Creature Comforts

That's my bed about an hour after I made it. No, I am not a lousy bed-maker, those four white-tipped paws belong to Angel, my pit bull......... (I'm waiting for all the horrified screaming to stop, "Are you NUTS!?!? Those things are KILLERS!!! They're viscous, blood thirsty, rippers of flesh and bones!!!" and blah, blah, blah. All finished now? OK, back to my story.) Angel knows better than to jump up and sleep on the bed. But it is one of the very few things I can't break her of. She tries so hard to do what we want her to do, (that is a real trait of pit bulls). She doesn't chase the cat anymore, she comes when called, she doesn't pull on the leash at all. She's come a long way since we got her. But when you get an oldish dog, Angel was about 4 - 6 years old when we adopted her from rescue, you have to expect to deal with some things that come with the history. She doesn't jump up on the bed much anymore. She resists the urge a whole lot, I usually find her sleeping on the floor next to the bed. But every now and then the call to get up and under the covers gets the best of her. You can only ignore a ringing phone for so long, I guess. It wouldn't be so bad if she just jumped up, but no; Angel has to be under the covers, all toasty warm, comfortable and safe. I think the 'safe' part is the kicker. I don't think she felt really safe before she came here. And though she is safe now, old fears sometimes die hard.

This is Angel's reaction after I throw the covers back and yell, "AHA!!! I caught you!!! I think she moved her two front legs in reaction. She loves her comfort, my Angel.

Now I've got her moving. It was easy, I just suggested that it was probably time to eat. Food is a great motivator for Angel. She loves her food...and Dusk's food...and Whisk's food...and our food... heck, I've caught scarfing up the occasional rabbit pellet that dropped from the bag. When we got Angel, she was about 10 pounds underweight and the rescue said she had already gained about 10 - 15 pounds. Food was probably very scarce for her and not regular. So now, when she sees it, she eats it. Doesn't matter if she has just eaten and is stuffed to the gills, if a crumb drops she all over it like she hasn't eaten for a week. For the longest time, she was a counter surfer. That's something I never had to deal with before. I found out she had this bad habit when I left a pineapple upside down cake on the kitchen table. She ate the whole thing. The plate was spotless. I was sure she would be as sick as a, well, dog, so to speak. Nope, not at all, not even a burp. I guess she was so used to scrounging she developed a cast iron stomach. After the cake debacle, I simply made sure nothing was left on the counters or tables. It took a long time but she did finally manage to stop counter surfing, I can now leave out freshly baked muffins and know that they are safe. And that is something, constant hunger is a memory that never fades. So while adopting an older dog comes with its challenges, it also comes with its joys. I'm glad I didn't buy into the mass hysteria about pit bulls and did a little research of my own. I've never met any dog so willing to do what I wanted her to do. She's up for anything, loved agility, loves to play and loves to be loved. And she gives that back with all her faithful, strong, pit bull heart.

A New Slant on Icicles

It's been rather psychotic weather for the last week or so, sometimes gentle and warm, other times raging and hateful - picture Norman Bates with an icicle. Not that it's all that unexpected this time of year but it does make for some interesting phenomenon from Nature. The temperature remains mild, usually hovering around 2 - 4 C so I'm not complaining. I don't care how weird the weather is as long as my glasses don't freeze to my face the minute I go outside.

The weird weather has given the chicken coop a charming necklace of sparkle and defiance, slanted icicles. All day long the ice and snow melt in above freezing temperatures as the wind blows heartily. At night the air cools off to just below freezing but the wind doesn't abate. The water falling from the coop freezes in mid-drip. And in the morning I find all the icicles leaning quite noticeably to the west. It is amazing what Nature shows up with when water, air and fire all work in tandem.

First Litter of 2010

Within all that fluffy fur and munched up soft straw are five little week old bunnies, also known as kits. I have to check the kits regularly to make sure all are getting enough to eat and are doing well. I take each one out and check then put them in a little box and go to the next one.

Here they are in the box after being checked. All have round tummies and seem to be doing great! Two grey, one black, one white and one tan. They're lively and alert. The little tan one seems to be smaller than the others but I hesitate to call him a runt because he is feeding well and is growing. He had a tough start in life.

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This is Caoimhe's (pronounced Keeva) second litter. The first litter was an incredible 12 kits. This time around, Caoimhe had a much more reasonable 6 kits. One was born DOA, that happens sometimes. The little tan one was found outside the nest. He was the first one born. No others had arrived yet. So I kept him warm and dry. The next day Caoimhe had the other 5. I popped the little tan guy in with the rest and everyone's been doing fine since.

I'm wondering if this early birthing of one is hereditary. Ceilidh (pronounced Kay-lee) did the same thing. She didn't do it all the time, just twice. But Ceilidh is Caoimhe's mom. It's not a big deal really when a kit is born earlier than the rest. But I figure it's got to be tougher on the doe and it does make it harder for the kit. When a kit is born before the rest, the mom doesn't pull fur to keep it warm and she doesn't feed it either. She waits till she drops the whole litter before going into 'mom mode'. I'll see how it goes but if Caoimhe does it again, I doubt if I will keep any of her offspring as working does. That would be sad because Ceilidh died last Autumn and after Caoimhe, that would be the last of her line in my rabbitry.

Again, With the Compost Worms

The trouble with taking pictures of worms is as soon as the light hits them, they disappear into the bin. I turn over a clump of bedding to find a mass of worms but by the time I grab the camera and focus, most of them are gone. They're fast little guys when they want to be. If you look very, very closely, you will see a few compost worms in the bin. And if you have amazing eyesight, you may even locate the little cocoon to the left near the green straw, it's orange.

The bin is doing very well now. It's almost time to replace the bedding and harvest the first castings of 2010. I had a bit of an issue in late fall. I had changed the bedding for but I didn't wring it out enough. I thought I did but obviously it was too wet. At first, because the top part of the bin was not too wet, all looked fine. After a while though, I started wondering were the worms were, the food I was giving them was not being eaten. So I dug deep and discovered a way-too-wet layer and very few worms. Even with the drainage holes, the bedding was soaking. So I added plain dry leaves and gently turned everything over so the wettest would be on top and dry out faster. I had little hope for the remaining worms. I considered just releasing them into my compost box and just re-start the worm bin in the Spring. But it was so cold by then I worried they'd all freeze before they could burrow deep enough down.

I was amazed at how fast those worms came back. It was noticeable in two or three weeks. After a month or so, food was disappearing at a good rate and worms abounded. It was a hard lesson to learn, though. Hard on me to see all my hard work drown and even harder on the worms. I think after I soak the new bedding, I'll actually lay it out for a bit to make sure it's not too wet. I have also made a habit to gently dig down right to the bottom every now and then to make sure the worms aren't learning to swim, it's hard to do the dog-paddle when you don't have legs.

Starting My 'Starts'

This week I started my seeds. I was hoping to get the celery and watermelon going, too, but the seed store didn't have celery seed. In the long run it didn't really matter because I ran out of earth before I even got to the watermelons. All I managed to plant were the three types of tomatoes, green and red peppers. Everything I planted came from I saved from last year.

It was nice stopping in at the garden nursery. I don't go so much anymore. I make my own compost, collect most of my own seeds and now I'm taking a shot at seedlings so my visits are down to one or two through the whole season. It was nice chatting with the staff again and catching up on what people had been doing throughout the winter. Of course, the conversation turned to why I was there and I explained about the coldframe idea I was hoping to do. "Oh," they said, "You are are going to do your own starts." I had no idea what they meant, I kind of figured it out, of course; but I have never heard seedlings called 'starts'. I'm wondering if it is an 'island' thing.

I must admit I am a little concerned about doing seeds. I've never had much luck with tomatoes. They get all spindly and then die...or I drown them when they are babies and they die...or I let them dry out too much and then they die. Reoccurring theme here is that they always die. Hopefully this time it will be different. I've done a lot of reading and talked to a lot of people so hopefully some of these seeds actually turn into plants. If not, I'll go visit the nice folks down at the garden place; they say they don't see me enough, anyway.

The Signs are all There....

It might just be my imagination (or deluded state, take your pick), but it sure seems like early (early, early, or even very early, early) Spring has stopped by. Actually, I noticed it at least a week or more ago but just kind of pushed the thought away. Early Spring in mid February!?! Not very likely. A little mid-winter thaw, may-be, but not anything with the word Spring in it.

But I'll tell you, it sure looks like just the bare beginnings of Spring out there. The country roads are the first sign. The snow starts receding from the very edge of the pavement where they have played with travellers all winter; creeping over the road towards the middle then being pushed back by monstrous plows. Now they retreat from the hard pavement exposing soft, mushy red dirt shoulders. And as they pull back, their once pristine white smatters with grey and black slush. The roads are finally giving back as good as they got. Then there's the bare patches of earth all over the place. Like on the path to the chicken coop, or under the bird feeder and near the vegetable garden. The snow gives ground to the ground.
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Not only does it look like early Spring, it sounds like it, too. The birds are calling more and more. Their whistles and chirps gleefully sounding out in the morning when the sun spreads gold and pink over the snow, but now it continues all day long. The water of the DaM becomes louder as it breaks free of the ice. And I dare to dream that soon comes the day the nicest sound is the one I don't hear...no more snowmobiles razing the land at all hours of the day and night.
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I'm not the only one thinking Spring is early this year. Little footy prints abound on the DaM farm now, telling me that the sleep-the-winter away critters are stirring as well. The chickens are increasing the number of eggs laid almost on daily.
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I realize we could have a Winter blast and in a few short hours it will look like the dead of winter again. But I won't be deceived, I know Spring is coming, I have felt her kiss.

Way to Go, Timbitts!! Whoot, Whoot!

For the last week or so, Timbitts has been acting curiously like a laying hen. Which is odd considering that she is A) in a molt and molting chickens generally go off laying for a bit and B) she's never laid an egg in her life and considering she's almost a year old I wasn't thinking she would. Be that as it may, I have found her in a nesting box several times lately. I kind of thought she was just staying quiet and wanting to be away from everyone else as she molts. (Chickens seem to get a little self-conscious when they molt, I guess it's their equivalent to me having a bad hair day.) But I thought I'd keep a closer eye or her just in case something was up. Sure enough, something was.

Yesterday, I was in the coop and noticed Timbitts scurry into an empty nest box. I puttered around for a while and then left after checking under her. No egg. About an hour later I headed out again. She was still sitting in the nest box. So I checked under her and lo and behold, I found a little egg. She then started the typical "LOOK, LOOK, WHAT I DID, I LAID AN EGG!!!" clucking. A few chickens congratulated her and she decided all that effort had made her hungry and headed for a food dish. The egg is considerably smaller than the norm but that's not unusual for a hen just starting to lay eggs so all the evidence points to her being the owner of this egg. That's her egg on the right.

Good for you, little hen, good for you.