Observing the plentiful wildlife here…keep in mind that I’m only observing during the daytime as I go to bed early. Lizards of various kinds, uncovered a toad while weeding, deer always around, including some really cute baby ones, frequently see hummingbirds as they are drawn to the flowerbeds, and the nest of baby birds in the potted geranium was going great until a predator plundered it one night and now they’re all gone. Oh and I saw a roadrunner recently too.
Matt Patricia having a word with the deer
Chickens seem to be doing well especially now that I found pellets they will actually eat. For treats, they prefer oats over seeds! Rob is a natural chicken-whisperer too. He’s been able to lightly pet them whereas they won’t really let me do that.
The other day Mrs. Joe Burrow had a malfunction. I noticed she was acting even stranger than normal- kind of being a statue for awhile. And soon afterward I found she had laid an egg right on the deck! They always lay their eggs in the roost so this was weird. I went out and picked it up and it was grossly soft. Probably due to stress we are assuming. Poor Mrs. Joe Burrow, she is very much last in the pecking order.
Oops
The deck needs to be stained. We are getting ready to do this project soon, when weather permits.
As I write, there’s a thunderstorm and the hens are all standing at the back door watching me through the glass. This area is protected from the rain.
One-a and Tua dominating the feeding frenzy. They will eat the oats and just skip the seeds! Boy are they picky.
About once a week we make an egg frittata for dinner as we have a hard time keeping up with the supply. We also give eggs away on the rare chance we interact with anyone. I also leave them for the neighbors. We incorporate some of the bounteous fresh herbs too so last time we used 3 kinds of thyme which turned out well. We also made rosemary pesto which we had on some roasted potatoes and Rob created a creamy cilantro/jalapeño sauce that was amazing. Using mint in tea and will use in tabouli salad. Rosemary plants here essentially become mammoth shrubs!
Tiptoeing around the hens carrying a CHICKEN for dinner! Also, these purple flowers in foreground are a big draw for the hummingbirds.
Along those lines, I have rarely seen a dandelion in Austin. Rather, flowering weeds here are varied and very attractive. The only flora or fauna that is out of place is the squirrel; it’s way too boring to live in Austin.
We finally learned about how to maintain our pool in the backyard. Only swam a couple of times but we intend to do more of that especially once it heats up out there.
So anyway, we had a serious, thoughtful talk recently about our readiness to pursue adopting 2 dogs. The talk lasted about 5 minutes: of course we are!
We found a nearby rescue place that appeared to have several good candidates for young dogs (as seen on-line) but we learned that actually all of those had already been adopted! As you probably know, this has been a wildly popular time to adopt a dog given people are at home so much more due to quarantine. But in conversing with the rescue place, they revealed that they do have a litter of puppies that are almost ready to be adopted.
We weren’t planning on puppies BUT it would likely solve our little complication of backyard hens. Puppies will learn to live with them whereas older dogs, who knows? So, anyway, this litter likely has two fathers, both unknown, and the mother appears to be a black lab mixed with possibly a Blue Heeler. They predict that these puppies will grow to be just 45-ish pounds which is not terribly big. Fine with us. Of the 7 puppies, 3 are already spoken for so we are 3rd in line to choose among the remaining.
Various looks in this litter (likely 2 fathers).
One of the puppies has a respiratory infection. Once that clears and all the puppies are healthy, we will be able to meet them. Likely this weekend!