Time to Redefine our Lives in Oregon

Archive for the ‘Peacocks’ Category

Creepy Crawlies….YUCK!

Less than a day after the hatching of chick number two, Kermit, left the nesting box. She moved herself and both chicks down to the larger brooder area, leaving five eggs behind. I have seen this happen with Chardonnay, but normally that took a good four days, or so, before she totally let the eggs go cold. This move was definitely early, but this was her first brood, so I chalked it up to inexperience….until…….

……WAIT…….WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT!!!!

As I was reaching down to move the eggs back under, Kermit, hoping she would hatch one or two more….I paused…..looked….what’s on the eggs? Tiny, tiny little specks…and they were moving!! I looked at my hand…tiny, tiny little specks were moving on hand, on my shirt sleeve, both my hands….WHAT WAS GOING ON??!!!

Photo captured from http://labs.russell.wisc.edu/insectid/2014/03/07/bird-mites/

MITES!!! Oh my gosh!! It was so gross. I have never had mites, at least I have never seen evidence of mites, on or around my birds. What was I supposed to do??? I remembered the goat rancher saying to get diatomaceous earth (DE) to powder the goats if they got itchy….in other words, fleas, ticks, etc. I had some…..I ran to the shop.

By this time I was feeling things crawling on me….on my face and in my hair. KEEP CALM!!! I put on gloves, and a heavy duty mask….I was already wearing glasses so I thought that would suffice for eye protection….put a bunch of this fine powder into a bucket and ran back to the hen house. I doused the nest, the brooder area, and even mama hen, Kermit.

There was no evidence of the creepy crawlies on any of the eggs laid that day, but I wasn’t taking any chances….everything got dusted….every nesting box, every roosting board, window eaves, and the entirety of the floor of the hen house. The place went from a pine, wood board color to grey. I left a good amount on the roosting boards so that the hens, and Benedict would be laying in it as they roosted for the night. Then I went out to their usual dusting spots, and dusted those areas.

I dusted the goats…for good measure. I used the residual dust on my gloves to run my hands over Penni and give her a light dusting, I dusted my clothes….then….oh gosh…I can’t believe I’m admitting this…..I very, very, lightly dusted my hair.

OH MY GOSH!!!! SO GROSS!!! I could feel the creepy crawlies on my scalp….. BLEH!!!!

I left it on for about fifteen minutes, then showered. They critters were gone, which gave me good hope for the hen house.

That night, however, I didn’t sleep well. My mind was all about having to clean up the chicken house, and having bugs crawling on me. Thankfully, after leaving the place thoroughly dusted for three days, when I did clean it from top to bottom this weekend, not one creepy crawly was felt, or found on me, or anywhere else.

OMGOSH!! I don’t know what caused this to happen. I’ve never had mites in my flock!! There are two things that I suspect…I used straw as bedding the last couple of months; I normally use pine shavings. Straw, apparently, has hollow spaces perfect for little mites to thrive and populate…ok…back to shavings we go!!! Secondly, mites are spread by other birds…and the other birds hanging around ALOT right now are my neighbor’s peafowl (two peacocks and a peahen), the Canadian Geese have gone.

In the meantime…this little beauty hatched in the incubator….

…..and is running around with Mama Kermit…and his siblings…

All is well!!!

Thanks for visiting today….no itchies for you!! Hahaha.

Have a great evening, afternoon, or morning (depending on when you’re reading this!!

Your friend from Oregon,

Tami

Category:

Buff Orphington / Rhode Island Red Mix, Buff Orpington, Chicken Mites, Free Ranging Chickens, Hatching Chicken Eggs, Hatching Chicks, Peacocks

Tagged with:

Peahens and Peacocks

We’ve had an invasion of sorts….a far east, invasion. Exotic? … Yes …. Beautiful? …. Yes …. Loud, chicken feed loving, and hard to capture by cell phone photography? …. Yes, yes and yes!!

I think it’s mating season!!

Our neighbor’s Peahen hangs around our back patio area…many times sitting at the glass door, almost as if she is saying, “Can I hide out for awhile?”

But, the boys call out to her….and she hides in the grass….

CAN YOU FIND HER??

The boys seem to know where is…..

They climb the waterfall as their instincts tell them that they are getting closer…

Ms. Peahen is well hidden…she has gotten as low as she can in the tall grass…..

…well, maybe not in this picture….but, you can’t see her at all in the next picture….and the boys searched…

…and I believe that they peacefully found each other, or they didn’t…either way, they disappeared. Maybe in a couple of months or so we will see something like this again…..from 2014….

I hope you enjoyed our little far east invasion……

Please have a wonderful, wonderful Sunday!!

Your friend from Oregon,

Tami

Category:

Cats and Peahens, Movie about Peacocks, Peacocks, Peahen, Springtime

Tagged with:

The Beauty of Summer

The beauty of summer presents in many forms. Just look around you!! Do you see it??

This is what I see when I look around our forest – farm in the summer….

Two big dogs catching some shade in the heat of the day.

I can see the future…salsa, salads, tomato sauce…….

The deep blue of a beautiful Oregon sky.

A basketful full of a friend’s Beagle puppies.

At the cusp of spring into summer, the first & last of the cauliflower.

A visit from our neighbor’s peacock.

OMGosh…how gorgeous is this??!!

My Penni girl basking in the warm sunshine.

“Red sky at night, a sailor’s delight…..”

Strawberries on the vine.

A cute little visitor…I moved her to bushy young oak growing from a stump.

Dark blue of the night-time sky.

C-A-N-T-E-L-O-U-P-E!!!!!

The last of the broccoli; the first onion and sweet pea harvest.

Baked beans from scratch for the 4th of July barbecue!

The beauty of a summer wind against the tall summer grasses.

Sometimes, we wait to cut the grasses just to watch the “amber waves of grain,” if just for awhile.

I hope you find beauty in your summer…look for it, it’s all around you! Thanks for taking a walk in the forest with me today!

Tami

Category:

Amber waves of grain, Broccoli, Cantaloupe, Cutting grasses, First Fruits, Great Dane, Harvesting, Hiking in Oregon, Homesteading, moving to Oregon, Mowing, Oregon, Peacocks, Penni the Great Dane, Roma Tomatos, Strawberries, Summer, Sunset, Vegetable Garden

Tagged with:

My Neighbor has Goats

My neighbor has goats. Enough said…..until you add in the peacocks, guinea fowl, geese, numerous barn cats, horse, etc., etc., etc.!! I think the 6 acre farm of which these animals reside is large enough to contain them, but goats, cats, and feathered fowl have a way of breaching the boundaries.

Our friend

Quite the nice silhouette

This late spring brought new kids to the goat family. As the kids grew, and horns became noticeable and imposing, my job with these cute little critters began. The squares of our wire fence line are big enough for a goat to stick their head through to taste the delicacies of the other side of the fence…our side. This is totally fine with me for a few different reasons, not the least of which is the control of poison oak, and black berry vines along the fence line…a real plus. The difficulty comes in as the goats and their horns grow, they find that putting their head through the fence is easy…backing out is another story. Those horns hook the wire, and the poor little goat gets stuck. There is a certain sound a goat makes when they are stuck. I am quite attuned to that sound now.

When I first hear the call for help nowadays, I hope that its liberator is quickly on their way…in the form of my neighbors. When the whaling goes on for a couple of hours, I have pretty much learned that help won’t be coming anytime soon for the little guy…or gal. Feigning the thoughts of trekking through poison oak, I can’t leave a goat stuck when it is calling for help. The goats know me by now…they don’t even flinch when I approach. I maneuver their head, lining up their horns…a little lift here, a little turn there and wallah…they are free. At first it takes them a moment to realize their freedom, then, like a lightning bolt, they bound away…only a few hops, then they stop…look at me, and bounce off. It makes the threat of contracting poison oak all worth it!

The goats horns have grown too big now to maneuver out, so recently, I have had to cut the fence to get them free. There are also bigger now, and when I push, they push back…at that point, they are immoveable. I have grown quite fond of my neighbor’s goats, and hope that a smaller mesh fencing to go right alongside the larger squared fencing is in my neighbor’s plans…somehow, I don’t think so….and on it goes!!