Goodnight, girls

One of the best things about having chickens is that it forces me to be outside during the most beautiful times of the day. One might think that the sheer glory of early morning and late evening would be enough motivation, yet unless it is my morning for chicken chores, I tend to linger in bed. When the hens are in summer pasture, I am responsible for shutting the coop. I do the chicks too, as long as I have to put shoes on anyway.

I have been trying to get the most out of my summer break by going out at 8:00 to sit on the patio, listen to the birds, and breathe deeply. It worked out well until the mosquitoes got bad. I watched the sky change colors. Often clouds to the south and east were more brilliantly colored in pink, gray, and orange than the clouds in the northwest. Sometimes as the temperature goes down, there is a point when the air smells wet and earthy. The dew point, perhaps? A thermal inversion? I don’t know why. Whatever the reason, it’s wonderful when the lilacs are blooming because their fragrance permeates everywhere.

I learned something about the hens. They squabble about where to sit on the perch every single night. Most of them will go in, and then I will hear squawking and thumping. Suddenly one or more chickens will burst out of the coop like a cowboy through the swinging doors during a saloon fight. Those who have been expelled shake it off and return, chastened, to take (I assume) a lower position. I don’t know what position that is. The perch is level. One side is away from the door and has the ladder, and the other side in behind the door with no ladder.  The final order when I close the door is different every night, although I notice that the Barred Rocks tend to sit on the door side.

The hens are usually ready for bed about 8:30. At first, I thought that the chicks would be ready then also. They are much more agreeable about going into the coop on a cool night, and those have been few and far between this summer. One evening, all were in but three meat chickens. I stood by the fence waiting for them to go in. Two chicks came out to get a drink from the waterer. Two others went in. Three came out for a drink. And so it went until I tired of it and took the waterer away. Eventually, I went in the run and shooed them toward the door. I’ve learned to wait until nearly 9:00. By then, the fireflies are coming out. I love the fireflies.

Now that the mosquitoes have hatched, I wear my mosquito net hat, long sleeves, and long pants. I can’t sit down because that holds the clothes next to my body, allowing the mosquitoes access to my skin. As long as I stand, there’s enough airspace between the clothing and my person that the bugs can’t bite me. I walk around and look at the garden, the raised beds, the potatoes. Such a peaceful time of night.

We had cooler weather last Friday and Saturday. Hilda and I worked our tails off weeding the potatoes and corn. I had corn on my list of things to do, but the potatoes ended up being the emergency. They were so overrun with crabgrasses that their growth was stunted. The corn, on the other hand, was holding its own, towering over the weeds. I wondered why, but only for a moment. Corn and crabgrass are both C4 plants. They have a pathway that allows them to fix CO₂ into a 4-carbon compound in addition to the usual photosynthetic pathway that has its first stable intermediate as a 3-carbon compound. To make a very long story extremely short, C4 plants grow better than C3 plants in dry hot weather because they can us the C4 compounds for carbon to continue photosynthesis even after the stomata (tiny holes in the plant leaf) start to close.

Corn towering over the crabgrass

Bianca seems perky enough, but her feathers are downier than the other True Blues. Here’s a picture of her with two of the Dominiques. They still have persistent down on their heads.

Bianca is still small and downy

While I was taking pictures Madeline got a little panicky. After furiously flapping her wings, she got up as far as the windbreak. Once there, she seemed puzzled by this peculiar turn of events. Where am I??

Madeline flies to the top of the windbreak. What is going on?

Four tom turkeys have been hanging around. With the breeding season over, they seem to have not much to do but lounge in the shade of the fifth oak. They remind me of the old men who hang out at McDonalds every morning, drinking $1 cups of coffee and kibitzing.

Four tom turkeys, one lying very flat, lounging beneath the fifth oak

There is one other thing the turkeys enjoy, and that is dust bathing in the pumpkin patch. If Terry spots them through the kitchen window, he runs out yelling and waving his arms. The pumpkins got as weeding as everything else, of course, so Terry went at them with the small rototiller. I expect the turkeys figured he was making better dust beds for them.

Terry graciously making dust baths for the turkeys

Indeed, we chase them out frequently. I couldn’t catch them in the act because they saw me coming. Here they are making a retreat. One day last week Terry was mowing with the big tractor. When he saw the turkeys heading for the garden, he drove the tractor around to chase them off.

Turkeys leaving the garden

I was so proud of us when the corn and potatoes were weed free. It didn’t take long to notice that the onions needed weeding again. It never ends.

Except for the peas. With a heavy heart, I took down my lovely pea trellis yesterday. The peas failed epically. The fence came down, and Hilda got the weeds out of the row. So sad. Not one single pea this year. Sniff.

I’m discouraged about the beans as well. They looked like they were coming around in the pictures I took for my last post. The leaves, however, seem stunted. Perhaps I am checking them too often. I will be leaving for Minnesota with Jane tomorrow. I’m hoping everything (excluding the peas) will look better when I return.