May 10, Day 9

Thursday, May 10
We have some chick worries. A couple of the chicks showed early signs of the dreaded pasty butt. If poop dries in their vent (the combined opening for the reproductive, excretory, and reproductive tracts), they can become permanently plugged and die. When I first heard about it, it seemed disgusting to deal with, but it really is not that hard to wipe their little bums with a wet paper towel and/or carefully cut the dried material away with scissors. The new worry was that we had been a bit too aggressive, as a couple of them ended up with naked bums. For the most part, they look quite healthy.


The chicks are using the perch more and testing out their flight feathers. The change from day to day is remarkable.

I think I can fly!

Dominique perching

After chicken chores we planted the potatoes. The soil was perfect. Slightly moist but easy to work. Terry dug the holes, Hilda cut the potatoes, I put the potatoes in the holes and covered them up, and Hilda put down markers. After many years of planning to mark the potatoes when I planted them, it finally came to pass. No more trying to find the hills long after the plants have died back. We ran out of seed potatoes about halfway through the fifth row. Terry retrieved some sprouted potatoes from the cellar to finish out the row. We are still eating last year's potatoes, despite sprouts that are approaching a meter in length. The Native Americans referred to the full moon in February as the Hunger Moon. In our house, the months of February through June are the Moons of the Wrinkled Potatoes. This year, I tried leaving some of the sprouts above ground. I think they will turn green. I am photodocumenting for possible inclusion into my Plant Science course.

Potato sprout one day after planting. No green yet.

I am delighted that I have gotten the lupine seeds Jane and I collected last year near the Boundary Waters to sprout. Direct seeding was a complete failure. I tried all combinations of freezing and refrigerating with nicked and intact seed coats. It was nicking the seed coat that did the trick. Water was able to reach the inside of the seed, and two days later, sprouts were visible. I planted them in the green house and more leaves are visible every day.

Lupin sprouts

Another success was the rescue of the trillium from the base of an oak tree where 13-stripped ground squirrels had nearly dug it out. I transplanted what was left of the corms (or are they bulbs?) to a safer location. They are doing as well as can be expected. Jane and I collected these plants from the woods at the Girl Scout camp where we worked for years, and they have great sentimental value to us, particularly in light of the fact that the camp was recently sold to the Wisconsin DNR.

Trillium in their new home