What do you get when you put three hens and two batches of hatchlings together in one room? A little bit of chaos. I will come back that later.
As most of you readers surely know, we have had more of that roller-coaster weather. Spring storms with torrential rain and high winds have come and gone and life goes on. We have gotten off pretty lightly here - more trees down in the woods but no major damage around the house and barns. We have also escaped without power outages.
Another large pine snapped off and temporarily blocked a logging road - similar to the one I wrote about in the last post. The trunks of these trees have been set aside for lumber and the tops dragged up to the goat pens.
in between storms, the field south of the house dried out enough to get planted. This is oats with an underplanting of clover and grasses for hay.
The new-to-us cultipacker follows the planter and helps ensure good soil/seed contact. This also saves another pass with the tractor with a drag on behind.
Rollie rode along to add additional seed. Kind of a precarious perch I thought!
In the most recent view from the milking stand, if you really look you can see the sheen of green coming up on the field out there.
The woods are beautiful, full of flowers - and mosquitos!
This past weekend was stormy. I did get some seeds planted in the garden but not the tomatoes and peppers. With the pounding rain and high winds, I was glad they were safe in the greenhouse. I will get them in next weekend and they will be fine.
Luna is always ready to keep me company in the garden.
In the house, her sister Waffle is fully recovered from her spay operation. She is an aspiring circus performer - always trying to get to the highest places she can.
The goat kids are of weaning age and have moved to a shelter and pen in the back yard. They let us know how displeased they are with this arrangement every time they see us outside. If everything goes according to plan, the doelings will be leaving us for a new home (together, yay!) on Saturday.
Now, about those hens and chicks.
The first-hatched chicks are growing rapidly. Their mama takes them everywhere, including up to the summit of Mount Manure!
Meanwhile, in the chick room, the next two batches of chicks hatched in rapid succession - one on Saturday and the other on Monday and Tuesday. When I go in to freshen up the feed and replenish the waterers (which are always either tipped over or full of bedding), there is a confusion of the hens and nine chicks. Five chicks are from one batch and four from the other but I don't think even the hens know who is who in there.
There is a third hen in the room as well, her eggs will not hatch for another two weeks.
And that is your slightly over-due update! Thank you for stopping by the blog and until next time - be well friends!