June 2nd, all in one day

There are some days, too few for my liking, where a lot of stuff just gets done. This was one of those days, the the pictures I have to share it. The lavender wasn't quite ready to cut and had been planted (more on the lavender blog, eventually) so this Sunday had a focus on the chickens. We got new gravel for the driveway and it had been a few years since we had re graveled the chicken pen. Gravel helps with drainage, keeps the mud down, provides small pieces of grit the hens can swallow for their crop (to help digest food) and to help them dust their feathers (to kill parasites.) This year, the gravel was a larger grade than usual. Perfect for the driveway and a real investment that will last a lot of years. We were a little worried about this larger grade for the pen and that's why you see the board down to give them a place to rest their feet but turns out they are just fine on this gravel. If you look closely, you will see the bare patches on the hen's back. She recently came from a farm with a few too many roosters and her feathers were being always pulled out by the aggressive boys. Here at the homestead, there are no roosters so the hens can relax and grow out their feathers like the ladies below. These two hens are about 4 years old. I lost two last fall from old age but overwintered these two. They still aren't fast friends with the new five, and have been ranging on their own as the other hens have stayed in the pen. The new 5 have stayed in the pen to get used to the new home and really imprint on what and where their home is. But also, without a full coat of feathers they just don't have confidence to roam far. On this day though, I left it an open choice and for the first time they felt comfortable to take on the larger world. I'm pleased they can take advantage of all the fun and food ranging around the backyard has to offer. Their weeks in the pen have enabled me to condition them to the expensive chicken treat to bribe them back into the bed as needed. Despite not having feathers, the hens are laying. A real unexpected treat, these black australorps are laying colored eggs like easter eggers! I have one laying a light green and light blue egg. These are the things that excite me. The eggs are almost always clean now as long as a collect once a day, a sure sign that the hens are committed to laying. As Tutu was outside with me, Moxie enjoyed lounging on the bed, oblivious to my labors outside. After re graveling the chicken pen and cleaning out the coop, I planted peppermint in pots, and planted some other things in the garden. After a late lunch and a shower, Tutu and I went for a ride and then enjoyed a lovely evening resting.

May Round Up

I'm thinking that a monthly round up is all I'm going to be able to do on the blog. May seems like a lifetime ago now that we've been into Summer Reading about a week. The rain has slowed up a little bit which has helped and it remains cool which I like. Sage, basil, thyme, malabar spinach and a goodwin gray lavender have all been planted in the herb garden. I managed to harvest some chamomile but will only be using it in herbal exfoliating herb facial powders. Despite multiple soaks in salt water, I just can't get enough aphids out for tea. Vegetables are also in, more or less and all the butterfly/bee attractant plants are large and green if not blooming yet. Below is a hodge podge of pictures from life in May. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out why these two robins were nattering at me the whole time I would be taking care of the chickens, then I looked up. There was only one Robin that fledged, the next rested on a pole smack dab in the middle of the pen. I suspect the other babies fried, as there was very little protection from sun. We had another robin nest in the orchard but it did not succeed. I have seen for the first time baby mockingbirds running around the backyard but sadly did not get any good pictures. One other next on the property is more problematic. A dove's nest in the gutter. We don't have any trees to heavily clog up the gutters, but this next will have to go. The dove figured out the sweet spot, as the water flows at a slight slant in the opposite direction. One drizzly afternoon I saw this fellow hanging out in the chicken pen, right inside the door. He blended in perfectly with the mud, tromped down gravel, and chicken poop. He also was very, very still. I kept a wary eye on him and he on the chickens. Even though I had to get pretty close to him going back and forth into the pen with water, food, etc for the chickens. He didn't move. He's a pretty big toad and has been around. Smart of him to figure out the chickens were a bigger threat than me. I'll have more on the chickens in the next post, but here let's wrap up with a few views from the western facing porch. Being on a hill that faces west, there's a lot of exposure to the elements. Wind, and all the precipitation hits the house at full force. Shutter color fads, door trim needs repainted. But on nights like the one below, it's really breathtaking. I'm no morning lark, getting up to watch the sunrise so sunset will have to work. But like a sunrise, a sunset changes from moment to moment.

April Round Up

We're more than halfway through May so I thought I'd post a round up of April. With all the rain and still cold weather April doesn't have much in gardening news. However, for the first time since relocating some wild asparagus from years ago, I actually had the presence of mind to harvest it. Nearly every spring our domestic and wild asparagus shoots up and seeds before I can think "hey maybe I should check on the asparagus." But not this year. Perfect for eggs, asparagus is my favorite green vegetable. I got the perfect gift of lavender about 6 weeks ago. He's planted in the herb garden now but for about a month he rode around in my cupholder which provided a perfect green house condition. The plant doubled in the size you see here before I planted it. It was actually kind of fun to have a plant in the car. Blooms from one of the orchard trees. Currently we had four baby robins hatch just this weekend in one of them. I wish these lilacs were mine, but the classic lilac I tried to grow from a start never made it. The benefits of working in a walk able neighborhood with some lovely gardens. So many rainbows in April with all the rain.sun.rain.sun. You can see here that the grass is green but weeds have not completely taken over the lavender yet. I've told myself I'm going to do more baking, but gardening and the declutter project around the house keep taking precedent. One thing I'm consistently making are these lovely, tutu approved home made dog biscuits. They are fast but more importantly cheap to make. You can find the recipe here: Tutu looks on while I make her the biscuits. Yes, one of these days I'll get around to writing about Tutu.

Yes, it has been 4 years: Hope for Spring.

Hi folks, I know it's been a while. A long while. Everything has been fine on the home front, but a lot has changed. Andrew has been working as an RN for a year now and is still in EMS. Molly passed away in late 2016 after outliving everyone's expectations with a large cell cancer diagnosis. We have our first dog Tutu, who I will introduce later although you might have seen her on her instagram account tutu_on_the_move. I'll admit I got bored with the 'gram pretty quickly and I am unsure if I will return to blogging. Other changes include (again many of you already know this) I work at Bexley Public Library now and I have been here nearly two years. It's taken a while to settle down and settle in and I find myself slowly returning to old and beloved hobbies. I'm not sure where this will take me but for now here are some pictures from last spring, or maybe the spring before??? Enjoy the baby bunnies and the kildeer. The kildeer periodically nest in the lavender.

You will notice with the one above the classic "broken wing distraction" as I was getting close to photographing her eggs. I didn't stay long.

California Pictures 2019

I've taken pictures from California trips before, but always with the good canon camera. I didn't pack it this time, and these were the best phone pictures. We went up to Santa Barbara for a few days and I love the garden center in Los Olivos, I think it's J Woeste...and all their beautiful containers featuring succulents.

In Los Angeles we went to Abalone Cove, a must stop and quite a hike both down and up. These rocks are beautiful but it gets old walking on them, which you have to do a lot to get too and from the tide pools. All the rocks are lovely and it boggles my mind how many combinations a photographer can make.

I'm always fascinated by water, rocks (or other objects in the sand) and how light, depth and shadow are constantly changing. On our first trip to Lake Michigan in (2007 (!)) I easily took 200 photos. I was desperate to capture all the lovely sensory images around me. Andrew reminded me I was actually missing out on the experience. He was right, but I do treasure the pictures I took. It was cold when we were in LA, it never got over 60 degrees and there was very little in the was of ocean life. So I had to content myself with more inanimate subjects.

And view from the top, before the descent to Abalone Cove.

There were some real highlights from this trip. Notably our first stat at an Airbnb in Santa Barbara, and staying at a good, good friends house. Their lemon tree in the backyard had fresh ripe lemons I snipped right off the tree and made lemonade. I was also giddy about the 5 foot tall rosemary growing along their fence.

Autumn 2018

All of these pictures were taken with my phone. There may be more camera and and special lens photography in the future. I was really pleased that in this one you can see the dozens of birds in the sky.

I really think September is the most beautiful month in Ohio.

The picture above reminds me of the good parts of having a house on a hill that faces west. Fabulous sunsets. Of course it's easy to forget after a weekend of 50 to 60 mph hour winds as we had this weekend. Thankfully nothing blew off the house so no repairs are needed. This photo reminds me of the virtues of using a nice camera rather than a phone. This picture was much better in person. If you look to the lower left of the moon, that tiny speck of light I think was a planet, but I can't remember which one.

Another late September photo. I marvel every year at the multiple machines in the field, and the wonderful green or red against the drying fields. The photo does not reflect the huge amount of dust that's kicked up during harvest. Beautiful and allergy aggravating. This was nearly five months ago and in another five months we will be on the other side of 4th of July, the lavender will be cut and I'll be getting a delicious red black diamond watermelon once a week from Pa's Produce.

But for now it's still base layers and gloves, propane tank refills and electric water-ers for the chickens. One day I will be gleefully unplugging the electric waterer...and wondering when I'm going to mow/weed/water.

Just a few weeks ago...

Is that chicken treat?

Pearl and Pigpen

Ruthie

Scratching around while the pen is cleaned

Meet the new flock

Tragedy Visits the Chicken Pen

Well readers, I have some bad news. Are you ready? The Tuesday before Thanksgiving a mink broke into the chicken pen. And in one night he murdered all ten chickens. All the Easter Eggers. And Ruby The American Mink is in the mustelid (weasel) family. It is very small. The largest males get no longer than 18 inches long and weighs less than 3 pounds. Now think about that. A weasel no longer than my arm and weighing less than 3 pounds killed all ten chickens in one night. Viscious. Mink can slink into any space that's one square inch or more and mister mink found a one inch square space to squeeze into. Readers, predators are a part of farming. When I was in grade school, a mink broke into our rabbitry. Luckily, only one rabbit was killed and we trapped him the very next night. Mink don't eat dead animals generally which makes them hard to trap in a barn environment especially if there is more than one hole they can get through. I knew something was wrong when I got to the door and it was too quiet. As soon as I surveyed the scene I knew it was the handiwork of a mink. I called Dad and began to collect the fallen hens. Yes, even Ruby had been taken. I'm very lucky that Dad is an expert trapper. We knew that the mink would return that night, expecting more chickens. Because you know, their brain is the size of a pea. To encourage the mink to abandon any caution he may have left, we borrowed a live bird from a neighbor and put it in a little cage that we hung from the ceiling of the coop. Dad laid out 4, count 'em 4 fox traps strategically placed on the coop floor. And, because my Dad is awesome, he put up a trail cam and all we could to was hope. And here he is my friends! Caught cold-blooded and red-pawed on camera! This mink is literally 4 steps away from the coop entrance and Ruby's retribution! And, the fox traps worked. To give you an idea of scale, here is another picture of the mink. His chicken killing days are O-ver! And for those of you keeping score at home, mink were in season to trap in November. I know this is sad news. I still miss Ruby. But readers, life must go on, on the homestead. I've had new chickens since Christmas and later this winter I will introduce you to them. Also, I will be experimenting with a new format to the blog so there will be more posts and a multimedia aspect so stay tuned. Ruby, gone but not forgotten.

Fall Trip to Los Angeles

Well, we are finally into fall with the blogging. Andrew and I were in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara for the first ten days of November. We went for a wedding and saw a lot of sights. We spent our first weekend in Santa Barbara. We stayed at the Sandman Inn and it was very nice. It had a little dinner where they served a nice continental breakfast. Just ask the crow here, who took advantage of a donut left behind. Another crow comes to the breakfast plate too late. We spent the day around Solvang and Los Olivos. The weather was beautiful and we saw some really interesting garden features. My favorite place was J. Woeste. It was a garden and outdoor decorating boutique and there some really unique items. I regret we didn't but a piece and ship it, but maybe we will go back someday. Another lovely surprise in Los Olivos was this beautiful mural featuring 4-H. We went to Abalone Cove tidepools and spent an afternoon. I took the wrong lens, the macro instead of the zoom, so I don't have many good crab pictures. It is very relaxing to sit on a rock and hang out with the sea life. The crabs are so shy. If you sit very still, they do venture out after some time, closer and closer, but then as soon as you move they dart away. They basically hang out and snack. Not a bad life. We stopped at the Wayfarer's Chapel where I took some flower photography. Towards the end of the week, we went to a wedding at the El Segundo car museum. Andrew was a groomsmen. Check out this amazing hand painted picture of the couple, Edward Scissorhands style! Our last weekend we went to Disneyland with the newlyweds and it was super fun! Then we spent the last two nights on the Queen Mary ship in Long Beach. My pictures don't really do the ship justice and before I post them, I want to tell you a little bit about the Queen Mary. Built as the world's premier luxury transatlantic ship (over 1,000 feet long and way, way bigger than the Titanic.) In the early forties, the Queen Mary and her sister ship the Queen Elizabeth were stripped of their luxury fittings and converted into troop ships. The Queen Mary could transport 16,000 troops at a time. Winston Churchill's ocean headquarters was in one of the suites. He signed the doomsday invasion orders from the Queen Mary. Hitler actually put a 250,000 prize out for any German officer who could sink the Queen Mary. The Queen Mary was called the Grey Ghost because she was so fast. They could turn her in a zig zag course and she could make the turn in 5 minutes and it took the German u-boats 6 minutes to lock on a target and shoot. Historians estimate that the Queen Mary's role in transporting troops to Europe shortened the war by at least a year, maybe two. The Queen Mary also transported wounded soldiers and when the war was over, war brides and their children to the United States. Once the war was over, the Queen Mary's luxurious furnishings were reinstated and throughtout the 50s and early 60s she continued to cross the Atlantic. Celebrities and dignitaries like Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (the dude who advocated from the throne in the Kings Speech.) In the late 60s the Queen Mary was retired from travel. Pan Am made international flight more affordable. Eventually the Queen Mary was purchased by Long Beach and converted into a hotel. When we were there, lots of things were going on, a haunted house, a Princess Dianna dress exhibition, and a Marine Corps ball. They have a promenade with several restaurants and shops. Andrew (who planned this whole trip and did a very good job.) Planned our stay so we could go to their famouse Champagne Sunday brunch in their 815 seat dining hall. The Art Deco style was really incredible. The polished burled wood, the metal work. This ship mural in tile was one of the center pieces of the dining hall. The two lines across the mural are cables where electric ran model ships cross the Atlantic. Also, check out the harpist. She was really great. And look at the roses carved out of the watermelon. Fancy. Our room was so comfortable and spacious. I would definitely like to stay there again. Also, the Queen Mary was featured in Ghost Hunters. And yes, the Queen Mary is haunted. After being gone for ten days, the cats were definitely glad that we were home.