Hot in the hen house

Chickens are very adaptable sorts. We drove back to 90s-hot South Carolina with the hens in mid-July, and they immediately returned to their summer routines. How do they survive the scorch? When I have writing days at home, I walk out back many times a day to check on their water, see if they're panting. (They are generally open-mouth panting mid-day.) Sometimes I use the galvanized trough to create shade, lean it onto their run. The hen house has a tin roof to reflect the sun and give them some relief - but they usually only go in there at night. The sunflowers and lantana and muscadine vine make shade. Their feathers protect them. Still, like a mother hen, I want to know they aren't too hot. I turn on the sprinkler. And I check back again in a little while.

Photo: Rupert under the grapevine.

Cabin life

Some observations from our two-week stay in Maine with three young hens:

They haven't figured how to walk down to the lake and drink, so we keep their water dish full. They happily file into the pet carrier at night to sleep. They "free range" and never go far from the cabin, maybe 25 feet or so. One morning they flew up to the cabin roof and sat there until lunch. They will eat the crumble feed we bought up here, but spend most of the time scratching the ground to get to the bugs under the pine needles and twigs. We sit outside with them in the mornings to watch out for the eagles that hunt the lake. Every day or two I give them one of the sunflower heads I brought back from SC, and they peck through it. They like to hop up and sit on the wooden steps. Sparky watches them like a shepherd.

(Photo: dinnertime around the cabin. That's our friend John and his hefty plate of lobster.)

Two people, one dog, three hens

On July 1st we packed the station wagon and drove north to the little cabin in Maine. Sparky lounges in the back seat, and the hens are along too. I think some of our friends imagine some sort of "Beverly Hillbillies" scene with an open jalopy and the chickens in a wooden crate on top. What's really going on is that we put the three hens in an old cat carrier lined with newspaper and cedar chips, fitted with hanging stainless bowls of water and pellets. They are in the far back of the wagon, and they don't seem to mind the ride. Every time we open the hatch, I tell them what good laying hens they'll be, but there hasn't been an egg yet.

June sunflowers in the sky

The striped seeds went in the ground in late March. (I'd saved a head of seeds from a giant I grew last year. Other seeds came from new packets.) I planted the flowers in two full rows, mixed with zinnias - the most dependable, longest blooming garden flower I know. But then, sunflowers are special. Such individuals.

The heads of some rose higher than the 8-foot fence. Other smaller, black-eyed yellow and indian red sunflowers only grew a foot or two tall. I cut some and made bouquets. And the biggest ones with the pie-plate faces ended up with a new use. Hen food. Besides clover, the sunflower seeds are the food the chickens seem to be the most excited about.

Arm birds, bloom update (more images)

Dusted off my old Canon Rebel G and shot a couple rolls over the weekend. Some favorites:

Arm birds, bloom update

I don't know about other people, but we like to pick up our hens. (Pictured here is Rupert, and that's Pip in the batch above.)

The beans are still coming in, but more slowly. We're picking about a handful every other day now. The "mystery" squash plants - can't remember what kind of squash seeds we saved in the windowsill last summer - have made yellow trumpet blossoms, all up and down the trailing plants. The first pink zinnias are opening. Some of the sunflower plants are four-feet tall, but no blooms yet. And in the front yard, the hydrangeas are full-on, with blooms from a pale blue-white to deep lavender. They've never given so much purple before. Maybe it's the pine straw below?

Today will be hot and sticky, but I'll get out there for some weeding. When I do, the hens sometimes bump into my elbows they stay so close. They're in the weeds too, pecking like it's their job.

Bean harvest

In the chilly rain this morning we picked more of the Italian bush beans that grow under the heart-shaped leaves - it was our third time through to pick a small colander full. (The Polaroids are from a sunny day last week.) There were a few more strawberries too. We have regular fat red, sweet strawberries. (I don't know the specific name.) And then we have a few plants of alpine strawberries with berries thin and long and full of seeds. It's probably the name, but when I taste them I immediately think of the mountains or Maine summers.

Worms or caterpillars or something else had chewed holes in much of the brussel sprout plants. Everything else looks good - lots of onions and radishes ready to be picked. The squash, eggplant and cucumbers have all flowered. The tomatoes and peppers are getting taller. And the garlic flowers are in full bloom now. It's a good spring.

Hen play

Why are chickens so amusing? They tilt their heads, bob and jerk when they move, cluck and cluck. I'm always going outside to see - could watch for hours to see them strut and peck at the grass, weeds and bugs.

Around sunset the other night, PF shot this one of Goldie and Pip in the yard. They make long, throaty calls when they are ready to roost in the evenings - seem wilder then, like wild turkey or quail. But then, these birds let me pick them up. I'm still amazed at that.

Garlic after the rain

I shot this Polaroid the other night, just after the rain. The garlic flowers are about to burst into perfectly round, soft purple blooms. (I know because I've seen them do it the past two years - these perennial leftovers from Mr. Thames' garden. I wonder when he first planted them.)

I can't wait. But I love them this way too, on tall stalks with pointed, papery hats. Once they've bloomed, I'll cut a few to bring inside. They smell of garlic and dry beautifully.

Fuzz to feathers

These little would-be egg layers are getting more hen-like every day... the first images are from four weeks ago. The fuzz has filled in with feathers. In the singular portraits, that's Rupert in my fist and then Pip this morning on the porch. So far, they've eaten 10 pounds of chick starter (we get that from Cordray's... looks like Grape Nuts), and every day they forage in the yard. So far, wild pea and clover are their favorite greens. They also chase and peck at bugs and worms, but I haven't actually seen them eat any. Yet. Besides general curiosity and pecking at everything, they also take plenty of bare-ground dust baths and naps in the shade.


The garden is growing well, too, in all this good sunshine. Had a surprise when transplanting the cucumber seedlings we'd started from seed... when I lifted out the plants to put them in rows, I could suddenly smell fresh-cut cucumber. It was the roots(!) with that clean, crisp cuke smell. Very cool.

Bloom and till

The azalea and dogwood blossoms made a big show in the driveway while PFE tilled up new rows in garden. Some new techniques are in place... we don't till until we're ready to plant, and this year, we're not tilling at all between rows. The idea is to let the chickweed and grass grow and then mow there if it grows to high, or let the chicks forage down the rows in that row-wide, easy to move pen that PF has plans to build.

Lady Farm

PF made this photo post and titled it... he calls it "Lady Farm," I think to encourage my interest and work in the dirt and plants. He doesn't have to. I'd be in this garden all day if I could.

Rabbit surprise

PFE and I were planting a tiny peach orchard - three trees - in the sideyard yesterday when Sparky, who's typically a mellow hound, started getting very excited, like he was on game. Turns out he was, he'd found a rabbit's nest in a hole under the pine straw, fuzzy white fur at the entrance. He was sniffing and whimpering like crazy. Everything happened very fast... bunnies no bigger than a fist started popping up from the hole, hopping one-by-one in a scatter across the yard. We put Spark in the house, grabbed a camera. One, we immediately called him "Fred," worked into a corner before finding his way.

This morning the hole is quiet and empty... where's the mother, have they moved to another nest?

Chickweed, chicks grow like weeds

The chicks have nearly tripled in size, gone from all fuzz to lots of feathers. They are starting to look like hens. We've fashioned a corner of the garden with chicken wire so they can spend as much of the daylight hours on open ground as possible. The chickweed and sunshine have helped, I think, with their happy, healthy growth. We need to take some new shots to show their now-teenager size, but for now, here's Goldie, still in fuzz.

Peepers are in

Introducing Goldie, Pip, Rupert and Gapsby (that's right, Gapsby)... our four spring chicks.We're hoping for some great egg-layers out of the tiny flock. So far, they look vigorous, have been enjoying the heat lamp in the garden shed this week, along with their first spell of scratching and pecking around the yard this afternoon. (Pip was the first to take a dust bath in a bare spot of ground. The chicks follow each other, so they all ended up dusting their backs, one by one.) Our idea is to get them as people-oriented as possible... I'm picking them up several times a day. So far, we've been having coffee in the shed every morning, getting the day's talking and singing going. When our friend Brady was here the other day, he held Goldie. I'm encouraging it. More images soon.

Weeds and beans

The weeds have worn me out, pretty near beaten me in past years. This year I have a new tactic... trying to pull weeds for a good 15 minutes a day, at least. Sparky does no chores, but he does sit near while I pull. So far, so good.

We tried planting some leftover seeds from last year and had no luck with some of the year-old basil and green peppers. So I've started with fresh seeds for those. The best growers so far are the radishes and the Italian bush beans - sprouting so well, we're thinking of putting them in the ground this weekend. Compared to other tiny-seed vegetables, it's pretty satisfying to start beans from seed - one or two beans per hole/pot, and soon the little green plant rises up, pushing that seed bean upward as it grows.

Starting small

By the first week of March we'd started weeding and tilling the old plot out back, the same garden space used for decades by a Gerald Thames, a man we've never met, but who built and lived in this house with his wife, Pansy, from the 1940s until a few years ago.

We worked chicken and cow manure into the garden plot, and used organic soil in the starter pots (Miracle Gro brand)... almost all of our plants are sprouting now. Some are already in the plant rows, many are still in seedling pots. PFE got tubing, stakes and nozzles and has created a great watering system, fed by the old well. (Another useful legacy of Mr. Thames.) There's a bit of sand in the water this year, but it's not clogging. Here's the plant list so far

radishes (from seeds)
Italian bush beans (from seeds)
onions (from seedlings)
carrots (from seeds)
okra (from seeds)
tomatoes (from seeds... beefsteak and sweeties)
garlic (that comes up every year from the prior owner)
strawberries (from seedlings)
eggplants (seedlings and from seeds)
herbs - basil, parsley, tarragon (from seeds... also some basil seedlings)
brussel sprouts (from seedlings)

I think that's everything. And this past weekend (3/21) I planted two flower rows... zinnias and sunflowers. Three or four years ago my friend Kimber told me she'd had good luck with zinnias on Folly Beach. Ever since, I've planted them... with two packs of seeds giving me daily blooms from June or July to fall. I planted the annual two packs again this year.