Farm Friend Friday: Hummingbirds

Dozens of hummingbirds at a time visit our feeders

One of the animals we consider family on our farm is the humminbird. Black Chins and Ruby Throats begin showing up in early March. I put out a couple of quart sized syrup feeders for them. We use a 1 sugar : 4 water ratio and we don't heat it as it becomes too time consuming as the weeks advance.

 They don't seem to mind my presence

In April the males are flying their daredevil J dances, taking nosedives zzzzzzz zzzzzzz zzzzz to impress the right girl. I have seen a perched female with her head going up and down, back and forth as if she were watching a tennis match.

As mating season begins, the females start coming to my office window to remove spiderwebs which they use to bind the lichen together to form their nests. They will lay only two small eggs in these tiny nests no bigger than a golf ball. Once the ladies begin sitting on nests activity at the feeders will suddenly decrease by half; after the babies are born in the summer it will greatly increase again.

 One of the nests I discovered a couple years ago, photographed without a zoom lens

Over the years I've taken part in many area hummingbird banding projects. What we've learned is that these birds are very territorial, that the same birds will patronize the same feeder on the same day each year. Birds at one feeder are likely related. As the different families have grown, so has my need for lager feeders. Currently they are consuming two gallons a day! I've also had occasion to rescue a few.

This bird got stuck in the grape jelly set out for the Oriole, was cleaned and released

Tired of filling quart feeders 2-3 times a day, I recently decided to hang chicken waterers to make my life easier. These have been ideal. They are inexpensive, unbreakable, easily cleaned, and red. I just measure four cups of sugar and fill the rest with water. The generous lip allows for a couple dozen birds to feed simultaneously.

Throughout my life wild (and domestic) animals have trusted me, but I do seem to have a special relationship with these birds. Here are a couple videos I hope you'll watch and know you will enjoy. The first one Farmer Rick took of me hanging the feeder. Amazingly they even land on my hands. The second one I took holding the camera in front of my face, so you can experience what I do when I feed them. Be sure to have the sound turned up on that one to hear their chirps and the whirring of their wings!

I even enjoy painting them.

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Farm Friend Friday--Peeps!

Tuesday night we heard the unmistakable sound of a peep! Adelka, the Buff Lace Poland, has been dutifully sitting on a dozen eggs and Wednesday morning a little one appeared from under her.

Peekaboo!

It's extremely rare for this breed to hatch their own chicks, and these are the first to be born on our farm, so it's pretty exciting! I bought an incubator for the task, but there was no need for it.

 Look at me!

By yesterday afternoon there were eight little balls of fluff!

 

Peeps!

I was hoping some of the offspring might be Karina's, but her untimely passing was 25 days before first hatch and chicken eggs hatch in 21 days, so I'm suspecting they are all Adelka's.

 Kryzsztof and gal

Prior to hatching, the father Kryzsztof had been moved into his own apartment, and has been steadily pacing around in his loneliness since. Today I carried him over to view them through the hardware cloth. His head shot up like a muppet in astonishment at seeing all his peeps, and Adelka gave a soft purr of contentment.

 Everyone eating from my hand

Today she let me handle the chicks, watching carefully to see that I was gentle with them and returned them to her. They were all eating out of my hand, so the co-parenting has begun! I like to be able to handle my adult chickens and for them to be gentle around people.

 Nap time (click to biggify!)

When she feels nap time is over she starts barking a repetitive sound and they all scurry out from underneath her fluffiness. She begins the tidbitting process until several are eating at the feeder. They all seemed happy to eat from my hand. When she feels they’ve had enough recess she emits a low growl and they all run back under her breast held up like a garage door. She uses her beak to tuck the last little cute tushie back underneath. Adelka is a great mom!

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Farm Friend Friday: Creatures are stirring

 Bruno Bratanter on the gate

With the daytime temperatures back up into the 70's all life was stirring again. I felt like I was coming out of hibernation this week, slowly resuming life as we know it. The chickens were glad to be back outside scratching in the creek.

Bruno is our only rooster that can fly to the tops of trees (and has on occasion required me standing on the top of a tall ladder to retrieve him at nightfall). His beak is in need of a trim. I love his black 'beard' and mullet like 'do. The Brabanters come from Belgium and are very personable. The hens fly to my shoulder when I enter the coop, and would happily ride around there like a pirate's parrot all day if I would let them!

This week I noticed one of the neighbor's Mallard ducks sitting in the hedgerow not far from our front door.

Farmer Rick was certain it was just a bag that had blown down there. On closer inspection, we were both correct: It was a tan plastic bag neatly camouflaging a female mallard presumably sitting on eggs.

You can't see me! (Click to biggify!)

Last year one of the ducks hatched 19 ducklings in a flowerbed closer to our driveway. This nest is just a few feet from our door!

I also noticed the bluebird nest box in the Short Grass Prairie has a bluebird nest in it. They are unmistakable, made of soft green moss lined with feathers. I've seen her going in and out, so hopefully I will be able to photograph the babies soon. It's been a couple years since we had bluebirds; last year the box was home to Tufted Titmice.

Tiger Girl

The beautifully marked wild cat Tiger Girl showed up to accompany me on my walk. She's a good mouser and I hope she will make this her home. We see her once or twice a week, and have not found anyone who claims her.

Moon over the prairie

Interestingly, the honeybees have been making a beeline to the 5 gallon buckets filled with coffee grounds I pick up at coffee shops in town. They must be getting some sustenance out of it. Or a buzz! Will our honey be caffeinated?

Patches

Patches, our resident armadillo has been out and about snooting through the grasses and digging for grubs. I was able to follow him at a close distance in this video taken a couple days ago. You'll see early on he detects me by smell, but continues about his business. It is only at the end I crunch something underfoot that he goes bounding away.

I felt like an armadillo paparazza! This week I've also potted up hundreds of Salvias, Mulleins, Jewels of Opar, and Coneflowers and moved them from the propagation room into the greenhouse. There are so many more still to do! Here's a photo of the greenhouse at night, glowing like a beacon.

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Farm Friend Friday: Some Serendipitous Finds and Farm Style

Isn't he lovely?

A few years ago I saw a precious vintage rooster tablecloth on eBay, but the bidding got so high I had to let it go. It was The One That Got Away.

So, fast forward to Tuesday when I was in the Big City on errands with a few minutes to spare. I spied a thrift store I'd never been in, and --like any frugal farm girl would do--I went in. There I discovered four curtain panels and two valances in the exact pattern of The One That Got Away for the mere sum of $1.50!

Something to crow about!

Not only is our kitchen this color of split pea soup on a cold Winter's day (aka 'Avocado' in the 1970's),  I've been looking for two window coverings for this room!

 

My painting 'The Emerson' above the sofa with potential dog bed material

I also found a bedspread and two pillow shams of a wonderful Jacobean print in all the oddball colors I'm using in several other rooms: coffee brown, mint green and persimmon for $7. Jacobean prints with their bold branches, fruits, flowers and birds remind me of the kind of in-your-face nature I experience on a daily basis. I've been looking for something from which I could make several dog beds. (Why is it all dog bed manufacturers assume hunter green and navy will work with everyone's decor?)

Although my style sensibility (if you could ever call it that) is best described as Atomic Ranch meets Martha Stewart Living at Pier One--and would likely give an interior designer nightmares--Farmer Rick and I are at home with this kind of eclecticism.

How about you? What's your farm style?

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Farm Friend Friday: After the Freeze

Amy over at Verde Farm is starting Farm Friend Friday. I became acquainted with her when we both participated in National Hug a Sheep Day hosted by my friend Sara over at Punkin's Patch at Equinox Farm. I've been looking for something like this to feature our small farm.

She says "Farm Friend Friday will be about: house, cooking, crafting, animals, gardening, photography and more. It will be a great way to meet new farm friends and see lots of different views and perspectives on farm life." How cool is that?

If you've been watching the strange weather (which I call Wonky World Weather) you'll know that Texas has been briefly plunged  back into the Ice Age. Even down here in the semi-arid desert Southwest, an hour as the crow (or, in our case, the Cara Cara) flies from Mexico, we had three days solidly frozen at 12 degrees.

 Ribbons of sap being extruded from our Frostweed (Verbesina virginica)

I'm sure to many of you this doesn't sound so terrible as you deal with this every Winter. However, we live three months of the year over 100 degrees, even attaining 117 degrees one day last summer. Truth be told, in our diurnal climate Winter consists of freezing temperatures most nights, and 60 plus degrees each day. You could say Winter only comes at night--the rest of the time we are running around in t-shirts!

The things we call coats most people would probably consider windbreakers. We have been wearing three at a time just to stay warm in this old farmhouse. Built over 70 years ago--before air conditioning was the mode--our house has little insulation and is 50% single pane glass operable windows for catching those breezes.

 This Fall photo gives you an idea how much glass we are talking about.

Fortunately we have a fireplace, because Wednesday our electricity (and thus our heat) went out for the arctic day! Living remotely as we do we are in an electric co-op. Mostly we experience outages from electrical storms that come in more temperate seasons and those don't generally last more than a couple hours, if that.

Farmer Rick took the tractor down to the creek to load kindling, but the icy hill proved too steep for traction and the wood had to be carried armload by armload. While he was laying in firewood, I made the decision to move all the seedlings from the rapidly cooling greenhouse into the living room.

Living room scene on a 12 degree day with no heat.

So, snuggled around the fire with us were four dogs, four cats, one rooster (Junior's been recuperating) and 439 plants! I feel bad that I was unable to bring in the remaining 49 chickens who usually stay warm with heat lamps, but that would have been total chaos. Unfortunately several of our roosters in Coop Two appear to have suffered some frostbite. (This morning it's looking a little better--fingers crossed).

Marco Marans showing some frostbite on the tips of his comb.

Finley the sheep is lame in a foreleg. I suspect he's been watching me break his trough ice with the sledgehammer and has perhaps tried this himself.

But I don't like snow cones!

Amazingly our lettuce which had been covered with clear plastic withstood the ordeal.

Butterhead lettuce makes it through!

I'm sure there were some losses among our honeybees, but the good news is today it's warmed above 50 degrees and the girls are coming and going from both hives and doing housekeeping.

Workers carrying out the dead after three days of freezing temperatures.

What is this object you say? Why it's a frozen cylinder of coffee grounds! No, no, we don't drink that much. We are fortunate enough to have connected with a local coffee shop and are able to compost all their grounds!

Cafe glace!

It's time to take advantage of the sun and get outside to cut back the asparagus. The first spears were already peeking through this time last year. (I hope they held off). We'll be looking forward to eating it soon!

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