Misty, Wild Jungle Fowl

September 8, 2014

After a few hours of free-ranging, I call the hens back home. Everyone comes quickly. They know that this is the only time that they get scratch grains. When they are back in the run, I count. There should be eleven chickens.

I count ten. Misty is missing.

She has dreams of being a wild jungle fowl, that elusive Indonesian bird that our domestic chickens are descended from. Or, maybe, she imagines that she is her late, late, late ancestor, a dinosaur. Whatever. I have to find her. I look in the tall grasses of the meadow, where she sometimes builds a nest. She isn’t there. I check the overgrown raspberry patch.

She’s there, well-hidden, but I see movement.

Misty, the carnivore, is busy looking for crawling and wiggling things to eat. She cares not a whit that her flock mates have all hurried home to grain and safety. She is a wild jungle fowl!

I manage to get her back onto the lawn. I shake the can of corn and she remembers about the easy pleasures of domesticity.

Misty comes running.

It’s not difficult to tame the wild jungle fowl.

Do you have one in your flock?

The Cochin Molts

September 5, 2014

Feathers are strewn on the ground, and are piling up in corners and caught against the fence.

Is this the result of a fox attack? Carnage?

No.

It’s all from one molting cochin hen.

Pearl.

Look at her. She wouldn’t even make a proper feather duster.

She doesn’t look good from any angle.

Certainly not from the rear.

Nor from above.

Those bumps on her bare back are the new feathers coming in. They’re call pin feathers. Ouch. No wonder she looks to be in a bad mood.

I estimate that Pearl has lost about two-thousand feathers so far. Only seven-thousand more to go.

Old Feeder Reuse

September 4, 2014

Those of us who spend our mornings scrubbing out and refilling waterers, shoveling manure, and topping off feeders, have one view of the utilitarian metal items in our backyard chicken pens. We don’t think about bringing them inside and putting them on our dining room tables! However, these days rusty farm implements are chic. Yesterday, at the Brimfield flea market, I spied an assortment of feeders, no longer fit for animal use that were being sold for more than the price of new galvanized merchandize at Tractor Supply. I have to say that tidied up, this makes a charming plate rack.

I spent several hours wandering the booths. I bought two eggs cups (of course!) and a vintage agriculture brochure. And then I went to Tractor Supply, where they have shiny feeders and waterers, which I didn’t need (remember all of that scrubbing in the mornings?) But, I did buy something new and made of metal. I bought a farm gate for the goat paddock, which to my mind is very beautiful, indeed. We’ll see if it is goat-proof as claimed. Pip and Caper love a challenge. You’ll get to see the new gate after I put my teenage son to work digging post holes and installing it!

Training The Beast

September 3, 2014

I believe that you get to know your animals through working with them. Good training opens up lines of communication that go both ways. To hone my skills, and to really think through what I’m doing, I’m enrolled in the KPA Professional Class. The course is geared for dog trainers, but we’re also expected to have one non-dog species to train. As you know, I have quite a few to chose from! I’m about 40% of the way through the course. Scooter is beyond delighted that after seven years of living here, with his only job that of being cute and pestering Lily, that I’m finally training him. Who knew he’d so eagerly whack his paw on a post-it note when I say target? I’ve also trained Caper, and a goldfish. (I’ve trained the chickens, too, but not for this course.) I’ve been investigating how this positive reinforcement training applies to horses, so Tonka is learning almost all of the behaviors that I’m teaching Scooter (although Tonka is a tad too big to duck under my bent knee while I’m sitting on the floor!)

There’s one animal here at Little Pond Farm, in the very pond that the place is named for, that I haven’t yet trained. The Beast. My eleven year-old koi.

The Beast has recovered from her summer sunburn. If anything, she’s larger and more active than ever.

She certainly has an appetite that suits her size. The fish get a couple of handfuls of floating pellets daily.

I decided to get to know the Beast better and to let her get to know me. Asking for a complex trick isn’t necessary, nor is clicker training. I simply use that age-old technique of patience.

I bought some shrimp pellets. They don’t float, so I can hold out my hand underwater, with them in my palm. I wait. The Beast comes. She has big eyes. She looks at me. She looks at the food. I let a few trickle down to the rocks. She eats. She comes closer. She’s willing to say hello when there are shrimp pellets involved.

I wonder where the conversation will go.

(Steve caught this moment with his iPhone and the bird-spotting scope that’s in his office.)

Demise of a Puff Ball

September 2, 2014

About two weeks ago, something white sprung up in my lawn.

It wasn’t large. Yet. But I knew what to expect. I got out the ruler.

August 20.

August 22.

This is a puff ball mushroom. It’s edible, but it won’t be appearing on my plate. Eleven years ago I went to a special dinner put on by a mycological society. Eight courses, each prepared with a different, professionally foraged wild mushroom. I was the only person out of the forty in attendance to have a reaction. I ended up in the hospital with severe pain and a migraine that didn’t go away for three days. Fortunately, I didn’t suffer any permanent damage.

So, the puff balls that appear on my lawn get to do what they do naturally. After getting humungous, they change color.

August 25.