And then there were none...

No more little peachicks.  I would think the cold and wet got to these last two, but that doesn't explain the deaths of the first three, which were sheltered in the coop.  Ah, well, there's always next year...

And then there were two ...

Out of five peachicks, we have two left.  The raccoons didn't get them, but something about the coop isn't beneficial for peachicks, I guess, because over the course of a week three of them died.  So, today, I opened the door and let them out.

First the peahen looked out; she then got her two chicks to jump up onto the step, and she joined them.  After looking around outside, she flew down; the chicks stayed up on the step, huddled in the doorway, while she checked everything out outside.  After a while, one chick flew down to her, and she helped it find some bugs (I assume) to eat.  I was waiting for the other chick to fly down, when the other peahen and the peacock showed up.  The mother peahen was very protective of her chicks, and chased the peahen away.  The peacock saw this, and stayed away (smart guy!).  Finally the other chick flew down to his mother, and they all started scratching around.  I spent a very enjoyable half hour, watching them. 

A rose by any other name ...

I have decided to name the peafowl.  Mostly because when I go to tend to the mother peahen and her chicks, I talk to her before I open the door of the coop so she will know that "who goes there" is friend, not foe.  And it is easier to call her by name.  So, I named her Bernadette.  Since we only have one other peahen and one peacock, I decided to name the other hen Penny and the male, Sheldon.  ("Big Bang Theory", anyone?)

Since I am also tending the guinea with her chicks, I decided to name her Ophelia.  After the ghostly Ophelia in Hamlet.  (I am not positive Ophelia is truly ghostly in Hamlet, but she is in my recollection.)  Anyway, MY Ophelia is a light gray guinea, and certainly fits the ghostly image!

Which leaves the mother hen, who has eight chicks.  (I thought we lost one, I only counted seven yesterday, but all eight were back today, hurray!)  She is now Claudia.  I just like that name.  I have never named fowl before, and I still have two Marans hens and two male guineas without names, and I don't think I want to name all eight chicks and all seven guinea chicks and the four peachicks, but ... mothers deserve some recognition for all their hard work!

Rain, rain ... at least STOP for a bit!

It has been raining all day.  Some days I don't mind the rain at all (it is, after all, rather pleasant to stay inside and listen to the rain outside), but when you have outside chores to do, it would be nice if it would stop for a bit!

I was one bag of feed short for the weekend feedings, so my steers were quite hungry this morning.  I ordered more feed first thing, and by mid-morning it was mixed/ground, and ready to be picked up.  But it was still raining, raining, raining outside, and me with a truck with no topper!  I waited for an hour or so before deciding the rain was an all-day kind of rain; I could hear the steers hollering for their food (they have plenty of pasture, they are definitely NOT starving) and so I drove in to get the feed.  I got it home, unloaded it, and traipsed through the rain (and the subsequent MUD) to feed my hungry steers. 

Of course the guineas were out of food as well, and their feed was still in the bag up on the porch.  So, I traipsed through the rain again, up the hill to the house, and fetched a bucket of grain for them. 

And then I drove the truck into the garage, stripped off my wet sweaters, and went back to canning tomatoes!

More fowl ... and that's a good thing!

Seven guineas hatched today, and, luckily, we found them in the grass and moved them into a warm (and safe) spot in the barn.  My mom says I am running a restaurant for raccoons; that may be so, but I can make it as difficult as possible for them!  I will try to get a picture of them tomorrow. 

Last week five peachicks hatched; they are fluffy and yellow, and safe in the pheasant coop.  (The pheasants are locked outside, for now.)  The mother peahen is white, so I figured all her chicks would be white; but, I did a quick perusal of peafowl genetics online and discovered that blue is dominant in peafowl.  So, since the father is blue, the chicks should all LOOK blue, but carry the white gene.  Technically they will be "blue split white".  Unless, of course, the father only LOOKS blue; if he is actually blue split white, some of the chicks may turn out white!  So, now I am curious to see what they are, and by extension, what their father is!

And, several weeks ago, eight chickens hatched, some araucana and some an araucana/marans mix.  (The rooster was araucana, the eggs came from several hens, both araucana and marans.)  They are about half grown now;  one looks just like the mother hen, two look like marans (one black, one gray), and the rest are mostly rust colored with black touches.   Don't know yet if there are any roosters in the bunch, but I will keep watching.  Also don't know yet where the other two hens are laying their eggs, which is getting annoying; I had to buy eggs last week!

Still here ...

Hmmmm, haven't blogged for quite a while. Here is a quick rundown of the last six months ...

I worked a long-term temporary job from October until the end of January, which made my Christmas difficult.  I like to give hand-made gifts, and working full-time and having my fall weekends pretty much taken up providing bed & breakfast to hunters, I didn't have the time I needed.  So, no hand-made gifts.  Which made me very sad.  So, THIS year, I made a resolution to make ONE gift every month, rather than leaving them all until December.  Which never works.  December has only 24 gift-making days until Christmas.  And one quilt can take up half of them!  (Machine-quilted quilt, that is;  hand quilting definitely needs more than 24 days!)


I started off pretty well, considering I was still working in January.  (I decided that since most people work full-time and still manage to accomplish things,  I had to quit complaining about my lack of time and just start accomplishing things!)  I made a sofa quilt for my mom AND I finished a knitted/felted cat bed.  Both were planned as presents for Christmas 2010, but ... I gave the quilt to my mom for her January birthday, and put the cat bed aside for Christmas 2011.  So far, so good.  As long as I don't forget where I put it!

In February, I made a valentine wall-quilt.  It is supposed to look like an old fashioned Valentine, with flowery material and hearts and lavish quilting!  I wish the quilting showed up in this picture; it is machine quilted, but I still like it a lot.

I also finished a quilt top (my second 2011 Christmas present), but have not quilted it yet.  That makes three completed tops that need to be quilted;  one of these days ...

  I