yesterday... our beautiful, beautiful Jester, ten years ago, December 31, 2014.  How beautiful he was, how healthy and happy.  I miss him terribly. 

This is why Chico does not get to be loose, ever, unless I am right with him.  

That's the communications tower right across from my gate, on the undeveloped 26 acres. 

If I had won the big lottery, I would have bought it to keep it free. 

The pair of bald eagles is there many, many days now.  So far, they have ignored my chickens... but... once they take one, that will be it.   They are so gorgeous I can almost forgive them. 

I wish you could have heard this eagle screaming, it was really something. 

I know you all think I'm sappy, but this comforts me. 

I miss all of my babies, not just Jes. 

I had so much fun visiting my Garnett (Ks) grands and my little great grand, Aurora, on the thirteenth. 

Nathan, her dad, and my other grand, Chris, were full of Christmas spirit.  I went down again the day after Christmas to see them with a few extra things for them.  Aurora had a great Christmas! 

Chris and me that day, my oldest grand. 

Chico and I, taken by my grandson. 

Mr. Floofy Ears will have been here a year on January 18. 

You know that I rarely post pictures of my family or myself, but I just thought the end of the year was a good time. 

I leave you all with this... and pray we are not facing hard times in the coming year... 

Thank you, as always, for reading this humble blog, and I will try very hard to post more in the coming year.  I have actually already ordered garden seeds... so it should be an interesting one! 

Catching Up

I remember the good old days, when I used to blog daily!

I just looked, I have not blogged since March 18, and so many things have happened since then. 

It was a cold morning, and I had HUGE surprise!

Can you see her, just behind the rotund Fluffy? 

There was a ram lamb in with the sheep that were boarded here last year, and they were moved the first weekend of November.  Sheep gestation is five months. 

I thought we were in the clear, and Fluffy had not been bred. 

She was a sweet little doll, and a complete surprise!

This is Niblet two days ago, growing like a weed at almost six weeks!

As is her BFF Cookie, who is almost as big as his mama at two months!

We have had some beautiful days. 

(though it is currently raining and storming, and will be for the next two days). 

The ducks LOVE the rain, and yes, the yard is that deep in water in several places. 

Lilly Ann, on the other hand, hates storms.  We have been up several nights, lately, 

because she gets so scared at lightening and thunder. 

Grandson Chris came up several weeks ago, and got the garden beds ready for planting. 

I could not have done it without him, the heavy stuff is getting away from me, folks. 

Spring has, indeed, finally come to Calamity Acres. 

Fluffy got sheared... thank you Dr. Jim Sears, and shearer Jim, who made a special trip for ONE ewe when I had despaired of it happening. 

Another morel season has come and gone.  (at least, for me) 

And Jester has been soaking up the rays on the deck. 

So, here is your blogger with her current situation... I have a torn tendon that I walked on for three months before we discovered what was going on.  I am in an orthopedic boot, but... after a week, have a very, very sore upper leg below the knee.  The doctor's office is figuring out what to do, I may be too short to wear the high boot.  I have had it on all day, but just now set out to do chores, and the pain on the upper part of the leg is worse than the tendon tear at this point.  So... we soldier on until a solution is found. 

From Winter to Spring!

On the fifth, we had bitter, bitter weather. 

This young bird hung around all morning, I am sure it was 

very, very hungry (juvenile red-tailed hawk). 

It was bitter most of that week, and my electric bill 

reflected it.  

This week, just past, was milder, but very, very rainy and windy. 

Every time I looked out the door, this is what I saw.  

Chickens (and roosters) on the doorstep, staying out of the rain. 

I have tripped over them numerous times, and frankly, I am 

up to here with chicken poop. 

So....

I have hired a fencing crew to come and put up fence.  I originally 

thought to cut the yard in two, and fence off the southern half for the chickens, 

with a wide driveway gate, and two smaller walk gates.  I realized I did not 

really want to do this, so asked the fencing supervisor to re-measure, and we are now 

going to fence the half acre around the two bigger henhouses on the west side. 

The hens in the old hen house, pictured above, are moving back to the 

National Agricultural Center for the summer. 

Tuesday night, the fencers came to drop off supplies.  As you see, the truck was 

parked just OFF level ground, and they became hopelessly mired. 

A second and then a third truck was brought to try to pull them out, and as you can 

see, it left a mess, nine inches deep in some points.  The supervisor told me that 

when they DO start fencing, he will use displaced dirt to fill it in. 

I have told him NO fencing will commence until the yard is dry.  I can wait. 

I went down to Garnett on Sunday to get grandson Chris.  He helped me 

on Monday morning to take Cookie to the vet in Tonganoxie to be 

neutered.  I did not realize that with lambs it is imperative that it 

be done EARLY, within two or three weeks, because goats can 

wait a little later. 

As you see, Cookie was getting to be  handful at three weeks. 

Dr. LaRosh at Pleasant Valley Veterinary Hospital made quick work of the neutering. 

Yes, Chris and I had to leave the room.  Cookie and his mama were so glad to see each other 

when we got home, and Chris got the crate broken down and put away and we actually jumped in the car to go back to Garnett. 

Cookie stayed away from me the rest of the day after my return, and I was glad it was still cold, as it helped with healing and NO FLIES.  

By Tuesday, I could tell he was still stiff, but running around happily again. 

He is one month old today.  He is eating along with his mama and Aunt Fluffy, 

both grain and some hay, though he is still nursing. 

I wish he had a playmate, but frankly, after the hard winter we just had.... I am glad 

I was not caring for all eight sheep that boarded here before. 

It is a glorious day today, and I actually enjoyed carrying my feed in buckets to the different hen houses.  So much better than trudging over the snowy ground. 

There are buds everywhere. 

As I took the feed into the hen spa this morning, 

I interrupted feral Rusty eating his breakfast (I leave a deep dish of 

cat food in there for them) and I stopped to look at the nest boxes, 

there were five hens already laying.  I am averaging from 21 to 25 eggs a day now.

I have a lesser number about every third day, some of these hens are, after all, three year olds. 

I talked to one of the shelter managers at The Community of Hope on Thursday, and 

6 cartons of 18 eggs are about what they need weekly, so I have enough to give to friends, 

which makes me happy.  

Yes, I know this morning's news has announced more bad news about eggs and cholesterol.... but eggs are not the only cause of cholesterol, and people have eaten them for millenia.  I am still going to eat them. 

All three henhouses need a thorough cleaning, and that is part of what I have on the agenda 

this coming week in the better weather we are now having. 

Paiton and Jax had spring break this week, but I had so much going on, I did not see them until yesterday.  We went to lunch at Ihop, and as you can see, they had breakfast for lunch. 

We had a great time visiting. 

I have a confession to make, I LOVE IHOP HOT CHOCOLATE! 

Last Friday, I took Paiton to her riding lesson. 

At this stable, they just don't jump on and off the horses.  She had had to go to the pasture in the cold to catch the horse up, bring her in, groom her, tack her up, ride the lesson, and afterwards (it was nearly seven pm and dark) blanket Appy again before she was turned back out.  Thankfully, her riding instructor took care of that on Friday evening. 

Paiton is doing very well, and I hope to take her again in a few weeks and get good pictures of her. 

Jester loves his sunbeams. 

My girl Lil, in the last light of day on Sunday,  on her favorite couch 

in my bedroom. 

There was standing water everywhere after the rain this week, and the ducks were in their glory. 

Here I need to talk about ducks.  These are three Pekin drakes.  For the last week, 

they have been displaying mating behavior on each other... it is normal, but disconcerting. 

They are actually hurting each other.  

I looked out this morning and did not see them anywhere, and finally, after I started chores, I saw them way down in the pasture, trying to breed each other, filthy dirty (all the water has sunk into the ground). I could tell their pool had not been used. 

I went ahead and bucketed a fresh pool, but left them alone.  I had a chance this week to 

send them to the annual spring poultry auction in Gardner, but turned it down. 

I may still re-home them at some point, but for now, we will just see what we will see. 

As of my sitting down to type this at noon, they have still not come back up to the yard. 

More about the fencing... the chickens are going to be in the half-acre on the southwest side of the more-or-less-two-acre yard.  I will miss seeing them running all over, but I will NOT miss 

having no garden (they pulled it all up last year) and having no vegetables at all. 

I can always open the gates if I want them out, but I am making a considerable investment to do this. 

Singleton's group will still be loose in the old hen house, but this is the flock of roughly twelves hens and Singleton that are headed to the National Agricultural Center for the summer. 

It is already 47 here, and going to 57.  I am going to go out and do some preliminary work 

in the gardens, but grandson Chris will be back up in two weeks to do the heavy lifting. 

I hope this was the last blast of winter, it is so nice to walk outside without double layers on! 

One last comment, directed at any other bloggers reading this... last post, I had the strangest comment, one unusual for me, and I have been blogging literally ten years now. 

It was a post from a foreign country delineating "escort" services for those visiting the country.  It was lengthy.  I am sorry if anyone read it and was offended, I took it off, and I realize I need to LOOK at my comments regularly.  I have never had anything like that posted before, though I have had some critical comments that were unwarranted (and I removed them).  

The Long Weekend

Friends, 

it has been a long week. 

A week ago today, I had chickens begin to fall ill in the henspa. 

For those of you who have not read Calamity Acres for long, 

my late husband built a luxurious hen house for me five years ago, 

which we jokingly called "The Hen Spa".  This differentiated it from 

the old hen house, which the feral cats and raccoons have claimed now. 

Above, you can see two of the birds which fell ill myseriously. 

They were gasping and raling in their breathing... and I suspected 

one of several chicken diseases.  

Oddly, only three chickens were affected.  

The third girl cured herself, stayed in under the heat lamp for two days, 

and went out on the third day and has been fine. 

Bird number two, the red bird above... died later the day I took the picture. 

But, the mystery bird... the partridge cochin.... is still alive. 

I had the vet do a necropsy on the red bird.  She had pneumonia, he believed. 

As you can see, this poor cochin has NO neuromuscular control over 

her head and neck.  She can scrabble around a little, her legs aren't working right, 

but she pulls herself around... she cannot bend her head to peck or drink. 

I thought surely she would be dead on Friday. 

Her head lolls back on her back... and her breast bone is sticking straight up to the ceiling, it's 

unnatural.  Her eyes are closed most of the time, but she can open them, when I feed her. 

The vet told me to isolate them on Friday night, and Chris and I (oldest grand) took them 

over to the little red henhouse and put them in there for the night.  You see she still had some 

muscle control at that point. 

I did not sleep... the ferals and the raccoons and the opossums are used to 

checking this house for food every night... as well as the old henhouse... and I 

worried all night.  Both birds were in there, the red hen is out of sight at the right. 

I really don't think either could walk. 

It was the following day the cochin lost control of her neck, and the red hen died. 

I brought them back over to the feed room of the henhouse, if they were going to die, 

I wanted them to do it where there were familiar surroundings (because of course, 

I anthropomorphasize my animals).  

We were also working outside, the kids were out of school on Friday (thru this week) and Christopher was up from Garnett to help. 

He and Jax worked on clearing this fenceline of grapevine and weeds.  The grapevine was 

pulling it down. 

Jax and Paiton raked alongside the old hen house, and they had to keep stopping 

for their helpers. 

And there might have been some brunch at Ihop.  That's Paiton's favorite, 

the Junior Cupcake Pancake Combo... she ate it all... and Jax had 

the Nutella French toast, which also looked wonderful. 

Ooops... that's a blurry picture. 

By Sunday, the poor brown hen looked like this: 

No muscle control in the head or neck.  It was heartbreaking. 

I began feeding her a gruel of oatmeal, honey, water with vitamins and 

electrolytes, and some old Doxycycline a friend had. 

I use a dropper to get it in her, I am holding her tightly on 

my lap, she does still have a little fight in her, and can sort of scrabble around on the floor in the feed room, but... she can't get up on her feet OR eat, or peck, or drink.  So, we dropper it in four or five times a day.  This is no life for this beautiful chicken. 

My helpers and I worked in the flower beds Sunday night. 

We had almost two inches of rain on Monday, though, so we are 

having a little hiatus. 

Monday, I found a HUGE egg in the hen house. 

That is a Leghorn egg on the left, and a smaller brown egg on the right. 

As you see, I could not close the lid of the carton. 

Yesterday, another giant egg was laid. 

Here they are in the skillet this morning, both 

double-yolkers!  

Lilly and Jes had them for breakfast. 

My girl Lil, who tore her ACL on the right hind leg partially a 

few weeks ago, has either aggravated or torn it more. 

She can hardly walk, or hobble.  I put a ramp at the steps for her, 

but she doggedly pulled herself up this morning.  She cannot go 

out except to relieve herself... and frankly, I am not sure right now where this is 

heading.  She is not a candidate for surgery because of her age and weight. 

I said last year I would get her home to Calamity Acres before she died, and 

I have, and she has enjoyed it for the last six months living here, where she grew up. 

We will talk to the doctor once more about it... but for now, I am keeping her on Rimadyl and Tramadol. 

Oh, there's this.... 

the partridge cochin's sister has 12 eggs under her in the 

hen spa.

I am waiting a call from the large animal vet, who is supposed to come and 

euthanize the poor hen this afternoon.  If this does not happen, I'll run her to 

my friend's and we will do it there. 

She can't go on... I can't go on, seeing her like that.