A Pic Of Dead Birds....

Now that the voting is over on Homesteadingtoday.com, I can announce that I was the one that took this pic!! Woot!!

I don't know if it will make the calendar as many folks don't want dead things hanging on their wall, but I love it and will hang it somewhere.

They were tasty too!

Some Things Are Yellow...

The butt of a bee
sleeping in a squash blossom is yellow.

Freshly laid eggs are yellow.

Freshly made butter is sorta yellow.

Eggs and cornbread are yellow.

It tasted much better than it looks.

Weeds are yellow.
Some things are blue..

like hyssop.

And the sky behind a ....turkey!

(that is the now required turkey pic..)

Stuff has been going on around here..

just nothing really photo worthy.

The Great Chicken Sell Off is going ok.

I need to do one more advertising blitz to

unload the last group.
And, closely connected to the Sell Off,

the barn scramble is still going on.

Who to put where and with whom...

I have too many birds.

No wait.. I have too many breeding groups, that's what the problem is.

Black Copper Marans

Cuckoo Marans

Black Langshans

Ameracaunas

Blue Laced Red Wyandottes

a seller's pen, a rooster pen..

(ok.. I have three rooster pens..

The breeding roosters, the growing roosters

and the darn near edible roosters..)

and the laying hen pen.

See the trouble?

I think I am selling off the

White Rocks and White Jersey Giants, but they are not in the seller's pen.

I have to see if I am selling the 'point of lay' Ameracaunas.

And if you are confused and overwhelmed,

then you can see why I am too.

Bottom line - I need to sell more hens.

And eat more roos.

The ducks have moved out to the smokehouse

and are no longer free ranging all day and sleeping

the night away in the potting shed.

I had, had, had to move them out

so I could put the chicks we are hatching out there.

They cannot live in the laundry room forever.

One group of young birds have moved up to

the barn and I have one more

group that needs to move up too.

Add this to the above mentioned

tangle in the barn.

The chickens now hate to see me coming

because more times than not I have the

catching net in my hand.

But soon the potting shed will house only chicks,

which is the point of the potting shed.

And I can't take all of the complainig

about the chicken shuffle.

Much of it falls on the shoulders of Sweet Husband

I am utterly, completely and cripplingly night blind.

Oh, and the turkeys..

sweet, noble turkeys.

They do seem to have an aversion to
going into their pen in the late afternoon.

It is not that they don't want to go in, persay,

it is that they are stymied by the process.

I am sure that by the time they figure it out

it will be time for Thanksgiving.

Next year they will move to the barn

pen and out of the potting shed while

they are still young and have the brain

capacity to learn something new.

I love them though.

The new woodstove had a test fire

last night and this morning out in the yard.

Yippee!! New paint and it looks great.

I have to start gathering a barn stall of kindling

and Sweet Husband needs to start chopping firewood.

It is getting a wee bit chilly at night now.

Seems a bit early to me. As does the early

turning and falling of the leaves.

The poplars are looking ragged.

I do not think it will be a pretty autumn.

A busy time

helped along by the nice cool weather

Oh.. I have an adendum..

I read a great book recently..

'Farm City - The Education of an Urban Farmer' by Novella Carpenter.

She rocks on a vacant lot in Oakland California..

turkeys, ducks, bees and two Duroc hogs..

great read!

Look to my favorite links to find her site...