T'was the week before Christmas and all thru the farm...

So much time has passed since I last posted.  So much has been going on.  I work a day job, in addition to managing the farm.  And sometimes the farm takes second fiddle to the job that brings in the mortgage payment.  Luckily my husband is usually around to take care of the farm, in addition to his day job.

Since I last posted I traveled to three continents for work.  My job is very interesting and I love what I do.  And the travel is a bonus.  Right now I'm loving Italy, the food, the outgoing people.  I will never have pizza as good as real Italian pizza.

And then I returned to the farm, where the work awaits.  I found that Bonnie, one of the shelter hens, had a huge mass of poop stuck to her rear.  What the heck causes that?  It was hard and dried and huge.  I scooped her up, realized that she is one overweight chicken, and lugged her into the house.  She was obese when we got her from the shelter.  And so Bonnie had a bath in the sink.  A good long soak for 30 minutes.  She napped, she liked the warm water.  But the dried poop didn't come off, so I had to cut it off.  Now her soft and fuzzy butt feathers are all chopped. I'm not good at cutting feathers evenly.  But she's clean at least.  Immediately after I cleaned her she pooped a normal but large poop on my bathroom floor. That's her way of saying Thanks!

While I was dealing with Bonnie my sister Cheryl called, wanted to know how the overseas trips went.  I told her I had a hen on the bathroom floor who was needing a blowdry before returning to the coop.  She knows my passion for my birds.

Chloe hen is broody.  She had a good molt in the fall, then turned broody.  I have a welt on the back of my hand from pulling eggs out from under her yesterday.  I'm not letting her raise chicks right now, it's too cold for chicks.

The hens are laying good again, after most of them molted.  We're averaging 6 eggs a day.  Most of our hens are older now and are slowing down with the laying.  The 2 shelter hens are our best layers.  I'll have to check back and see if the shelter has anymore hens!

The guineas are all doing fine.  Today Randy had company, the and guineas enjoyed scoping out a new truck in the driveway.  Randy and the guys who were visiting went out in ATVs, leaving their white truck behind.  The guineas checked themselves out in the white shiny paint.  They love reflective surfaces so they can see themselves.  They inspected the wheels.  They circled the truck and announced it's presence.  Finally they accepted the truck and wandered off, although they didn't go far from the new visiting truck.  They wanted to keep their eye on it.

Last night the guineas decided they wanted to change roosting trees.  They chose an overgrown bush in the backyard to roost, right over top of a fox hole.  It was getting dark and they were all out in the bush singing their nighttime squawks.  I quickly went out with a flashlight and shooed them back to the big pine tree, which is much safer than the bush.  They are just not that smart.  The bush is not safe, provides no protecting from owls or hawks or raccoons, and the foxes will be waiting for them to fly down.

Randy starting putting birdseed outside on one of the windowsills to attract birds so the inside cats can watch.  The cats love to watch the birds during the day and the mice that come up to the outside sill at nighttime! 


Well, Christmas is literally around the corner.  I'm off to start writing out cards.  I'm so late this year!

I'll have to make a "T'was the night before Christmas" poem about the farm as my next post!  Stay tuned!  I have lots of ideas!

Merry Christmas!

Autumn Photos

Autumn has hit us here at Razzberry Corner.  It sometimes feels more like winter!

Here are some photos and a video I took last weekend.

This is an old, tired tree at sunset.  To me it has such character.

Look for the historic brick column in the photo below.  It lines our drive.

 

Walking to the front fields, through the trees and bushes...

Fall colors are just starting to show.

You can hear the guineas welcoming you in the below video!

The video is a panoramic of the front fields.

Have a good evening!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from Razzberry Corner!

As you enjoy your day with family and friends, I thought I'd share some pictures from around here.

Sunrise

Sunrise over backyard

Old black walnut tree

Jack

Shadow

Happy Thanksgiving

Went out this morning for a quick walk, excited it wasn't raining.  It's been raining for days here in Maryland.  There was a morning fog; it was so beautiful.  I woke a herd of whitetail deer who were sleeping in the field - look down the path to see a deer bounding across the road.  I got a few more pictures of the deer, but they were tough to see thru the fog. 

Morning fog on the field

Thanksgiving morning, 2009

Hibernating Ladybugs

In the past few weeks the ladybugs have returned to our house to hibernate.  To the inside of our house, that is. 

Last year was our first autumn in the house and we were shocked to find hundreds, maybe thousands, of ladybugs migrating inside when the weather first got cold.  Our home isn't well insulated and the ladybugs find a way to get inside.  Last autumn we collected them in jars and took them away.  We exterminated the house last spring, but the ladybugs still returned, although this autumn we have less ladybugs than last year.  In the past few weeks we have collected them in jars once again and let them go down the street - I think we got rid of most of them now.  It seems once we remove them they do not come back.  They are mostly on the sunny side of the house walking on the walls, but they also get everywhere in the rooms on that side of the house. 

Here's a ladybug on a sneaker shoelace.

Here are a group of ladybugs in a corner of a room by the ceiling.

Some of the ladybugs have spots, some don't have spots.  Although I don't hate ladybugs, I really don't like them inside my house, and I'm happy we got rid of them for now!  I think if it were any other type of bug I'd really freak out!  Goodbye, ladybugs...

The Road Less Traveled

One of my favorite poems is The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. I can't say these pictures are of a road not taken, because it's the only real road to our house, but it's a road less traveled than the paved streets.  And I love our place down the road less traveled.

With all the rain we've been getting here in Maryland, our road is muddy in places.

Field beside the road

 

There's always wood to be split.  This pile is from a past tree that fell across the road; we just haven't taken the time to split it & put it in the stacked wood area, so it sits beside the road for now.  The leaves are falling - Autumn is pretty in the woods.

Wild Mountain Holly beside our road.

Is it Thanksgiving yet?

The turkeys have started coming around.  Every September we start seeing flocks of turkeys.  I love how they eat all the bugs in the fields.  We always think of Thanksgiving dinner when we see them!   

Turkey feathers left behind in the yard after they passed through.