I realized this morning that I’ve kept you hanging about the chipping sparrow chicks in the dwarf Alberta spruce. Terry called me probably two weeks ago to tell me they had fledged. They were “all wings” splayed out on the ground. By the time I got out there with my camera, they were gone. I heard them chipping everywhere up in the trees but could not spot even one.
When we finally got measurable rainfall, Terry said, “Maybe this will break the seal.” That seems to have been the case, as we had several more substantial showers through the week, and not all at once. Over We’ve had about 3”, but never more than 1.3” in a day. We are truly grateful for the moisture. It is amazing how fast the grass greens up.
Heavy rain on June 25
The orioles usually leave around the end of June. It is hard to know how much more grape jelly to buy. We have seen quite a few juvenile orioles, both Baltimore and orchard. This is a juvenile orchard oriole. It has the yellow color of an adult female, but the black chin means it’s a first-year male.
A male juvenile orchard oriole
On June 19, Terry and I put up the chick fence. It always looks so nice, straight and taut until the first wind. It is amazing how much wind a fence catches. You would think it would just blow through the holes.
The lovely taught chick fence when we first put it up
The chicks were a little nervous about going outside at first. I kicked everyone out of the coop on Sunday (note that the inside door is shut) so I could change the wood chips. It was a stinky mess after two weeks of 21 chicks in confinement. Many of the chicks seemed intent on digging an escape tunnel under the coop.
Everyone go play outside while I clean!
In this video, you can see the digging in addition to one chick who preferred to run around in circles.
It was not long before the chicks dug a dust bath inside the windbreak outside the door.
Vying for space in the dust bath
The high tunnel looks like a jungle at the moment. The watermelon vines are everywhere. I’m training them as much as possible to not interfere with the growth of other plants. So far, this experiment has not been all that successful. For all that foliage, there are but two developing watermelons. Most of the flowers are male, and of those that are female, most are aborting. Not enough pollinators? Not enough resources? I don’t know what the problem is.
A watermelon jungle
Here’s the harvest from June 24. We have plenty of zucchini, far too many cucumbers, not quite enough beans, and scallions rapidly turning into onions.
June 24 harvest
The meat chickens are, as usual, outgrowing the pullets. Some of the meat chickens like to sit in the doorway. This photo shows the comparison in size between the meat chickens and one of the Dominques.
Hanging around in the doorway
Here’s a close-up of a Dominique. It is starting to get its characteristic black and white Big Girl feathers.
A Dominique getting its adult feathers
The Americaunas are also getting their adult plumage.
One of the Americauna
When I was taking these photos yesterday, it began to sprinkle. This caused the chicks to flee to the shelter of the coop, not that the ones sitting in the doorway were willing to move.
Climbing over the chick in the doorway to get out of the rain
A short time later, Terry called to tell me there were two tom turkeys fighting in the high tunnel. He chased them out before they did any damage, but otherwise they paid him no mind. I got my camera and carefully crept outside. I’ve spooked turkeys so many times that I used an abundance of caution, moving slowly and not quite closing the door behind me.
It wouldn’t have made any difference if I’d slammed the door. These two were truly oblivious. Tom A had Tom B’s upper beak in his mouth while Tom B had Tom A’s lower beak in his. In this position, they pushed at each other. It was like how one might arm wrestle if one didn’t have arms.
Face off
Beak lock
Video clip
Sometimes they curled their long necks around each other in a creepy snake-like manner.
Entwined snake-necks
At one point, it looked like one turkey was trying to flip the other onto its back. That didn’t happen.
Attempted back flip
Meanwhile, a third turkey came up to see what was going on, but kept his distance.
A third tom coming up to investigaate
The fighting turkeys pushed each other all over the place, include right up to where I was standing. No kidding, I could have touched them. They were behaving so brutally, however, that I just backed up to give them space.
Yeah, this close to me
They headed for the patio. Shit! I left the door open! The last thing I wanted was two wrestling turkeys in the living room. I sidled around to put my body between them and the door, only to discover that I had latched the door after all. Whew.
I went inside to watch the rest of the fight. One turkey seemed to have the upper hand, or head as the case may be. He pushed the other turkey under the deck, up against the compost bin, over the watering can, and eventually between the wheels of my bicycle (yes, we do use the space under the deck for overflow storage). And after that, it was apparently over. I lost sight of them, and Terry said he hadn’t seen them when he came in for lunch. The point of the fight seemed to be humiliation rather than bodily injury. Typical male posturing. I had no idea they fought like that. I suppose this is how they decide who gets the babes and who acts as wing man.
Today we are celebrating a half inch of rain that came in
the thunderstorm in the middle of the night. It was the first measurable
precipitation we’d had since May 22. That’s a long time without rain in these parts,
and the 90°F
temperatures didn’t help. At least it was a bit cooler this week. Now that we’ve
had the rain, though, it’s not only hotter but wickedly humid. Ah well. At
least we got some rain.
Jane had her shoulder replaced on June 8. Since we now have
extra room, she stayed upstairs while she learned to do all her self-care with
only her left hand. Skippy came to visit as well, since he couldn’t stay at
home by himself. We thought that he would spend more time out of the cage upstairs
with Jane than he does with us when he comes to stay with us while Jane goes to
Florida. It turned out, however, that he was no more inclined to behave himself
with Jane that with us and was quickly bored with sitting on Jane’s lap and
started crawling under the chairs and pulling at the stuffing. So it was back
in the kennel for him. Sometimes, though, he relaxed on the coffee table,
presumably because the glass was cooler than other surfaces.
Skippy lounging on the coffee table
The chicks are growing fast, as they always do. Their wing and
tail feathers are coming in, which means they will be flying all over the place
soon and will need their wings clipped. Now that the ground has some moisture,
we can install the chick fence and let them out into the run. That will give me
an opportunity to replace the pine chips inside the coop, not that it needs it.
In this picture, you can see that the Dominique (black) is quite a lot smaller
than the meat chickens (tan). Every time I look or—God forbid—step into the
coop, they all crowd into the corner farthest from where I am. They don’t call
them chickens for nothing.
Rapidly growing chicks cowering in the corner of the coop
The outside garden is coming along. Meanwhile, the high
tunnel is amazingly productive. I expect much of it is beginner’s luck. I am
astounded at how many cucumbers we are getting. I have one of the plants trellised
to string over a purlin. The idea is to use string that is made of natural
fiber, in this case cotton, so that at the end of the season, I can cut the
string and compost the whole shebang.
Cucumber trellised on a string hung over a purlin
The high tunnel carrots could be harvested any time, but I
think I’ll wait until they are a little bigger.
The first high tunnel carrot
The Early Girl tomato has considerable foliage. I’ll have to
do some pruning soon. It also has golf-ball-sized green tomatoes. I eagerly
await them turning red.
Early Girl tomato plant
Here’s the peach tree.
High tunnel peach tree
The cherry took so long to leaf out that we feared it was
dead, but it did eventually show some green.
The not-so-leafy cherry tree
The zucchini and watermelon are going crazy, especially the
watermelon. I am considering trellising some of the shoots. I don’t think the
string would support a melon. My plan would be to cut the flowers off those
shoots so that their energy would go to the fruits developing on the ground. It
will be a learning experience.
Zucchini and watermelon spreading everywhere
The first baby watermelon
I think it was last year that I mentioned the sexual
dysfunction of my zucchini. Once again, the female flowers developed first.
This is bad because if they aren’t pollinated, they get about 3” long and then rot
if they are not picked promptly. It would make so much more sense for the male
flowers to open first. As we say in the business, pollen is cheap and eggs (or
fruits in this case) are expensive. All the wasted resources in the virgin zucchinis!
I noticed this morning the we finally have some male flowers, so I can let the
fruits get bigger now before harvest.
Finally, a pollinated zucchini
My main activity outside the high tunnel is pulling weeds
right now. That is how I usually spend June. The weeds don’t seem daunted by
the drought at all. Maybe now that we’ve had some rain, the fireflies will come
out. Also the mosquitoes, but they aren’t as fun.
So hot. So dry. So damn much wind. Not likely to change for
a couple more days at least. We’ve finished up planting most of the garden. I’m
waiting for a cooler, cloudier, less windy day to plant the basil. Basil is
such a wussy plant. With the plants and seeds in the ground, we spend a good
portion of our day watering, watering, watering.
Still, the garden looks pretty darned good, if I do say so
myself. This picture shows the potatoes and tomatoes. The row cover (white) is over
the cabbage plants and green bean seeds, not yet sprouted. I normally put on
the row cover to keep off the bugs and keep the plants a little warmer during
those cool early summer days. HA! At least they still have the bug protection.
And some protection from the wind. You can just see the garlic peeping over the
row cover in the back.
Our garden
I planted another batch of radishes. I laughed when I took a
close look at this packet of seeds. The funny thing is that I don’t recall
ordering Roxanne radishes, and I’m sure I didn’t order Silor cucumbers. This is
why I always check the “no substitutions” box on the order form.
Odd substitution
The high tunnel is looking good. I’ve got two Crimson Sweet watermelon
plants, three peppers designed for greenhouses, three tomato plants, and some
Brussels sprouts, in addition to the peas, green beans, lettuce, carrots,
beets, and herbs that I’ve previously reported. Will this be the year that I
can keep a watermelon plant long enough to get a truly ripe melon? Stay tuned.
The high tunnel
The first planting of peas is wrapping up while the second
planting is hitting its stride. We had enough peas for a decent-sized serving
for two people today. The idea of the high tunnel is “succession planting.” One
is supposed to plan ahead for what can be filled in where as each planting
senesces. When the first peas are done, for example, I’m going to pull them off
the trellis and train my baby cucumbers into that space. Speaking of, I harvested
the first two baby cukes yesterday. The one we ate was exceptionally delicious,
likely because we haven’t had a decent cuke since last year.
The first two baby cucumbers
The high tunnel does attract a number of not-very-bright
visitors, such as birds and butterflies. They always fly for the top, which is
exactly where there isn’t any opening. The birds have all managed to get out by
themselves so far. This lovely black swallowtail didn’t make it out on its own,
but it was cold enough the next morning for me to pick it up from the edge of
the raised bed and put it outside. After a few minutes in the sun, it was on
its merry way.
Black swallowtail
It’s too bad Hilda is gone because we have finally gotten
the hang of growing strawberries. Last year, we learned that if a strawberry
touches the ground, it will rot instantly. So this year, I put lots of straw under
the berries, and they are just beautiful! Wait. Straw. Berries. Strawberries.
More than coincidence?
Yesterday's strawberry harvest
The big excitement of the week was the arrival of the
chicks. They were supposed to ship on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. But Monday
was Memorial Day, so I figured that was a wash. Nothing on Tuesday either. I
had an email on Wednesday that they were on their way! Thursday morning, I
tracked the package to Minneapolis at 5:55 p.m. Wednesday night. When I didn’t
get a call from the post office by 8:00 a.m., I called to see if there was any
chance they would be in Harvard at all that day. The guy said that maybe they
might get to Woodstock, and they would call to give me the option of driving in
to get them. He assured me that the drivers were always careful to put any
package of live animals up in the front with them, out of the heat.
So I waited. No call. By the end of the day, they were in Chicago.
Chicago! I was up early again Friday morning, and the call came at 6:15. I was
so anxious about their welfare that I hardly even thought about Hilda’s
absence. The chicks were all fine. I dipped their beaks in water for their
first drink, as always. I’m sure they were thirsty after their long trip. Soon
I had them settled in the brooder box working on their first meal.
Chicks in the brooder box on their first day
Here’s 17 seconds of baby chick cuteness!
The layers for this year are three Dominiques, which all look
alike.
One of three Dominiques
The Americauna (the blue-egg layers) are all different, and
none of them will be white. That’s good. Chickens are kind of racists. Put
another way, birds of a feather truly flock together, and they don’t take to
chickens that don’t look like them. The lone white Americaunas that we’ve had
always get picked on unmercifully. Poor Bianca finally died, as I have chronicled
in this blog, and I don’t want to talk about it.
One Americauna
Another Americauna
The third Americauna
In other news, the chipping
sparrow eggs hatched a week ago. On Sunday, they were just little fuzz balls.
Newly hatched chipping sparrow fuzz balls
By Wednesday, they were begging for food whenever they felt
their nest move.
Chicks go through a phase where they are all mouth
Yesterday they were covered with feathers. I felt bad
getting this picture because one of the parents arrived just ahead of me with a
big, juicy caterpillar in his/her beak. I backed away, but she still just flitted
nervously around while her chicks went hungry. So I went in for a quick pic,
and got out of there.
Feathers are coming in
More poppies are blooming. I love poppies. I posted a
picture of one with yellow pollen and white stripes. Here’s the more common
version with the black stripes and dark pollen.
The more common colors of poppy
I’ll wrap up this week with another picture of the doe and
fawn. I got up to see if the hens were in bed, and saw what looked like a tall,
thin dog in the middle of the field. Nope, it was the week-old fawn! Soon she
and her mom strolled right by the garden, like they wanted to be sure I saw
them.
