A Visit From The DIY Fairy

 This past Sunday we had a very special guest at the homestead. Julie Sabatier from Destination DIY (www.destinationdiy.org) stopped by to interview us. We spent about a week trying to get the 'stead looking nice; all the while the kiddos built forts and damned up irrigation canals and basically created chaos. All in all, by the time Sunday morning rolled around, everything looked about as chaotic as it usually does. Which I suppose, is at least truthful. I did manage to vacuum the living room though, less than 20 minutes before she came! She might have caught me on her mic, bribing the kids to be on their best behavior. There was the choice of money or video time involved. Oh what she must think of my parenting skills!

Lucky thing for us, one of our broody mama ducks decided that morning was the perfect morning to show off her just-hatched chicks. In addition to our 9 two week old ducky chicks and 3 week and a half old goslings, it was super cool to show her 10 just-out-of-the-egg ducklings. Whitney Houston and Maybelle (goatie extraudinairs) tried to eat her radio bag, of course, and Poncho Villa (our roo) wouldn't crow for her despite our chasing him frantically around the Habitat. The rabbits ignored us and the chickens clucked contently for her radio mic.

Ms. Sabatier spent a few hours asking us questions about the livestock and our ethics behind the choice to homestead. By the end of our time together, my tongue was dry and I'd contemplated never speaking about myself again! She asked quite a few questions of the kiddo's and I'll admit that I'm so darn proud of Joshua, Jason and Stella's answers to her probing questions. They spoke candidly and wisely. Sometimes I get so caught up in the day to day work that I loose out on really enjoying how intelligent and insightful my kids are. I'm so amazed they came from Nik and I! I'm also proud of myself; I only lost myself once to a fit of giggles at the awesomeness of the moment! And of course, Nik was well poised and beautiful the whole time, as he always is. The segment Ms. Sabatier interviewed us for is concerning homesteading and it should be out on her website, www.destinationdiy.org, in June and it'll be on OPB radio sometime in July or August. Each one of these events that happen in our lives, whether it be a spot in a local magazine or a quib in the newspaper or a few minutes on the radio, helps to create a wonderful childhood for the kids. When they're awesome adults doing amazing things, they can reach back and hear or read a little bit about their childhood and for that, I can't ever be thankful enough.

Real Happy Meals

A huge part of what we do here on the 'stead is growing our own meat. We're not large enough to raise a cow or have multiple pigs, but we are big enough to grow our own chicken, duck, goose, turkey, guinea hen and rabbit. We've been blessed in that we've always been able to fill our freezers with poultry meat for the whole year, within a season. And every year we experiment with different ways to keep our flock healthy and happy. A happy hen or roo makes for a happy meal. The flocks' regular diet consists of Payback Organic Pellet, Scratch and Peck whole seed and variously gleaned fruits, veggies and otherwise composted foods. Our flock free ranges on about .25 of an acre. Well, I should say their fenced area is about .25 of an acre. Unfortunatly for me, fortunatly for them, I'm horrible at building secure fencing. They roam freely throughout the garden and front orchard. Luckily, our neighbors are spectacular as about a dozen of our ladies like to congregate in their front yard on a daily basis.

In addition to their wild wanderings, we've tried to offer them variety and fun in their Habbitat. After Christmas every year, we collect unwanted christmas trees and leave them in the Habbitat for more natural nesting and resting areas. The grass grows taller around these dead trees and offer wonderful little hiding places for broody hens or cranky roos. They also provide excellent bug hunting grounds. In an attempt to create more diversity, we decided to try something new this year with pallets and left-over seeds, inspired by accident. Earlier this spring I read an amazing article about the taste of eggs in regard to the season. Eggs, of course, taste differently according to what the hen has eaten and is experiencing. In the spring the eggs are deeply yellow and rich, because the insects and wet roots she eats are abundant in the fresh spring weather. Early fall, the eggs are lighter in color and lighter in taste, because she's eaten more grasses and forage and is hiding out from the heat, thereby not eating as much. In an attempt to affect the flavor of the eggs, and encourage more natural behavior in the flock, I mounded a couple long rows of compost into which I planted last years' left over seed. Over the top I placed several pallets, laid side by side. The idea is that as the plants under the cover of the pallets begin to grow, the chickens, geinea hens, ducks and geese will feast on the leaves and veggies without digging up the roots and killing the plant. So far it's worked wonderfully, though I'll save my praise until the end of fall to see how well it worked throught the seasons. I planted squash, beans, sunflowers, wild grasses, lettuce and melons. Stay tuned to see how well it works!

When we first began raising our own meat a few years ago, everyone told us not to love, name or become attached to any of the animals destined for dinner. We tried to be stoic and removed and it honestly didn't work for us. I've discovered that despite what others have said, it's a more complete transition from backyard bird to dinner plate if we allow ourselves to love along the way. To understand the sacrifice it takes to kill a living being in order to live, we must first treat that living being with the respect and love it deserves. With that in mind, we totally love on all our birds, layers and meat alike. If anything, over the years I'd say we feel closer to the animils we claim as food then when we started. This year, all of our ducks and many of our chickens we hatched ourselves. Lovingly cleaning them of their broken shells at birth, caring for them throughout their lives, cherishing them by name and recognition of their personalities and in the end, delicately leading them through the process of their death. I think we'd all swear to the fact that these birds bring a whole different meaning to the term Happy Meal.

It's May Yo'

What a month! Despite the fact that every Spring I promise myself that this season's gonna be different. I'm not going to go overboard and I'm going to go easy with the farm and garden. This year, I promise, I'm gonna enjoy myself. I vow to have more bbq's, sleep in more, go camping and hiking during the week, every week and read during the day. Lies! All lies! Despite my best intentions, every May, life becomes an open circus and this year was no different. Of course, looking back it looks like a we all had a blast. Maybe we did and maybe hindsight is the correct way to look at our experiences. It felt like running crazy! We started the month with Josh's 12th birthday. Josh is my oldest baby. Joshua made me a mom. Before Josh, I myself was a baby. Literally, I was 19. He helped me form my view of the world and my place it in. We celebrated our big day with an excursion to the beach to obtain some big, beautiful, fresh crab. And since my mother was driving, that meant that we had to stop at every possible water source and explore. I think we left that morning at 5am. We didn't reach Tillamook until 10am, if that tells you anything.  

Life is everywhere on the farm this month! Now I'm not super great at giving you or anyone an accurate count of the critters that at any point live here at Blue Moon. I'm so bad that I didn't realize one of our Rouen hens went off (most likely to our neighbor Bernhard's yard) and had a little clutch of 4 babes until she decided to parade them up to the front yard one beautiful day this past month. I swear she just wanted to show off her brood because she didn't really do anything except march up the side drive, with her little ones trailing behind her, and then turn around and run back. Of course, I was chasing after her trying to snap a photo.

Our poor neighbor Bernhard has so much to put up with as our neighbor. The other night I decided that he had been left out of our Prank Wars and that the situation could only be remedied by a great prank. See, we prank our other neighbors all the time. We've t.p.'d the inside and outside of their house, we've socked (which necessitated over 4,000 socks, saved and gleaned together over a 6 month period) the inside of every drawer, item in the refrigerator and cupboard. We've plastic wrapped their truck among other less time consuming tricks but felt that Bernhard deserved some fun too. Sooo, I tore apart our library and garage and outfitted his front yard with a living room set. It was pretty great.

One of the saddest days in May was the day that we had to take Maybelle, our beloved Alpine, to my girlfriends house out in the woods. She just ate so much and I decided that it was unfair of me to not have more forage for her. So at least for now, she'll be living with a great family out past Eagle Creek on the edge of the Hundred Acre Wood. Once we got her there we made an amazing discovery. Despite the fact that Maybelle has been my great companion for the past few years (she goes on walks with us around the neighborhood and is always following me like a dog here on the property), Maybelle is not genetically a female! Maybelle has a penis! How could I have missed this? What I thought was utters were in fact deflated (fixed) balls! Needless to say, I was shocked. She thought I was being ridiculous and chewed my fingers. Regardless of what her plumbing says, Maybelle identifies herself as a lady and so do I.

Spring is chick time! All of our chicks are now old enough to be outside and just like every other year, there's a few stand outs in the crowd. I've never been great at culling, not so great at it in fact that I don't do it. So I guess I'm not a real farmer. Which is great news for Capt' Jack Sparrow and her partner Sierra. Capt' is a fizzle and I'm not quite sure what Sierra is but both of these chicks were in our handicap brooder and nobody expected either to fully thrive. So we babied them, of course. They lived in the house at night much longer then they probably should have. They receive daily baths in the bathroom sink and hard boiled eggs and treats just about every day as well. Capt' Jack Sparrow has a neurological disorder and has occasional seizures when frightened. She also bobs her head endlessly and cannot clean her undercarriage. Another interesting thing about Capt'  is that she's got extra toes, useless, that grow on the tops of her feet. Sierra came from Naomi's and had a peculiar condition that I've been unable to completely diagnose. She had a tiny body with large wings that grew away from her body and a tiny little butt. Having raised hundreds of birds over the last 5 years, I've noticed a thing about those birds with wings that grow away from their bodies and tiny butts. They rarely thrive. Sierra wasn't selling at Naomi's, partially because she didn't look too healthy, so Stella worked at Naomi's shop painting the bathroom to earn her. Neil, Naomi's partner, advised Stella to pick another bird because he'd come to the same conclusion I had, those birds rarely live, but Stella wouldn't hear of it. She brought Sierra home to be be Capt' Jack Sparrow's partner. Despite Sierra's extra attention, I had to clean her bottom everyday because her vent was constantly clogged. Both these lady's are now thriving and live right in our unfenced front yard and perch every night with Pearl and Auntie Ma'am, our older handicap ladies, on our front porch. We see so many sad things with the animals here at the farm that it's absolutely uplifting to see such an obvious success story.

Although we didn't raise the quantity of chicks that we have in previous years, we did raise quite a few. In addition to the chicks from the hatchery, Naomi's Organic Farm Supply and other random pick-ups, we raised quite a few of our own ducks from our own backyard drake and hens. Nik built me this beautiful run for the ducks in our front yard. They've got wonderful natural cover from a couple of Japanese Maples and a little feeding pond that we regularly stock with goldfish. They're all mixed with some form of runner duck and they're hilarious to watch running around in a group. Everyone in the pond and then up and out and do a loop around the enclosure and then hide under the tree quacking and then start all over again. Hilarious! If you're sad, may I suggest runner ducks????

We're all so lucky to have the things in life that we have. Family, friends, animals, leisure time, freedom of religion and speech, freedom of choice. Sometimes I feel so spoiled, how can I be anything but happy? A few weeks ago after a day of fence building and gardening, I was bit by a hobo spider. Although it hurt, it wasn't that bad. I went into the doctor and was promptly put on antibiotics. That following week I began to feel sicker and more ill, with migraines and no energy. Then a horrible rash that looked like burns, covered my body, from nose to toes. I spent some time in the hospital and discovered that I'm allergic to the antibiotic that I received for the bite. My bone marrow was compromised and I had no white blood cells to speak of. All my other counts were down and for awhile there, I was really scared. At the risk of sounding cliche, I began to review my life and I realized just how great I've got it. I am so thankful to God. I am surrounded by amazing, beautiful friends, family, life. I'm so glad I've chosen to live my beliefs! I may look a little weird to folks that don't know me and like a complete dork to those that do but I'm so happy that we've chosen the path we've chosen. I really realized who, in our crazy busy life, really truly care and I'm so blessed to know them! Thank you all!

Happy Spring all!

Duckie duckie

 Jason heard the first * cheep * cheep * cheep * cheep* cheep * cheep * cheep

 And we all crowd around the Eggsabator (incubator)

 to see little pieces of egg shell crumbling off our lovely little eggs.

 And feathers begin to emerge from between the edges of thick shell.

 One wing flops out

 and another.

Suddenly she straightens her neck out from the unbelievable pretzel position she'd spent her embryonic days growing in to.

 Pushing her webbed feet against the inside of the egg...

 She squeaks as she's pushing, so hard. Come on baby! We whisper encouragement.

As she lays, spent from the exhausting effort it took to birth herself, we stand amazed by the miracle we've just witnessed. 

She and her siblings are full of miracles. 

Earlier that day, they narrowly escaped death by my hand. As their time of birth grew closer, someone (a beautiful little someone) accidentally turned up the heat in the Eggsabator. When I discovered the temperature error the following morning, it was well past 106 degrees. According to the books I've ingested regarding incubation, embryo death occurs at 103 degrees. That morning I was distraught by the thought of our unfortunately cooked babes and decided to candle (holding a flashlight to the bottom of the egg to discern if there's life present) the eggs. I saw no life in the turkey eggs, no movements or chirping, which had previously been evident. The duck eggs were so thick that I was unable to see into their living centers. I assumed they were dead. Stella gathered the eggs together in her skirt and raced outside to "bury" them in the compost. Not two moments later she rushed back into the house, screaming and crying frantically and I'm just able to gather that there was a great deal of blood and chirping in the compost bin. We all race outside together and what do we behold? A cracked egg with movement beneath the thin inner layer and blood around the cracked shell. Aghast at my attempted murder, we gently carry them back into the house and return them to the Eggsabator. Later that day we welcomed our first hatchling, aptly named Compost. In all, we've hatched 10  beautiful ducklings with 9 surviving. What have we learned through this experience? 

That life is a hardy thing and that mothers are fallible.

Hola amigos! It's been awhile, quite awhile, since I last posted. We've experienced a great deal of upheaval since I last wrote; such is life! We planned, organized and designed my girlfriends wedding (it turned out amazing!); my grandmother, whom I had been caring for this past year, left this life in December; I rewrote our curriculum and we've welcomed an abundance of life and mourned our fair share of death on the farm in the last few months.

There's really too much to recount so I'll begin anew, with trying to hatch some eggs. As we have mating pairs of geese, turkeys, ducks and chickens, we decided to side step the whole buying of baby chicks this year. Of course, I'm sure we'll still pick up a few adorable associates along the way, we've decided to try and breed, hatch and raise our own butcher stock this year. My mother so kindly donated a mid-range incubator and I've spent the last two days pouring over poultry books trying to decipher exactly how to ensure a healthy hatching. After ascertaining that I'll most likely fail, I threw our clutch in the incubator, or as I've fondly begun to refer to it - The Eggzabator, last night. Included in our hatch hopefuls are 6 turkey eggs, 12 duck eggs and a lonely goose egg. The problem with incubating these three breeds together is that the duck and goose eggs need more humidity then do the turkey eggs. And since I can't figure out how to get the Eggzabator to get more humid, I just threw them all together and I'm innocently, or ignorantly, hoping for the best. I never said I was a great farmer, just an enthusiastic one!

Another wonderful addition to the 'stead is Whitney Houston. What a horrible name, you say? Yes, I do have to agree with you. Unfortunately, I had no say in this matter. The story is long and sad and sweet; I'll begin. Arwen was accidentally impregnated, through lackadaisical farm standards assuredly. We didn't even realize she was prego until a week before she delivered. The day of her birthing, February 12, I inspected her to see if she had any telltale discharge from her vagina, as usually occurs in almost laboring nannies. As discharge was discernibly absent, I relaxed and went about my day, to be culminated in a date night with my partner Nik.

6pm finds me looking pretty and ready to hit the town (the local bar) when my mom calls frantically saying that she heard splashing water in the barn. Now, as preface to what I've just relayed, I must explain that there are two houses on our property. My Mum lives closer to the Habitat (barn yard) and is always calling to say that the animals are making weird noises. Keep in mind weird noises are what barn yard animal do. A squawk this way to mean that, a quack that way to mean this. That's what they do. Anyhow, she calls to say she hears running water, or splashing in the back and she's worried there's a raccoon killing the goats or something. Nik and I run back to the Habitat, as we always do when my mother worries, and what do we find? Arwen, in labor, with two babies at her feet and a third halfway out. Now did I mention how cute I looked? I looked good! And here I was, about to kneel in the hay and blood and all sorts of fluid from a birthing mama goat. Why do I even try? Anyhow, after pushing the last baby free, Arwen immediately stands and starts licking clean the larger, brownish kid. The other two she ignores. At first I thought the first one she had birthed was dead. He was covered in amniotic fluid and didn't seem to be breathing. I cleaned his face and that of the last kid born. The larger one, the one Arwen immediately took to, was already up and around, nursing some of that excellent colostrum. I tried for quite some time to get her to nurse the other two; she just wouldn't. After about 30 minutes, I took the two small kids inside.

For the next two days I bottle fed them every few hours and tried to help them thrive. They began to walk about 12 hours after they were born and I had the highest of hopes. I even named them in the belief that my positive energy and love could help them thrive. I named them Zora Neale Hurston and Herman Hesse. Good, powerful names after favorite authors. Unfortunately, they both passed within 4 days of life. They both passed at Woodburn Veterinary Clinic, after lots of time, energy and money. During that time my mom took it upon herself to name the surviving kid. I was so busy with the two runts that I gave no thought to her naming choices. Whitney Houston... Oh woe! The travesty of her discretion on top of the death of two beloved babes! I was in a funk that was inescapable for a week.

Whitney is now healthy and happy and the light of our farming days. She's got more personality then a lot of folks I know and she's never above a romp. I choose to take every experience as a learning opportunity and try to never miss the simple joyful happenstances that can be found. Apart from being more careful of breeding mishaps, I've come to cherish Miss Whitney more then I had hoped as she symbolizes the dichotomy of birth and death, renewal and the passing of energies. And she loves to poo on Nik's favorite chair in the living room. His subsequent annoyance is the remedy for all that ills!

Happy wintering!

Meet Gus and Victoria (or Shari and Trooper or Starbright and Sunshine or whatever)

In keeping with the urban homesteading momentum we've got goin' on around here, we just got us some pigs. American Guinea Hogs to be exact. We found the perfect breeding pair at Cascade Meadows Farm, out past Sandy. They've also provided the Oregon Zoo with a mama and baby American Guinea Hog. Kirk and Jason were just about the nicest farmers, folks, I've ever met. When we arrived on Saturday at the Farm, it was shearing time for the Icelandic Sheep. Despite what I'm sure was a hectic day, Kirk and Jason spent almost two hours with us. They showed us around the farm and introduced us to their herds of Dexter cattle, Icelandic sheep, Americana chickens and of course, American Guinea Hogs.

We brought home a female and a male hog. I decided I liked the names Gus and Victoria; Josh and Jason agreed. Stella demanded they be named Starbright and Sunshine, which I guess is cool because they do kinda look like My Little Ponies. And of course, Nik, always the joker, wanted the names Trooper and Shari. Shari being short for Sheriff and Trooper short for State Trooper. I refuse to explain his idiosyncrasies.

Despite Nik's juvenile tendencies, we're all really excited to breed and harvest our own meat. We've eaten the chickens and turkeys we've raised and we're ready to take it a step further with a larger animal. This breed of hog was our first choice for this, our venture into true Homesteading. The American Guinea Hog stays small and is a true forager, making the meat more tasty and healthy. They eat everything edible, including meats and dairy and veggies and fruits and just about anything a human could eat. They turn our waste into delicious meat. The consummate recyclers!
In addition to great tasting meat and a healthier waste system for us, their humans, there's only 200 Guinea Pigs left in the United States. They're listed as critical on the Conservation Priority list of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. I've added some resources at the end of this page because I'd like to urge you to look into them as they're amazing animals.

http://www.cascademeadowsfarm.com/americanguineahog.html

http://www.albc-usa.org/cpl/guinea.html

http://www.guineahogs.org/articles/breedhistory.htm

Finally, our new Goat Tractor!!!

After two years of desire, a year of failures and then another six months of planning, Penelope, Arwen, Big Mama and Maybelle finally have a comfortable new home! Sunday morning found us up early and shopping for lumber at the local lumber store. I'd much rather have scavenged construction materials from Craigslist, Freecycle or local construction sights, but my wonderful Mom offered to purchase all the materials new. And since we were unexpectedly scheduled to have the Tractor done before the first of September, we were left with few options.
That said, we began the actual building of the Tractor after hours of debate and price checking, in wonderful spirits and under the direction of the Lord of Construction, Aaron Reick. In addition to being an engineering student and a building guru, Aaron also happens to be the kids' Godfather. Despite personal constraints, Aaron not only designed and spearheaded our project, he worked and directed us for 12 hours on Sunday. What a guy!

I love this photo of Aaron, to the right. He spent much of Sunday in this pose. Kindly listening to our uniformed advice before respectfully teaching us how things are really done. Such patience! In addition to Aaron's assistance, Luke Russel and Mike Bird also lent their strong backs and nimble hands to our project. Without each of them, we'd never have been able to finish this project. Hero's I tell ya!
Mike and Jenny are our neighbors to the East and their kids Bryson and Carson also threw in their effort. Jason, Josh, Bryson and Carson nailed together the header over the doorway as well as offered us hours of entertainment.

At this point the Tractor is structurally finished. We're planning on painting this weekend and I'd like to find some corrugated metal roofing and a gutter on Craigslist to finish the roof. Then we'll pack bark chips and straw on the ground as a floor for the goats. After it's all finished we will re-fence the East side of the Habitat and fix up the coop. Then we'll be done for the year! I just can't wait to head back to the Habitat and see everyone happy and safe and warm in their specific homes. I'm thinking we'll try to plan a "Habitat Warming Party" sometime in September, so mark your calenders!

Tidings from around the homestead!

It's been such a busy month! The wildflowers have given way to the sunflowers and the chicks are getting so much bigger. We've also got some new additions to our duck flock.

I'm in the process of planning the Habitat barn and fenced areas. I'm so lost! I found a wonderful book called How To Build Animal Housing and I'm trying to decide which barn to build, how to build it, what materials I can salvage and how I'd like to see the Habitat divided. Ahhhh! I'd really appreciate any assistance anyone out there could offer with regard to my barn issue.

The Three Sisters Garden is growing wonderfully! Because we had such a funky start to our summer, the corn isn't as far along as I'd like, though I'm encouraged by the growth we've witnessed this last month.

And the Spiral Garden is growing wonders! The ducks have fresh grown lettuce in their ponds every day and we have never ending dinner salads. Unfortunately, the peas were a no-show (thanks, in part, to a certain gourmet chicken) and the artichoke has only yielded two tasty buds. All in all, I find myself really proud of our hard won garden.

We've also picked up 4 White Breasted turkeys. Although I realize they're primarily used for meat production, I'd like to see if we can extend their lifetimes and offer our dinner table a healthier alternative to traditionally raised turkeys. So far, these little guys are voracious, so we've taken to adding garden greens and fruit and vegetable table scraps to their meal regiment.

In addition to the new turkeys, we've also picked up 5 new duckies. Two Khaki Campbell's, two Runners and one Peking. They're maturing beautifully in a brooder in Nana's yard, right alongside Calvin, Cooper, Mrs. Quackers and Gretchen. At the time this photo was taken, Wanda had decided to raid the chickens meal and had abandoned her duck and goose buddies for a short time.

Wanda and Daily were the two little duckies that were found at a local school and have grown into beautiful female mallards. Like her brethren, Daily took flight and joined a flock of passing wild ducks and we've not seen her since. Wanda, on the other hand, has decided to remain as part of our family. But oh, how we miss our Daily!

Spring babes finally get names!

Today being the beautiful sunny Sunday that it was, Nik and I decided it was well time to trim our feathered flocks' wings. Of course, I'm sure our awesome neighbors would have preferred we do this weeks ago, as a few Freedom Rangers have decided they prefer Chuck and Chris' and Barenhart and Lee's sprawling back 40 to ours. The spring clutch is about 12 weeks old now and had up until today, remained nameless. This not only seemed just a little too neglegent, it made identifying and trimming harder then it needed to be. And so here I'd love to take a moment of your time and introduce you to our Spring Flock.

We've got two black Austrolops, one of which you can see in the photo to the left. Joshua has ceremoniously named this little lady Manarhd. Taken, I believe, from a character in the Wheel of Time series that Joshua so loves. Our surviving turk has yet to be named; we just couldn't think of anything suitable. After having to name a multitude of chickens, ducks, quail, cats, dogs, gerbils and whatnot, my creative naming bone is broken! Any suggestions in this matter would be greatly appreciated!

This lovely lady to the left is our Sussex named Mordith, again a name stolen from the stories of The Wheel of Time.

And this stunning gray gal, Brahman, is a Brahma chicken. Yeah, like I said, my creative name circuit up and quit on me.

Raiku here is a silver-laced Wyandotte. She's harder then spit to catch. I don't think we spent as much quality time with her as we probably should have during her formative weeks because she's the most distant of our spring flock this year.
This stunning pair are the Ferdinand's; Franz and Isabella. Franz was sexed as a poult, but he didn't like that distinction and being the rebel that he is, decided to be a male. Franz and Isabella Ferdinand are bossy and bitchy and only really enjoy the company of each other. Awwww, young love. Been there!

Although we'd decided to never adopt another Rhode Island Red again, because of their overall jerky-ness, somehow we ended up with two more. The larger Red on the right is named Phiele and the smaller one on the left is named Almondreada. I'm seriously never letting Josh name another creature in either his life or mine.
Last although surely not least is Amy Ray, a black Austrolorp. The choice in names has nothing to do with any similarity between our hen and the famous feminist singer, I was just darn tired of all the weird names. Maybe next spring I'll get another poult and name her Emily. Awww, I'd have my own set of mini Indigo Girls!
In addition to catching, naming and trimming the wings of the Habitat Flock (what we've named the backyard family), we decided it was time to move Auntie Mame and Pearl into the larger flock and relocate Nineve and her 6 babes into the garden tractor. So far they love it! As it's pretty difficult to discern chick from chick, we've only named one little Deleware so far. Stella was the Grand Namer this day and she's decided the littlest chick to be Hot Tuna. No clue why, but I actually appreciate the name!