Category: About My Chickens

May is big sky month. The clouds are more summer like. The sky cobalt blue. The vivid green of new growth sets off the every changing sky scenery.

Salmonberries wave in May’s gentle breezes. Another month from now their tart red berries will make my face wrinkle when I eat them.

Nature reminds me constantly that everything is eaten by something. In my hunt for where the ducks on the pond are laying their eggs, yesterday I uncovered new nests with a few eggs. And in thick growth I found a mother lode. Twelve eggs in a single nest, only all the eggs had been eaten. My worry about waking up one morning and finding several hundred ducklings in the pond evaporated. Some lucky creature is much better than I am at finding the ducks’ hidden nests.

Last night, on my last venture outside to check on the chickens before going to bed, I looked up and saw the path of a jet on its way west across the Pacific. From here, the Far East is really the Far West. Though if you think about it, no matter where you are, every place else is west of you, just as it is east of you. Or are you supposed to imagine that everything is west of you until you get to the point halfway around the world, and everything west of that is east of you? Something to ponder when I go hunting for more duck nests around the pond.

I enjoy May’s blue skies and puffy clouds. They make working in the garden so enjoyable.

Every year we witness this phenomenon. A windy day sends the cherry blossoms flying off the cherry trees by the pond. The blossoms cover the pond, making it look like it has frozen over. I suppose if I was a fairy prince, I could walk across the pond on these cherry blossoms.

There are many spots in the woods to pause and relax. Especially this time of year with the new growth and blooms. The fiddle ferns are taller than I am now. At the tip of their long stems, they unfold their tightly curled hands.

Why are blueberry flowers white? Shouldn’t they be bright blue? Then again, cherry flowers and apple flowers aren’t red either.

After much searching, I found the nest of the garden ducks. Duck nests are hard to find because the ducks cover them when they leave. With the garden ducks, there are just so many places they can hide a nest. However the ducks at the pond have acres to hide their nests.

The previous nest I found of the garden ducks had over twenty eggs. So did this one. Which means that around the pond, with five duck hens, there could easily be a hundred to several hundred eggs waiting for the duck hens to start brooding. The race is on to find the nests before a hundred or more ducklings hatch.

Six ducks at the pond are fine. A hundred or more? I shudder thinking about it.

Last week’s brilliant white cloud of cherry trees is now a carpet of faded petals and stems. Soon to be swept up and forgotten.

The kale that over-wintered is in bloom. Over-wintered kale is a treat. Deep freezes sweeten the leaves. To keep its leaves alive, kale floods them with sugars to keep them from freezing.

Are the ducks impressed at all with the first potato shoots poking out of the earth? I doubt it. They are more enthralled with all the earthworms they can find in a weeded vegetable bed.

It is rhubarb season. It’s impossible to be sad when there is fresh rhubarb to pick.

It is the season of bird song. Before dawn breaks birds sing out from all directions. Therapists would probably be out of a job if everyone could step outside in the morning, close their eyes, and listen to the birds sing for even ten minutes. Problems? Worries? The birds sing them all away.

It’s baby chick season. Each day another hen seems to go broody.

It’s new maple leaf season.

It’s pear blossom season.

It’s “who-needs-a-therapist?” season. There’s too much to enjoy to have any worries.

On a frosty morning, it’s hard to say, “This is the last frost.” And such was the case on Monday, April 12. It was 30ºF, -1ºC. But I feel safe to proclaim that April 12 was the last freeze of this season. It’s almost summer like today, and freezing mornings have moved far north with the swans and snow geese.

Hearing Canada geese at the pond yesterday was a surprise. They are loud. The pair did not stay long. The ducks weren’t bothered by the much larger birds. The Canada geese were just as loud on their way out, honking as they flew overhead.

Seeing wood ducks waddle across the driveway early in the morning a few days ago was a surprise too. They were after the scratch the birds drop from the bird feeders. The wood ducks were by this morning too. Which means they may have a nest in a tree stump nearby.

March is in its pink and yellow mood. Pink plum blossoms entice hummingbirds to visit. We watched one hover from one plum blossom to another. What does plum blossom nectar taste like? It’s be nice to have a hummingbird tongue to find out, a little retractable appendage at the tip of your tongue you could extend and enjoy what the hummingbirds enjoy when they dart from flower to flower.

The muddy winter fields have turned into carpets of brilliant yellow. I don’t think this is what daffodils had in mind when they evolved to produce showy, yellow flowers. Fields of daffodils in bloom mean that fields of tulips will be in full bloom soon. Then, March will be a riot of colors.

2021 is here, the world over. It’s already January 2 in some places. Hopefully 2021 will be a year of recovery and by fall we can greet one another in person again.

Here is a 2021 calendar you can download as a pdf. It is 40 megabytes. Depending on your pdf viewer, you can show a table of contents or bookmarks, or show thumbnails of each of the months.

[sdm_download id=”21588″ fancy=”0″]

For as terrible as 2020 has been, there are some things I will miss as life returns to normal. Here in the Pacific Northwest the clear summer skies stayed blue all day, right until the sun went down. Usually, by mid afternoon, the blue skies turn milky white from all the contrails that slowly spread and blot out the blue. I’ll miss the long, blue skies once the jets are back in the sky.

Takuma is greeting the New Year with excitement. His scars from his encounter with the raccoon have healed. The fireworks in the neighborhood last night wore him out. It’s time to rest. I think dogs have it made.

Just like children in their Sunday best can’t resist stomping in mud puddles, swans love troddling through muddy fields. How they stay pristine white is a mystery. True, they don’t roll around in the mud like swine. Having long necks helps, as do sturdy, webbed feet. And if they get mud on their feathers, clear water for washing is just a flap of the wings away.

Swans, geese, ducks, make up the biological family of waterbirds, Anatidae, which comes from the Latin for ducks, anas, plus idae which denotes a family of animals.

One thing missing in the descriptions of Anatidae, is how much these birds talk. Close your eyes and listen to a flock of swans, geese, or ducks, and you hear tens, hundreds, thousands of conversations going on all at once. They are as chatty as parrots.

It’s the darkest time of the year. It’s dark when I wake up. Dark when I go to bed. The darkness keeps the chickens on their roost far longer than during the summer. Do they get bored out of their minds, waiting for the sun to lighten up the skies?

Since the bamboo bloomed and died, I’ve been wondering what to do with them. The seeds seem to have dropped out of their pods before I could harvest them. But, the bloomed bamboo entertains the chickens. Maybe enough for them to dream about and keep them from getting bored on these long, winter nights.

It’s time to put up several crocks of miso. Soybeans soaked overnight look plump and rested in the morning. This lot became tofu. Another lot soon will become miso, and take a long, long rest to age gracefully.