Chicks!

 We’re having another rain day. Good thing, too, as I hadn’t read or responded to my emails for several days, and bills were due. The cats sat with me in the study while I worked. Banjo took a nap; Bingo stared pensively out the window at the rain.

Bingo gazing pensively at the rain.

I’ve gotten a couple of cute cat pics that show their different personalities. Banjo is more intellectual. He likes to help me with the crossword.

Bingo likes to help with the crossword, especially by chewing on the pencil eraser.

Bingo prefers to spend a lot of his day in “his” recliner, often with his head hanging off the edge so all the blood rushes to his brain, presumably. Silly boy.

Bingo lets the blood rush to his head

In our last episode, I reported that four box elder trees had broken in a Big Wind. Poor Terry. He went out with his chainsaw and started cleaning up. He cut up everything he could reach, but left stacking the pieces for another time when he was rested. Alas, another front came through midweek and blew a tree into the fire ring.

Tree down on the fire ring

It wasn’t a new break, however. A tree that broke in the Big Wind and got hung up on the trunk next to it broke loose and hit the ground. Sort of. The end was still stuck in the tree.

Broken box elder, last week

This week, branch down

View from the other side

We are at the height of asparagus harvest, picking about two pounds every other day. There must be a red-winged blackbird nest nearby. A male has been scolding me all week, and actually made contact with my back as I bent over to cut a stalk yesterday. I may have to resort to wearing my bike helmet. When a blackbird claws you in the head, you know you’ve been hit.

Yesterday's asparagus harvest

I picked the first ripe strawberry yesterday. Terry and I split it for lunch. I only see one other berry turning red at the moment, but experience suggests that they will soon mature all at once.

The first strawberry

When Jane and I were at Menard’s on Wednesday, we heard sandhill cranes calling nearby. We drove by the far edge of the parking lot, and there they were. We saw four adults first, then another adult with one, no two! chicks. Three of the adults flew off, leaving one (presumably the dad) guarding the (presumed) mom foraging with the two chicks. That was an unexpected bonus for the day!

Cranes, family of four

The chicks came Friday. Here they are in the shipping box. The numerous light brown ones are the meat chickens.

My first view of the chicks

I gave them each a drink and put them in the coop. A few of them gathered around the water cooler, getting hydrated after their long trip.

Hanging by the water cooler

I took a picture of one of the Ameraucanas because she was so cute.

Ameraucana chick when I took her from the shipping box

This morning, they were already showing wing feathers. Here’s that same chick today.

Two days later, already getting wing feathers

I also have two silver-laced Wyandottes (which look the same)

One of two black and white Wyandotte chicks

And three other Ameraucana (which all look different).

Dark brown Ameraucana

Tan Ameraucana

Not-so-dark brown Ameraucana

For the first three mornings, I have to do pasty butt inspections. I use a large plastic bin to separate the chicks I have checked from the ones I haven’t.

The Bin of Separation

Yesterday, I had no chicks with pasty butt, and I dared hope that this would be the first year that I didn’t have to open the Chick Spa. This morning, however, I had one customer for a butt wash and blow dry. It doesn’t even bother me anymore.

While the chicks were still in the bin, I pulled up the piddle pads and switched to wood chips, which you can do after the first day or two. If you go to bedding right off the bat, they can have digestive problems if they try to eat it.

What is this stuff? Food? Not food?

Here’s a little video showing the chicks trying to decide if wood chips are good to eat or not.

https://youtu.be/47DvuFEUwOw

As for the hens, they finally all laid an egg on the same day. I have been waiting for months. We’ve had lots of days with 6 eggs, which caused me to suspect that one was not laying anymore. Not that it matters. With no way to determine who it is, it isn’t like I can cull her. 

Seven eggs from seven hens in one day

I have to congratulate Silvia and Goldie, our two Ameraucanas for being the Egg Laying Champions. They both lay a blue egg nearly every day. The brown-egg layers are slackers. In any case, we got 5 brown eggs from five brown-egg-laying chickens yesterday, so they are still all producing. Terry suggested they were feeling the pressure of having their replacements on site now. They certainly don’t look concerned, but chickens never do. It’s one of the things I admire about them. Always in the moment.

 

Stormy weather

 It is only because of a rain day that I can do a blog post today, and what a relief it is to have the rain. It has been very hot (80’s), and Terry and I have been outside all day, every day trying to get our gardens in and the weeds out. We are sore and exhausted. A day of rest was in order.

We had some excitement on May 7. I got a weather alert on my phone at 2:30 that we were under a tornado warning. A few minutes later the wind blew hard enough to scare me. It was over quickly. I heard reports that a tornado had taken down a barn about a mile from our house. The news later changed that to strong winds. The barn was 200 years old, and when I saw the pictures, I was surprised it had stayed up as long as it had. The only fatalities were two sheep and two goats.

When I went out to get the paper the next morning, I saw this in the field across the road. I went in the house to get my camera.

A black something with white on the top

My suspicions were confirmed. It was a bald eagle! Any day you see an eagle is a good day, although this eagle was looking wet and grumpy. It stood still while I walked along the road, snapping pictures all the way in case the eagle got spooked a flew away. He or she was unconcerned, however. I got as close as I could get on the road and went no further. I couldn’t see any carcass anywhere that might have attracted its interest. Had it been injured in the storm?

Our national symbol, muddy, wet, and grumpy. Don't read too much into that.

As I turned to walk back to the house, I heard a tree come down somewhere by the creek. It sounded like it was south of us. Terry came out to look at the eagle while I put away my camera. When I returned, there were TWO eagles. By the time I retrieved my camera, they both flew off. No one was injured. Just wet and grumpy. The next day there were two vultures picking at a carcass near the road at about the same spot. I couldn’t tell what it had been during its life.

Terry told me later that a box elder had come down by the fire ring. I wondered if that was the tree I heard fall. I walked back later to take pictures. Here it is.

Big tree down by the creek

The tree had come up by its root ball. The root ball was surprisingly small for such a large tree. No wonder it tipped over.

Big tree, tiny root ball. 

But wait! There was more. Another box elder had split and was leaning on its neighbor. Foresters call things like this “widow-makers” because of their tendency to fall on your head when you’re not looking.

Tree on the left is split and leaning on the right tree

A third tree had snapped off up high with the trunk landing on a chair.

Trunk in the foreground came from high up
on the tree just right of center in the background

Another widow-maker arched over the path to the creek. I ducked under quickly to go look at the water. You can’t be too careful. Terry started cutting up the fallen trees yesterday. The cleanup will take awhile.

The fourth box elder destroyed by the storm. They're crappy trees.

It is still hard to believe how many orioles we have this year.

It seems the orioles are always lined up at the jelly this year.

I got some good pictures of a male orchard oriole in its first summer.

Male orchard oriole in his first summer

They have a striking appearance, but wrong color for mating. Alas.

They can hardly look more different than the full-grown males. In fact, they look more like females except for the males’ dark feathers under the chin—transvestites with black beards. Compare the juvenile to the picture of the adult male I put in my last post.

Fully mature orchard oriole male

For whatever reason, there has been strong selection against first year males getting breeding plumage. Perhaps they are just not ready to settle down. I’m sure no self-respecting female will give them the time of day.

The spring flowers continue to march along. The air smells of lilacs now. I only had two shooting stars bloom this year. Some were too crowded by neighboring flowers (I have since weeded—weeding is my life!). Another was all set to bloom when a deer neatly ate the buds clean off. Swine!

My only blooming shooting stars this year

Wild geraniums are covered with blossoms.

Wild geranium and wild ginger (left)

The trilliums are peaking, although they got a little beat up in the storm.

Trillium

I suppose I’ve mentioned how much I love this time of year. Every day brings a new miracle.

Birds and bees

We’ve had nice weather for working outside lately, so it was a relief to have a rain day today so I could rest my back and butt muscles and get caught up on some inside work, such as blogging. Bingo had a different response to a stormy day.

Bingo takes refuge from the storm

Our migratory friends are back. The rose-breasted grosbeaks were the first to arrive. This year I’m going to try to identify individual males by their rosy breast. This one has a narrow band of red below his collar.

Rose-breasted grosbeak with small red collar

This one seems to have a broader collar as well as a broader band below. I bet all the girls think he’s sexier.

Does more red make you sexier?

I don’t have a picture of a hummingbird yet, but I’ve seen one at the feeder regularly. It might be the same one or many, but I won’t know until I see more than one at a time.

The Baltimore orioles are a different story. I don’t think we’ve ever had so many. They line up at the grape jelly like planes coming into O’Hare. I have seen one orchard oriole and three Baltimores hovering around the feeder waiting for a turn. The feeder shown here is a plant saucer with a weight to hold it down. 

Male Baltimore oriole

Male orchard oriole

The female orioles are also back. Mr. and Mrs. sometimes have breakfast together. 

Female oriole

Mr. and Mrs. Oriole at breakfast

I went for a walk yesterday morning. The apple trees are nearly done blooming.

Apple trees in bloom

It was a beautiful day, clear and cool.

Apple blossoms and blue sky

Our Russian bees were busy foraging. Note the one on the lower left has full pollen sacs on her back legs.

Well done, comrades!

The bluebells under the solar panels are blooming.

Bluebells under the solar panels

Jacob’s ladder and phlox are flowering under the fifth oak.

Jacob's Ladder

Phlox

The native rain garden I nurtured so carefully last summer looks pretty good with the exception of sneezeweed, which has either died or not sprouted yet. The Southern blue flag are double the size they were at the end of last summer.

Southern blue flag

Golden Alexander is already forming buds.

Golden Alexander

Obedient plant is spreading all over.

A proliferation of obedient plant

The rose milkweeds are looking quite robust.

One skimpy plant last year, a whole lot of sprouts this year

The cup plants that I grew from seed are not all looking great, but these two are doing well. Perhaps they will flower this year.

Two healthy cup plants growing together

Back by the creek, Joe Pyeweed is spreading like crazy. I’m going to have to cut back some of them or I will lose some less aggressive flowers.

Joe Pyeweed

My maidenhair fern is limping along. Sometimes just coming back each year is as much as you can expect.

Maidenhair fern

The trillium is blooming in the shade garden on the north side of the garage. Its runners are getting so numerous I’m going to have to divide it. That’s a great problem to have!

Trillium

We moved the hens to the orchard in mid-April. They love it there. There’s so much more room to run around, trees to sit in and under, bugs and grass to eat. Hen heaven. We took the fence down from the run by the house as we will have to put the chick fence up when the chicks arrive in two weeks. It’s amazing to see the effect of chicken poo on grass. Just look at that color difference!

No fertilizer, left; chicken poo fertilizer, right

We had two rounds of storms today. The one this afternoon was pretty serious. It included about 30 minutes of a tornado warning. We didn’t have a tornado, but the wind was REALLY strong and accompanied by torrential rain and a bit of hail. And now, an hour later, the sky is blue and the wind is calm. Except for the massive puddles everywhere, it’s like nothing happened. Gotta love spring.