Feathers Flowers Fur And Flutterbyes

Time flies when you're a chick...you don't 

stay little for long.

 Francis (on left) Chloe and Phoebe 

are growing like weeds

and in these photo's are 5 days old.

This is Francis above...

you can see her little wing

feathers coming in.

She has a white feather

near the bottom of her wing. 

This is Chloe.

She's my favorite. 

She will be more like her

adopted Mom in coloring

only with less gold 

and more black.

 

In the foreground is little Phoebe.

She sticks pretty close to her sister

Francis.

The chicks daddy is Romeo who 

is watching from the other side

of the fence. 

He is such a nice rooster

and was a blue ribbon winner

at the county fair 

when he was a cockerel :)

 

Golda is a VERY good mamma.

She's super protective

and works hard to teach

them how to scratch and peck 

for food.

Above she is showing little

Francis a bug on the fence.

And here Golda has spotted 

Shep on the other side of 

the fence.

She doesn't miss a thing

and if he was silly enough to 

stick his nose up to the fence

he'd get a good peck

on the nose!

 

Now that I've bored you  with

'chick pics'

here are some flower photo's for you

to see. 

Above is the first bloom to open on

my David Austin Graham Thomas

climbing rose.

This is only it's second season

and I had to move it last fall

so the plant is just getting used 

to it's new location.

Hopefully by this fall 

it is climbing the fence. 

Above is a flower bed I planted last spring.

The drought was hard on it

and there was no rock border so 

the water tended to run off.

Last weekend Hubby and I hauled

these rocks over from the pile

and set them in place.

Most of them came from the

foundation of our old 

barn that we lost

in a fire nearly 2 yrs ago. 

 

 

Henry had to come over to see 

what I was doing. 

These are some of the smaller rocks 

and you are only seeing the top half 

of each of them.

They were HEAVY.

 

I finally found the perfect

place for the old  hand plow.

 

There was another reason 

that Henry came to 

see what I was doing.

 

He had been watching these 

'flutterbyes'

on the Salvia.

 

 

They had his undivided attention.

Here's a couple on the

rhododendron.

  

I hope you have enjoyed 

your visit here on the farm and

I hope you have a

wonderful week! 

:)

Welcome Little Peeps!

Monday morning I headed to the chicken coop

to see if the eggs under the two setting

hens had hatched.

It was day 21. Nothing.

I went back a couple of hours later

and found this!

 

Well I actually heard it before

I saw it. 

Peep Peep Peep

and then out from under Momma's

wing popped this sweet little head.

 

 

Then this little one came out 

from the other side!

 

Two little chicks

exploring their world

for the first time.

 

And then there were three!

 

 A later trip to the coop revealed

there were 3 little fuzzy chicks.

The little one on it's momma 

is a little mixed Black Australorp/ 

Buff Orpington

and the other two are pure bred

Black Australorp.

Now isn't that the cutest 

little 'fuzzy butt' you've

ever seen!

 

Momma 'Golda Meir'

 is already showing her chicks

how to hunt and peck just like the

big girls do. 

Unfortunately the eggs under

'Helen From Hell'

didn't hatch. Two were not

fertilized and two were

but she must not have spent enough

time on her nest keeping them warm

as they were not fully developed.

I put Helen back in with the other chickens.

Today we'll open momma and the chicks

door and they will be allowed to 

explore the big wide world

in the safety of their own 'run'. 

It should be an exciting day

for the little family

and us too! 

:)

Fur Feathers And Fluffy Butts

Oliver

 

It's been a while since I posted some

good photo's of the critters 

here on the farm

so for those animal lovers out there...

here you go!

Above is Olly.

He follows me and loves to be 

in the garden when I'm working.

He's always on the lookout for the

most comfortable spot to watch

the world go by.

 

Lizzy would have pushed him out 

if she could but Olly

wasn't budging

from his nice warm sunny spot.

 

  

Shep has to be close to the action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chelsea is our little farm dog.

Her 'brother' Bubba our other Shih Tzu

is the 'house dog' but Chelsea

is definitely our

'FARM DOG'.

And she knows that's her title

because when ever well call her that

she wags her tail and looks

proud as punch. :) 

 

Here's Hope enjoying her meal.

 

 

We expanded the chickens run

to behind the coop/garden shed

under the trees.

They are enjoying the soft dirt

and the shade. 

 

This is Licorice.

She is a Barred Rock

and was bought as a chick along

with her 'sister' Gumball who

is no longer with us :( 

 

Blogger is really acting up this morning

and trying to force me to have blue 

type with underlining!

Anyway above is Buttercup who

was one of the chicks we 

bought along with Licorice.

Buttercup is a Buff Orpington.

 

Above is Queen Latifa.

She is a Black Australorp and

 has a 'sister' named Oprah.

 We've had them since they were

fluffy chicks.

We have 20 hens including one

Rhode Island Red named

Chicken Little

and a rooster. 

 

Lizzy has to check out the girls

'run' just in case there's 

something good to eat 

or something new to play with.

We'll have to watch her carefully

since we have two hens setting

on eggs and should have some

chicks by Monday.

They are in the 'brooder'

and are separate from the others

for now. They'll all be able 

to see each other once the chicks are

old enough to go out into their 'run'

but they'll be separate from the others 

until they are close to adult size. 

 

Fluffy Butts...aren't they cute!

 

Queen L again.

 

This is Romeo.

He's a Black Australorp

and he is the nicest rooster...not an

aggressive bone in his body.

He takes good care of the girls 

and they LOVE him ;) 

 

Shep has the title of

GUARD DOG.

He's smiling because I told him

how beautiful he was and that he was 

our GOOD GUARD DOG. 

 

Lastly here is a picture of Hope and Rosie

playing. I missed Hope rearing up 

and bucking...too bad. 

Well I hope you enjoyed seeing

some of our furry and feathered

friends here on the farm.

I hope you're enjoying a wonderful

sunny warm weekend.

 Unfortunately we've got severe

weather warnings today

so the sun may not shine.

It's tornado season 

in Tornado Alley...

don't think I'll ever get used to it!  

Looking Back

My how things change.

With March just around the corner I decided

to look back and see how things looked

during our first spring here on the farm.

These pictures were taken all during

the month of March 2010.

In September 2009 we bought our

little Phoebe.

She was a Miniature Mediterranean Donkey.

A friend of ours had offered to give us one

but when that never materialized

we decided to buy Phoebe.

She was 5 months old.

At the end of December

our friend showed up with the male

that he had promised us months earlier.

He was a stud! 

Because we are softies we couldn't tell

him 'too late'....so we kept the donkey

and named him Eeyore.

Along came March.

Unfortunately our fences were no match

for Eeyore's determination

to visit Phoebe

but since she would not be old

enough to breed until she was 

around 3 years old

we decided to have him castrated. 

A couple of weeks later 

Eeyore and Phoebe 

went to live on a large farm

where they could be together with

lots of pasture

and strong fences!

Towards the end of March that year

Hubby and I were in a 'farm store'

and overheard a lady complaining to the

store clerk that they had just been in the 

store with their 12 year old Grandson 

and his friend. 

Behind their back he purchased a chick!

She told the clerk that she wanted to bring the 

chick back because they had no place to keep

a chicken. The clerk said 'sorry...we don't

take chicks back'. 

The lady was ticked so I whispered to hubby

"should we buy it from her?"

Since we had 63 new chicks coming a few

days later he said to go for it. 

The lady was so happy to find a home

for the little fellow that she wouldn't 

take any money.

So 'Spring' came home with us. 

Unfortunately Spring was a Cornish X

and was destined to live a short life.

It may have been short...but it was a good life. 

The very next day was the first day of spring.

We had a snow storm!

Two days later the snow had melted

and the chicks arrived in the mail.

Most of the chicks were Buff Orpingtons.

Yellow fluff balls! 

Their days were spent eating...drinking...pooping

tearing from one end of the trough to the other...

and sleeping.

Sometimes they wore themselves out so much

they fell asleep standing up.

The remainder of the chicks were

Black Australorp.

Hard to believe this little fellow

would grow up to look like this!

While the chicks enjoyed their cozy warm

shelter in the garden shed

the older chickens were able to finally 

enjoy the barnyard.

The barnyard was Eeyore's domain

and he decided that the chickens were

NOT allowed on his turf.

He chased them every chance he got.

The day after Eeyore and Phoebe

left the farm....the chickens

had the barnyard all to

themselves.

They were happy chickens!

FYI ...see that long building? 

We sold it that summer and this time

last year...it was down and hauled away.

Hopefully if we get some rain this summer

we will have some good pasture grass

growing there :)

The end of March meant Shep was 8 months old

and Lizzy and Olly were 9 months old.

Shep had a blast trying to chase the cats.

Olly would run but Lizzy...well

she NEVER backed down.

She stood her ground and then some!

End of March sky.

2010 was a good year for rain but

last year we were in a drought.

Hopefully we do better this year.

Above is our nearest neighbor 

as the crow flies. 

Two years ago the fields across the road 

from us were yellow.

This year they are green with winter wheat

shown below in January 2012.

We'll be keeping our fingers crossed that

this March will be a good month

with lots of gentle rain.

If all goes well the grass seed we sow

will take root before the heavy rains hit.

After all....April is Tornado season

here in Kansas!