Back to Basic Living

Thanks for all the kind comments and emails of congratulations on the new chicks. They are still adorable and I am still loving them.

The chicks woke me up around 2AM, chirping pretty loudly. I went in to check on them, and they were all huddled together under the heat lamp. I have a thermometer in there with them, but they like to stand on it, so I can never get a good reading. It’s supposed to stay around 95 degrees for the first few days. I tested it several times in the past couple of weeks to make sure it was at the right height and it stayed at a steady 95 degrees. None the less, the weather got a bit cool last night, and I suspect the brooder got cooler too. I turned up the heat in the house, and went back to bed. They settled down.

When I got up at 5:30AM, they were completely silent. It scared me to death. I figured they had all roasted to death over night. I ran into the room, and they were sleeping very soundly. Whew. I did find one baby that didn’t make it though. I guess the stress of the long trip here was just too much for her. I cried and cried about it, but I finally decided I could not have done anything to prevent it. Bernie and I buried her outside by the cat we lost last year (Reba).

Two more of the biddies are acting very weak and I noticed the other chicks would knock them over regularly as they zoomed by them. I put those two in a little box by themselves so they can hopefully get some rest and get a little stronger. I also put another healthy biddy in there with them, in the hopes that she would be company for them and help keep them warm. That didn’t last long though. I walked out of the room for about 5 minutes, and when I came back in, the healthy biddy had hopped right out of that box and joined the others. I was fairly impressed as the height of the box is at least twice as tall as she is! So the two weak chicks are in Chick Intensive Care right now by themselves, and I really hope they pull through. I’ll keep you posted.

Amazingly, the one little chick I posted the picture of yesterday that acted so weak, is doing quite well. She’s a White Faced Black Spanish. The one that died was a Golden Penciled Hamburg. The two that are sickly are a Golden Penciled Hamburg and either a Phoenix or a Silver Leghorn - those two look so similar as biddies that I can’t tell them apart yet.

I’ll tell you one thing, biddies are little poop machines. I can’t get over how much they poop. I’ll be looking forward to some great compost as they get older! Until then, I guess I’ll be cleaning a brooder on a very regular basis - and continue fussing at them for pooping in their food.

So that’s the chick update for today. Even though I knew that I would likely lose one or two, it still makes me really sad. I hope the two little weaklings perk up soon. It’s all I can do not to sit in a chair and hold them all night.

Bee Free,
Penny

We spent a wonderful week with my parents celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. We had perfect weather and Bernie went fishing with Daddy every day. Mama and I hung out together and visited and enjoyed our time together, and we took care of a couple of things she wanted to get accomplished, like re-upholstering her dining room chairs. The whole family got together on Saturday for a party for my parents, and then Bernie and I headed home yesterday. I really enjoyed seeing my parents, and it was hard to leave them, but I was excited to get home. My chicks were due in today, and I could hardly contain myself.

I got up at 5:30 to log into work - and to wait on my call from the post office to come get my chicks. By 8AM, I still had not heard from them, so I gave them a quick call. No chicks. I felt like crying. I called the hatchery, and they assured me they shipped the chicks on Saturday. About an hour later, I got a call from the post office in Fairfax, Virginia. My chicks had arrived there on Sunday, but for some reason, did not ship out. They were still in Fairfax this morning, so the lady that called me said she had them sent special delivery - but she sent them to the main post office in Charlottesville! About an hour later, I got a call from Charlottesville - and when I answered the phone I heard chirping in the background. A man told me the Charlottesville post office had received my chicks, and would be shipping them to Harrisonburg to arrive by 1:30PM. I called the Harrisonburg post office and told them to hold my chicks there - I was on my way.

I got to Harrisonburg a little early, and by 1:45 I was heading home with a box of chirping chicks. Wow. For such tiny little two day old birds, they sure can chirp!

Bernie and I unpacked them when I got home and stuck each little beak in the water so they would know where to get a drink. And drink they did! They were really thirsty. Immediately afterward, they found the food. I had spread some around the brooder, and they pecked at it - but they found the food dishes on their own and went to town with them.

We ended up with 27 birds. I ordered 25, but they sent a free “exotic” bird and an extra Phoenix rooster for some reason. They are all so dad-gum cute I could just kiss the feathers right off of every one of them. They all appear healthy and very active with the exception of one. I just checked them and even the sluggish one seems to be coming around a bit.

Here’s a picture of most of them - they run around so much I couldn’t get all of them in one shot. The red tint is from the heat lamp:

Here’s a picture of the little sluggish one. She is really cute - and although she seems a little less active than the others, she is the only one that consistently looks up when I talk to them. I really hope she makes it.

So my little peeps are home. I am so incredibly relieved. I worried about those little peeps all weekend. They’re mighty loud. I’m really hoping they’ve already learned to sleep through the night……

Bee Free,
Penny

The first part of this week was spent finishing up the chicken coop and preparing the brooder, among other things. We got some pine chipped up and layered the coop with about 2 inches of it. We also got the nest boxes in place (old kitty litter buckets), and the waterer and feeder in place.

I made the brooder out of an old tool chest that came out of the bed of a pickup truck. I used an angle grinder and removed the lid, sanded off all sharp objects, and removed all rust.I washed it in some bleach water and let it dry in the sun. Bernie made me a super cool lid for it out of 2 X 4s and some screen. He hinged about half of it so I can easily lift it and get inside to clean or tend to (you can read play with) the chicks. It’s in a tiny, crowded spare bedroom, but I don’t think they’ll mind.

Our method for adjusting the heat from the heat lamp is very high tech. It involves being clamped on a dresser drawer and the drawer is determined by it’s height from the brooder and the desired temperature. I’ve tested it on various drawers and have pretty much figured out where it needs to be positioned over the period of the first two weeks the babies will be inside.

So there you have it - the Chick Pad. They’ll be here in a little over a week. I went to the post office and chatted with them about the expected arrival. The lady I spoke with wrote everything down on a piece of card board she tore off of a box and posted it on a bulletin board. She assured me they would give me a call the minute the little chicks arrived. She said if they make it in on the morning shipment, they’ll call me about 6:30AM to come get the chicks. If they make it in on the evening shipment, they’ll call me around 2:00PM. Either way, I’ll be “on ready” to go pick up my babies.

We’re heading down to spend a week with my parents for their 50th anniversary. We have someone coming in to look after the cats. I broke the news to Elvis and Priscilla tonight. They took it pretty hard.

Within a day or two of our return home, the chicks should be here. Yay! And you’ll be the first to know about it!

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mamas!

Bee Free,
Penny

Busy day on the homestead today. I may have mentioned that the tin roof blew mostly off on the old cabin at the front of our property a couple of months ago. Bernie got it back together as best he could, but it was leaking pretty badly during rain - and we’ve had plenty of rain lately. By 8:00 this morning, Bernie was on the roof of the cabin applying roof tar to the leaking seams, and I was inside the cabin, yelling out directions to each spot in the roof I could see daylight through. He got all of them.

By 10:00 this morning, I was painting the Chicken Coop DeVille, and Bernie was mowing around the cabin. When he finished that, he took down a few trees that were leaning precariously over the driveway. I guess he either took care of everything he felt he needed to care of today, or he simply took pity on me - but either way, he pitched in and helped me finish up the painting. And I didn’t even have to whine. Well, not very much, anyway. Bernie has always said the only thing he hates worse than painting, is watching me paint. I tend to be a little messy. By the end of the second coat of paint, Bernie had a small microscopic dot of paint on his jeans and I looked like I had bathed in paint. It was on my face, in my hair, and basically covering every square inch of my body. I still need to paint all the trim white, but here’s a picture of what it looks like right now:

Bernie will nail up the last two pieces of fascia this week, and then I’ll paint all the trim white. After that we just need to fence in the chicken yard (that’s what the roll of fencing to the right of the coop is), shred some pine for litter to put on the floor, install the nest boxes, and get the little chickens!

While we were in Lowe’s to buy the last two pieces of lumber for the fascia, we saw a little peach tree that just cried out to us to come live on the homestead. We planned to get some fruit trees this fall, but this little peach tree was so darn cute, we just couldn’t pass her up.

With every ounce of creativity and ingenuity that we possess, we decided to name her “Peachy”. The fence around her is our attempt to keep the deer from reaching her branches. We’ll see how that holds up.

Don’t you think she looks perfectly at home here?

Bee Free,
Penny

We had a lot of rain on Monday and Bernie wasn’t able to get outside to do much. He spent the day taking care of stuff inside the house. Tuesday he had to go to Richmond for the Governor’s Motorcycle Advisory Board meeting. Wednesday he mowed the yard, weed whacked, and raked. Thursday he had to go into town to take care of the house there and mow the lawn. And Friday, he finally got to spend a little time working on the Chicken Coop DeVille. He’s almost finished with it! He just needs two more boards to put up fascia on the sides. And then I’ll get busy painting the coop. Once I finally get that finished, we’ll fence in the chicken yard and then sit back and wait on our chickens to get here! Yay! You can check out the work he’s done on the Back to Basic Living website. If you just want the bottom line of where we are with it, here’s a picture of how our little Chicken Town looks right now:

I am really proud of the Chicken Coop DeVille. Bernie did such a nice job. He designed it and did most of the work. I was just labor for him when I had time to help. To answer a couple of email questions I’ve gotten over the past couple of weeks - we did not have any blueprints or plans. Bernie designed it in his head and then started building it. He’d be the first to tell you he’s made mistakes along the way, but nothing he couldn’t recover from - or cover up! When I tell him about the nice emails I get that complement his work and say they are not talented enough to build a coop like this, he always responds “If I can do it, anyone can do it!”. And while we did buy material to build this coop, we got a lot of it basically free from FreeCycle. If you’re looking to save some money by getting FREE stuff to build with, or free items for your home, sign up for FreeCycle. It’s also a great way to recycle stuff you no longer want or need! Through FreeCycle, we met someone that not only gave us a truck load of doors, windows, and more than I can remember, he sold us a bunch of lumber for $1 a piece that he had laying on a flatbed trailer we asked him about - and that includes the floor and roof sheeting we used on the coop! FreeCycle really rocks!

As Bernie finished up yesterday evening, and was sitting in a lawn chair, basking in his accomplishments, I went around the edge of the woods and snapped a couple of pictures of trees in bloom. I think this is a Hawthorn:

Can anyone verify that for me? We have several of these in bloom right now. I just love them. It’s a really nice looking tree.

We have so many Dogwoods in bloom right now through out the woods. Here’s one that’s right on the edge of the woods in the backyard:

I may get some painting in this weekend. I need to check the weather and see what it looks like for rain. I may even convince Bernie to help me with it. He often assigns me a task, and then I whine enough about it that he breaks down and helps me with it. I better get to whining real quick…..

Bee Free,
Penny

We’ve got the Chicken Coop DeVille building pretty much complete - minus trim, chicken door, nest boxes, roost, and fenced in chicken yard. We still have a little work ahead of us, but the lion’s share of it is finished. You can check out the pictures on the website.

Yesterday, after we finished working on the coop, we spent some time walking around the yard and enjoying the wildflowers and trees that are just starting to bloom here. I found a crab apple tree in bloom. Most of the blooms are up high, but I found one at just the right height for me to get this picture:

It was such a pretty little bloom, and I spent quite some time studying it. Which is a good thing, because this morning I looked out the back window and saw this:

Look at how calm and sweet those girls look. Look at how…. wait. What is that one on the right, in the back doing? Why is her head so far up? It looks like she’s…..

Ugh. Yep - she’s eating a crab apple bloom. The one, single crab apple bloom I could actually reach and see. We went out a few minutes ago, and this is what’s left:

*Sigh*. It’s hard to be too upset about that though. It’s a wild crab apple and I’m sure that deer was quite happy to find it. Living with nature means accepting nature as it is. We chose this exact location for many reasons, and one of those reasons was the amazing range of wildlife that calls this homestead their home. We’re learning to live with the wildlife. We’ll do what we can to protect the food we raise for ourselves, and part of that includes planting extra food for those inevitable times when one of those furry little buggers sneaks past our efforts and finds the bonanza of tasty vegetables. We’ll all get this figured out eventually.

Several of you have asked if I will be willing/able to butcher any of these chickens for our meals. Let me first say, I am getting these chickens to be pets, and I am extremely hopeful that they will show their appreciation of being pampered by rewarding us with eggs. Having said that, I also understand the basics and necessity of practicing good flock management. While my primary purpose is having these chickens as pets, we really can’t afford to feed a bunch of pets that serve no purpose at all. Mean chickens/roosters should be culled. Non-layers should be culled. You will notice that I said “should”.

A couple of you asked if I have ever killed a chicken in the past, and I said no. But the truth is that I have killed a chicken before. It was such a traumatic experience, I think I temporarily blocked it from my memory.

Many years ago, my parents had a rooster named Roy. Roy was the meanest rooster on the face of the planet. I hated that rooster - and that rooster hated me. In all fairness, everyone hated that rooster - and that rooster hated everyone. My parents kept him in a large fenced in area and, while it kept him from viciously attacking anything that moved in the yard, it did not keep him from trying to get at us through the fence. Well, one day Roy managed to get out of the fence. And my parents’ little terrier, RJ, finally got back at Roy for all the tormenting through the fence. My mother and I were the only two at the house that day, and when we heard all the commotion, we ran into the back yard to find that RJ had all but killed Roy. Roy was a bloody mess of rooster feathers. He could not get up and he was certainly dying. My mother said “We’ve got to kill him and put him out of his misery.” I completely agreed. “How are you going to do it?”, I asked. The look in her eyes explained everything. By “we”, my mother meant “me”. She told me where to find an axe, and then stood behind me as I sent Roy Rooster off to his certain reign in Rooster Hades.

As much as I hated Roy, I hated killing him even more. It was very unpleasant, to say the least. I will spare you the gory details, but if you’ve ever chopped off the head of a chicken, you understand just how unpleasant that experience can be. There is a fair amount of flopping and kicking involved - and all of it occurs AFTER the head is detached from the body.

So CAN I kill a chicken? The answer is apparently “yes”. WILL I kill any of these chickens? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

A friend told Bernie we could make some great chicken noodle soup out of these chickens. Bernie told him he didn’t know if I would be able to kill any of these chickens. His friend said “Well, I guess she better learn how to make the noodles then.”

Bee Free,
Penny

I ordered my chickens today. Yay! They are scheduled to arrive the 19th or 20th of May. The post office is supposed to call me when they get there so I can rush over to bring my chicks home.

It’s pretty late for ordering chickens this year, so I was very limited in my choices. I ordered a variety of Phoenix, Golden Pencil Hamburgs, White Faced Black Spanish, Silver Leghorns and Silver Gray Dorkings. I ordered 23 hens, and 2 roosters. Bernie isn’t so thrilled at the idea of having roosters around, but I love watching them and all their antics, so I ordered them and asked for his forgiveness afterwards. He didn’t seem too terribly upset. I think he was just happy that I quit singing my chicken song to him. I ordered from Murry McMurray’s, and they throw in a free exotic chicken with every order. So we’ll end up with 26 little baby chicks. I can hardly wait. McMurray has an excellent reputation for sending healthy chicks, and getting the sex correct the majority of the time.

I also put a new page up on the website with pictures of the erection of the Chicken Coop DeVille. Check it out!

Bee Free,
Penny