Growing ever more tired of my poor quality food photos, I recently enrolled in a four week, online Introduction to Food Photography class. Last week's assignment was to take food photographs using natural light and a reflector. We were instructed to ...
Hawk! In the chicken run!
This morning I went out to feed the animals at 7:00 a.m. I thought it strange that none of the chickens were out in the runs. As I started to enter the emu pasture, I heard a commotion. The emus were running around at the fence line between their ...
Chick Resuscitation (Video!)
Yesterday I received a shipment of Cream Legbar chicks from Florida. They had been in transit for less than 24 hours. I always open boxes of chicks in the presence of a postal employee. Many sellers require confirmation from the post office of chicks ...
Tucker. He had me at “hello.”
When my children were living at home we always seemed to have a dog. I have not had a dog since my separation from my first husband almost eighteen years ago. Since I started raising chickens, I have had a real dislike of dogs. Every place we have ...
I won’t miss the blue toilets.
The sale of our old house, the original Buck 'n Run Ranch. It has recorded and the new owners have moved in. Last week we made our last visit to retrieve a few remaining personal items. I have to admit driving away was bittersweet and a couple of ...
Me, Elvis, and the dentist
Today is my 64th birthday. Had he lived, Elvis Presley would be 78 years old today. Sharing a birthday with Elvis has been interesting. My mother loved Elvis so she never forgot my birthday. As I got older, I could avoid the subject of my age by ...
What is it and how did it get in my incubator?
Granddaughter Ember loves chickens. We recently gave her family their first chicken coop. It looked like this when we bought it. It looked like this when delivered. Her mama said she wanted to get Ember a silkie or two so I ordered some sizzle ...
Calm before the storm.
It is hard to know what is really going to happen weather-wise where I live. Our local news stations make a huge deal out of a little rain, declaring it "the storm of the century, possible flooding, hurricane force winds, etc. Then nothing happens. ...
They gotta’ eat…
Feeding all the animals at the Buck 'n Run is mostly my job. It was all spread out at the last house and took more time. I decided at the house to position the animals in closer proximity to the house for the convenience of caring for them. I lived ...
The Big Chicken Migration, Part 1
Last night, under the cover of darkness, we crept into the coop at the old house and yanked the Cream Legbars and Isbars off their roosts and put them in cages and boxes. The Cream Legbars were docile and easy to handle. The Isbars were hell demons, ...
RIP Sweet Turkeys
We got a call from a neighbor today who said, "All of your chickens are dead." We rushed over to the old house to find that our chickens were all fine but all four of our beautiful Sweetgrass turkeys had been slaughtered by raccoons. I won't go into ...
Scallops, Stretching and Starving
Michael is stretching fence for the new chicken runs today. His system for getting it nice and tight is to use a come-a-long attached to the bumper of the Hummer. Seems to be working pretty well. We have so much better an understanding of fencing ...
We’re here.
Just a brief catch-up on the move. We are in but not anywhere near unpacked. We have sort of a Helter-Skelter system going on. Our first priority was getting the livestock over, minus the poultry. The goats, Laverne and Shirley rode over in the back ...
Turkeys are funny little creatures. (Video)
Our sweetgrass turkey poults are almost ten weeks old now. They have been living in the tiny broody condo in the barn and enjoying a small outside covered run. In the last few weeks they decided to begin roosting at night on the frame over the door. ...
Hatch Update
The mother of all staggered hatches is finally over. The last two cream legbars hatched a couple of days ago. The incubators are empty for the first time in ages. My goal was to hatch a few roosters to find a replacement for Reggie as well as an ...
I know you’re out there.
I see you. I see your IP address and what pages you read. I see what search terms brought you here. I obsess over whether you are a spy bot and nobody really reads my blog except me. My stat page tells me that you are real and some of you come back ...
It was Hot, Hot, Hot!
Today was a very hot day. My favorite way to make sure the animals stay cool and hydrated is to give them ice cold watermelon. I bought two watermelons today and everyone got a big wedge. The girls in the saloon coop surround their ...
All is right again.
If you are new here, you need to know that Lukka, our original Icelandic hen, is always broody. We are counting on her offspring for re-building our Icelandic flock. She had gone stir crazy caged up with her last babies, so I let her out and re-homed ...
Hope for the future!
A genetic defect causing feathering issues in our Icelandic population had become problematic. Drastic measures were taken in a effort to eliminate the gene from our breeding stock. In May we re-homed all of our Icelandic chickens with the exception ...
End of the Beginning
Three years ago my passion for Icelandic chickens began when Icelandic mix Stella hopped the fence and joined our flock. Today brought almost all of the last three year's work to an end. A decision to add chicks from a different line of Icelandics to ...