Journee's Critters

But even without the wise groundhog's opinion, it is pretty apparent that spring is clawing it's way back.

The pictures above are of our little seedlings, which are staying inside right now, but will be replanted once they are big enough.

But even the outside plants agree (hopefully this upcoming rain---and maybe snow---won't kill them,) that spring is making a comeback.

The dandelions are growing. Neighborhood terror, country wildflower.

They approach.

And the bees are no doubt happy about that; we lost a lot of hives this year, but today my mom's bees are out and flying (not many of them, though, the wind is a bit rowdy.) I went on a walk with Zelda to go see how they were doing.

 I was quickly warned by this impressive and fearsome sign, not to trespass.

Naturally, I trespassed, but only to take pictures! My mom owns the Beeyard, and I had my identity card, licensing me for the camera, which I used to take a few brief pictures of the honeybees coming in and out of their hives.

 They aren't bringing in a whole lot of pollen, but they're working on it!

(That bee turned her back on me when I took the picture, but she stuck around, and kept glancing at me---in case I did something amazing, I suppose.)

~

 Like the astounding person I am, I took a picture of the gravel. Wooo. ;)

I know, that took up a valuable moment of your time, that picture of rocks did---but I'll make it up to you!

Here's some pictures of ants.

Yes. Yes I know.

It's brilliant, and totally worth it.

Not.

But, I took some pictures anyways:

~

Zelda wasn't real impressed with me stopping to take pictures of rocks, and ants. She was rather bored, I think, and regretted coming along---maybe just a bit. I think she would have rather stayed back at the deck with Duke.

 I don't really know why, though.

Seemed rather dull to me.

~

My bearded dragon lizard Norbert has slowly been recovering from his eye troubles, and has steadily been gaining his original weight back, though it is hard-going. If I have even a few days without crickets for him, he drops more weight, and so I've been using apples as a appetizer because of their moisture, and also even actual bearded dragon food, which I have been feeding to whatever crickets I have.

I also have this humidifier-thingy (I don't know what to call it, it sprays a very thin, foggy mist, if that helps,) that I've been turning on for several minutes every day or two, to keep his scales damp. Right now, he has been enjoying lots of crickets, because I have a full box (thanks to mom and dad! :) ) and he is getting better. You can tell, because he's getting ready to shed around his face, as you can see in the above picture.

Hisleft eye is completely healed, though we are still struggling a bit with his right---which is still a bit swollen and a little goopy, but open---and not nearly as bad as it was. I've been putting his medicine in it, and since he's shedding won't put in quite as much until he's done, just in case I get something in his eye accidentally. He also got his cage cleaned today, and is now happily taking a nap.

All in all---he's on the road to complete recovery. Thank goodness.

Here are a few pictures of Cody that I took today. He is now my only rat after Chief (RIP) passed away not long ago, just the day after Quinn's sweet little rat Peach died.

 He's spoiled rotten, as usual, and has already gained weight since Chief's passing. Even though they had to stay in different cages, Chief was always top-dog, so to speak.

Now Cody's his own boss around here.

 Today his cage has already been cleaned, along with Norbert's, and he kicked back in his new nesting box (a empty Yoplait Yogurt box, ;) ) and chowed down on some white chocolate chips.

Heaven, you know.

After that photo-business with Leia, I did actually take some pictures of the chickens.

 And one of Catherine, the little campbell drake.

(The gamehen sunning herself is Catherine's foster mother.)

~

Yesterday evening when I got all the chickens locked up for the night, I did take a head-count, and made a list of all of our birds, and trimmed feathers. 

We have several birds, for starters, and only 8 roosters---I thought we had more.

Also, of course, it is proven that trimming feathers doesn't keep our gamehens, nor a few of our other birds, inside the lot. We already have around 6 chickens outside the fence today---unsurprisingly. :) They're pretty clever, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them climbing the fence, or going under it along the treeline.

We don't have many chickens in our 'Bantam Coop' anymore, (only 6) and so I think when the new chicks come in we will try and move at least some of them into that coop. I think whatever new bantam roosters I have will probably stay in there some of the time, because nearly all the standard roosters stay in the Big Coop, except for Snowy.

Leia the pygmy goat was in quite a mood today.

When I went out to the chicken lot to take pictures, she didn't waste much time in coming over to taste my jacket. On the way, she winked at me.

 She then proceeded to stick her tongue out at me; not a hostile gesture, no, it was more overly playful. Lol. :)

 Hermione was being rather antisocial, and left after bearing a while of her sister's goofing-off.

 Leia then posed for the camera a bit.

I told her she was going to get to go to the preschool again, and I think she was just showing off.

She's quite pleased, you see, and is anticipating her moment of fame.

Hermoine, however, thought that it was all quite silly, and instead waited to be fed a graham cracker.

She's never been really out-going.

 I just got back inside from cleaning the two chicken coops---and have finished eating lunch. A good start to the day. 

Lately I have been---along with my mom---trying to decide what critters to take to a preschool's Farm-Day festival thingy. Since I hardly have any bantams, and we no longer have the beloved buff polish hen Cream, it's been a hard choice. I think, however, that we will take Leia, my white goat (again, she loved it last time) and my rabbit Midnight. We'll also take a red hen, one of our sex-links, I think, because they're some of our tamer birds, and also maybe another hen, though I haven't figured out which one. I also plan on bringing Snowy, my little mystery chicken, that I cannot figure out what he is. He looks quite handsome right now, and though he's not tame enough for small children to hold---they'd probably like to see him. Mom wants me to bring a rooster that crows on command, because she thinks it would be very cool, and it would be...though, sadly enough I don't have a rooster that crows on command. We'll see----maybe Snowy will crow for us. :)

I also plan on trimming the birds' wing feathers---probably tonight. And while I do that I'll make a list of what birds we have, which I haven't done in quite sometime. Hopefully that'll make it easier to keep track of our birds, also when the new chicks come in.

 Arwen greeted me when I returned from the coops. She'd stood on the backdeck the whole while, begging to be let inside---and that there is her bored, I-cannot-believe-I'm-still-out-here-face.

 After that, and a disgruntled yawn, she continued on to glare at me.

Not a very nice doggy face.

.....

But then again what can I say?

Just look at my dog.

 We had some chickens hanging around our back-deck today, and so, being the loving---caring---wonderful person I am, I decided to give them some graham cracker.

I don't know why on earth they come up onto the deck, though.

 I was quickly surrounded, and relieved of all graham crackers.

They didn't even share with me, which I thought was quite rude.

 Even the cats were in with them!

Actually, no, they weren't. Sorry, I lied.

The chickens wouldn't share with them, either.

Poor kitty, no cracker.

I don't think they really mind, though.

I do, however, I'm quite depressed.

I think I've finally figured out the B/B/S theory in chicken genetics, it goes like this:

The basic B/B/S theory

Blue X Blue = 50% Blue, 25% Black, 25% Splash
Blue X Splash = 50% Blue, 50% Splash
Blue X Black = 50% Blue, 50% Black
Splash X Black = 100% Blue
Black X Black = 100% Black
Splash X Splash  = 100% Splash
_________________________________

Makes since when you look at it like that, though you would think that the color white would be in there somewhere, but it's really not.

I also ran into some confusion on how to get 100% blue, many people though it would be Blue X Splash, when it reality it's Splash X Black....

So anyways, now as I've got that all cleared up, it should make things easier when I try to breed blue silkies, and hopefully sometime blue cochin bantams. I'd like to get a splash bird, also, so hopefully most of my birds as hens, and I have a rooster out of each breed.

Turns out, btw, that I will not get all eighteen bantam chicks; there's a cap on how many you can get each due to the limited amount of them at the hatchery. I will still be getting 6 mottled cochin bantams, though out of the black frizzled cochins and the blue silkies I will only be getting 4 of each breed.

I also bought a incubator, and a automatic turner to go with it, so this way I can hatch chicks without a broody hen, and make it easier to mark them and keep track of who's who until they get out into the chicken lot. The automatic turner actually should be here today, though the bator is on back-order.

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Also, I finished the book Watership Down, and will hopefully be getting three new books soon. :)

~ Journee

I'm not ADD, I just----oh look! A chicken!