Journee's Critters

 Quinn got a new a haircut! It looks great, and is very stylish (I would know!)

She even donated what got cut off to Locks of Love.

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Me and Zelda are at my Grandma's house. :)

I got here yesterday--Zelda in tow. My family brought us to meet Grandma, and she brought us the rest of the way home. I've been here a day and night, and am having a great time. Soon after we got home, we left again to go get dinner, which was a real treat, and when we got back we took the "girls" (Dolly, and Jill) and Zelda on a little walk. I was so proud of Zelda, she's doing a wonderful job walking, and staying right at my side the whole time, obeying when I tell her to come, and when we all stopped---she stopped too.

Dolly has always been the adventurer, and forged the way around the cemetery. Jill, like the sweetheart she is, stayed right close to my Grandma, always disappearing for moments because she's so tiny! She'll be right under your feet, and you'll have no idea. :)

When we got back from the walk, we hung around a bit---and went downstairs to search for a missing remote, which thankfully we can work the TV downstairs without. I got Grandma's two TVs set up so we both (I always have trouble!) can figure out how to operate them, and then we changed batteries in the Wii equipment and played for a little while. The dogs were our audience as we took turns playing the Wii Fit, and then challenged each-other in tennis on Wii Sports. Grandma had a great computer partner, and the two of them slaughtered me on the last game we played! Even Zelda was cheering them on. :)

I also tried to figure out two to set up Netflix on the Wii---only to find out that you have to install it using a disc tat is mailed to you. So that plan failed, and we went upstairs to watch Hulu Plus on my Grandma's brilliant Mac laptop. We watched Castle, which is one of my new favorite shows. Grandma actually got me into it, and since neither of us has seen much of Season 3, we watched two episodes. Just recently, we got a disc (part of Season 2) in from Netflix so we'll probably watch some more tonight!

We went to bed after Castle, and I must've crashed hard. Me and Zelda got up at about 0800 and ate some breakfast, then went out to pick raspberries. My Grandma's raspberry bushes are amazing; they spread like the plague, and always bear the most tasty red berries in the spring (and even in the fall) with great abundance. We picked a nice bucketful, and then took the dogs on another walk before it got hot.

I did some Internet surfing when we got back, and then me and Grandma watched GAC on TV, and went to lunch at a nice, but struggling, Italian restaurant. We only just home a little bit ago. The while we were out (and in the front yard with the dogs) Grandma ever so kindly put up with my consistent rambling about CAP, and other things. :) Now, we're all resting. The Girls are having a nap-time, and so I decided to take Zelda on a nice walk by ourselves. She did wonderful, and I must say, it has really warmed up today! We did a bit of running, and practiced stopping and waiting. She never uses a leash, in fact, I think she does better without it unless we're at a location were I cannot trust the actions of other dogs, or other people.

She stayed by my side the whole time---if I ran, she kept pace, and every time I stopped she'd stop with me, or just in front of me. We saw a doe, browsing along the road, and we walked towards her. Zelda was very interested, she doesn't often see deer. When I stopped, she stopped, and we just watched as the doe bayed and took off into the woods. Then we walked again, perfectly calm.

The doe was cool---Grandma has loads of deer around. Deer, squirrel, birds, coon: it's a wildlife museum out here. I heard some owls this morning, but figured they were probably more deep in the woods, but when me and Zelda were walking, I saw two owls. Two! I first noticed them when one flew up into a higher tree from a low branch; they sat and stared at us, turning their heads. I'm not sure what kind they were. They were very much like great-horned owls----they were big, but without the tufted feathers on their "ears". They were beautiful, and soon flew off after we walked towards them.

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Sadly, today both the hulsey chick that was staying in my room, and the boy-squirrel Nuts have passed away.

The hulsey I lost to this new strain of disease early this morning, the poor little feller is no longer ill, and went warm with a full belly.

The boy-squirrel has been fighting for a while now---though I can't recall if I've blogged about his struggles here before. He broke his toe in his cage, getting hung between wires, and it got infected. He was eating for a while, the ceased to do so. We began treating him with some pain medications, and antibiotics. He seemed to improve slightly---perking up, and drinking his puppy formula (which was the only thing we could get down him) more readily. He hung in their for two more days, and only a little bit ago today Dad noticed the bone sticking out of his toe---a tiny little fracture, but what was hurting him. Dad said he couldn't heal with that sticking out, so we laid out a little squirrel-surgery zone, and were going to cut the infected, and broken toe off. The squirrel went into some form of shock before we could do more then bundle him, and he passed away. He's not hurting anymore.

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 The McMurray chicks are getting bigger; the one pictured above is Dragonfly, a black frizzle cochin bantam, who I hope and pray is a hen. I already have a rooster!

The little black-and-white lady below is one of my mottled cochin bantams. "Smallfry" is the name I gave her as a chick---she has yet to outlive, or outgrow the title.

 This beautiful spangled chicken is Toby---one of my game-mutts from the test-hatch.

 Many of the younger chickens are roosting in Mom's fruit trees now; they're eating the fruit---but getting the bugs too! Perhaps they'll lower the population enough that next year when they're too fat to get in the branches and eat all the fruit---there won't be as many bugs and the fruit can grow unhindered?

 My game-mutt chickens are even more to blame then the McMurray birds. And they're better at flying.

 My beautiful oprington pair has been getting more ambitious: wandering around the whole lot, and catching beetles. They look somewhat regal, but are the clumsiest chickens I remember ever seeing.

The only problems I'm having with my chickens right now is low egg production, and more deaths! I lost two of my birds (a bantam rooster, and a game hen) to a disease with similar symptoms to the Plague that already wrecked the flock. The hen died before I started to administer treatment---it caught me by surprise, I though that maybe her lethargy was "heat" related. It had been scorching the couple of days before. When I noticed my rooster Remus was starting to get sick, a quarantined him, and started treating him with tetracycline (which I used to wipe out the Plague.) He didn't pull through, sadly.

This morning, I noticed one of my hulsey chicks seemed sick. The symptoms were all too unsurprising. Ruffled feathers, hunched back, low wings, dazed look, loss of balance, sudden "tameness", over-all lethargy, unwillingness to drink, and thin breast. I brought the little feller inside, and he's been babied in my room all day, under a broodlight, in a nice little box. At first I was having to rub his throat, and force him to drink his medicated water; he's starting to take it more willingly now, and has even eaten a bit since this afternoon. He's not completely recovered, but has perked up. Fingers crossed that he is the last bird to start ill: I think some of the trouble is that he and his kin nearly all died in the big thunderstorm we had. My Dad very nicely went out and collected them from their pen while I was sleeping, and brought them under a light to get warm. He took care of them until he was sure they were better, which I am very, very grateful for! I slept most of the time---I was really out of it.

So through the trauma of that night, I figure the hulseys will temporarily be more open to disease. The shock, cold, and wet was probably enough to get them sick on their own, ignoring the sneaky little disease that seems intent on attacking my family's birds.

Me and Quinn cleaned out the coops and rotated pens today though! Hopefully that will help: the coops needed it, especially the Bantam Coop after that rain!

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 I half-heartedly went out for a run, and ended up walking most of the way. Along the road, I noticed the bees to one of Mom's new hives were out, dancing near the entrance. I felt that the lightning was nice, so jogged back to the house to get the camera.

 Now, none of the million pictures I took were very good---but these couple were decent. I really like how golden the bees look, in contrast to their dark stripes and black eyes.

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.......

Dad got an iPad 2 for Father's Day.

There is this special camera app on it...and we've sort of been playing with it. That picture above is mine.

It highlights my specialness. :)

***Inside joke, sorry!

 ****Straight Run. Unsexed chick.