Posted in BCS Teaching Garden/SotE Urban Farm 2011, Birding, Changing Seasons on Dec 1st, 2011
The ducks were quacking extra early this morning. I couldn’t figure out why they were so darn quacky at 7am, when they usually aren’t up until 8:30ish. In retrospect, I think they were chilly and complaining for a hot breakfast.
When I went down at 7:45 to let the poultry out, I had to [...]
Posted in BCS Teaching Garden/SotE Urban Farm 2011, Birding, Learning on Mar 4th, 2011
The chicks, 9 and 10 days old (Here’s hoping they all survive and none turn out to be cockerels, because the kids are just smitten and have named them all):
Cookie, the Buff Orpington. (She’s the largest and fluffiest of the chicks, by far.)
Violet (dark brown), and Nudge II (golden), the Auracanas. (You can see their [...]
Posted in BCS Teaching Garden/SotE Urban Farm 2011, Birding on Mar 3rd, 2011
Let me start off by saying that the entertainment potential of chickens is extremely under-valued in most poultry books.
This is Oregon, in March. Needless to say, the ground is VERY soggy and it rains every day. Our hens don’t have a spot of dry ground anywhere in their run to dust-bathe. Because we have not [...]
Posted in Birding, Locally grown on Feb 25th, 2011
Our chicks have come! We were worried they’d be delayed because of the cold, but they arrived this morning, and we picked them up at the feed store this afternoon.
Because of a raccoon and a freak illness, we are down to 4 hens: 2 black Australorps and 2 Speckled Sussex.
To our flock, we hope to [...]
Posted in Birding, Homemaking, Locally grown on Jun 6th, 2010
While it’s by no means as big as this monster, we found quite a surprise in the nest box after church today.
Nudge, our Auracana, usually lays a large to extra-large sized egg (the pale green one in the middle (it looks a bit washed out in this shot)), compared to our Australorps that lay medium-large [...]
Posted in Birding, Books and Reading, Homemaking, Learning, Locally grown on May 5th, 2010
After a flurry of chicken-planning activity this winter/early spring, we have our long-dreamed for chicken flock (the three hens, plus three new Speckled Sussex chicks, and three more chicks on order (2 Australorps and a Buff Orpington)). And the chicken run is mostly complete (needs a little gussying up, and a grape trellis up the [...]
Posted in Birding, Homemaking, Learning, Locally grown, Moderation and Economy, Working the earth/harvesting its bounty on Mar 28th, 2010
We got chickens!!
After months of scouring Craigslist, pricing materials at the ReBuilding Center and researching plans (not to mention years of wishing, dreaming)… we finally found a used coop that met our super tight budget. (A coat of pretty paint, and the sturdy coop will look quite nice in the back corner of our [...]
Posted in Birding, Crafting, Learning, Outings on Sep 25th, 2009
Kortney at One Deep Drawer told me about the congregation of Vaux’s swifts in NW Portland, and this week we made it over to the Chapman School to see them. For a bird nerd like me, it was a huge thrill.
We set up early, with hundreds of other families, enjoying our picnic dinner (homemade hummus, [...]
We took the children for a quick visit to the Oregon Zoo (the best part of having a pass, in my opinion, is that you can pop in for an hour or two and just see a few things, so the children don’t get maxed-out). This visit, we decided to go with a bird theme [...]
Posted in Birding, Locally grown, Moderation and Economy, Nature Table, Outings, Uncategorized on Aug 6th, 2009
Some more shots from yesterday’s trip to Sauvie Island Farms.
Little Hen in the raspberry canes,
where we found an old abandoned nest, lined with feathers and seed fluff.
Firecracker helped her auntie pick blueberries.
And the flowers were absolutely stunning.
The biggest surprise of the day was finding a nest with four baby birds in the middle of the [...]