Birding Time

   It is time for our spring bird count. Every year we go out and see what birds are moving thru. And, we are sent a list to fill out and send back to the person that keeps track of all of it (as you can tell I know not much about all that!). So, we grabbed our list, our bird books, our binoculars, and set out this morning.
These don't count!

   But...wait - back up! - yesterday was our first REAL find! Actually I almost mowed over the poor guy. I was just mowing along, minding my own, and whoosh flew out the side of the mower. Or so I thought. Then I got a better look and it looked like I had scared up a female woodcock. It whooshed again into the pasture fence and it looked more like a duck of some kind. As I jumped up on the top of the mower (not a safe thing to do by the way, but I did turn off the blades first), and somehow made it over the pasture fence without breaking something including my fool neck, the whatever it was whooshed again thru the second pasture fence into the north east pasture.
   The sheep, needless to say, were a little freaked out. "What in the world! That crazy mama of ours is jumping fences and chasing ducks that aren't OUR ducks...baaaad woman!". I raced around the corner and into the north east pasture and the whatever was bashing itself against the far fence. So I ran up to it.
   Then I noticed it was grayish, or blackish, or shiny, well it kinda looked pidgeon like. YUCK! But, I reached down and picked it up. Having worked for a nature center and also having volunteered for a wildlife rescue place, I had a general idea of how to grab it. Altho my best lessons were taught to me by my own poultry. I looked down and...

Ahh! What the hell kinda feet are those??!!
Then, the demon eyes...

Okay, this is definitely NOT a pidgeon, or a chicken, or anything else I've ever seen up close. Get the bird book! I like my National Geographic bird book best so we grabbed that and the camera while the whatever was under a crate with a rock on top.

This shy little guy is an American Coot. No...not an old coot like you-know-who uptown, but an American Coot bird. This was a super great siting! I didn't have this on my life list, let alone ever had one on my lap!
Toooo Cooool!
   I was worried it couldn't fly since it had been crashing around so bad, but we took it out toward the prairie and let it go and it flew away. It must've got off track in the wind and rain last night and was resting, or trying to rest until I almost mowed his head off.
   That was the start of our bird count weekend. Today we went birding again thru our woods and saw lots of warblers (I hate warblers cuz they are so hard to figure out), robins by the hundreds, and a couple other good sitings. One, we think, was a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. We also counted a couple of red-breasted grosbeaks, sparrows by the dozens, indigo buntings, and some regulars like blue jays and red-bellied woodpeckers. Around the house area are lots of starlings (another YUCK from me), more robins, nuthatches, and goldfinches by the dozens.
   Then we took a drive to see some wetland birds. Lesser yellowlegs, another coot, and a couple of Least Sandpipers. I love water birds the most. I could watch them all day. They have such funny and unusual habits. The prairie areas showed us some bluebirds, tons of red-wing blackbirds, kingbirds, and an eastern Meadowlark.
   I'd like to go back out tonight for the owls and more night loving birds. The larger birds we saw included red-tailed hawks, turkey vultures, and great blue herons. But, one of the best sitings was to see four wild turkeys walking silently thru our woods...two hens, a young jake (male), and an older tom. I am sooo glad we have wild turkeys again and they feel safe in our woods.
   So...if you get a chance this next week - go birding! The migrants are flying thru and there are a lot of cool birds to see right now. Just watch out for the old coots (not the bird kind)!

Let me introduce...

   the chix...or at least the few that didn't mind having their pictures taken.
This is DeeDee. She is a Delaware and she's my buddy.

Dee likes her neck rubbed, and her waddles, and her beak, but definitely NOT her ears. She helps me with everything and is the only chick that doesn't really mind me picking her up. As a baby she had one of her legs broke. You can't hardly tell which one now. But, all the handling made her friendly to me. She's super smart, the real queen of the roost, and a lot of fun.

Sometime tho she gives me the evil eye and says "whaaa?"
This is Bubby...

We also jokingly (when he can't hear) call him Hop-a-long. He hasn't gotten used to his spurs yet so kind of hip hops when he runs or walks fast. He is our only rooster right now. And...NONE of our roosters are ever mean!

This is Dorky. She's a Dorking. She is also dorky. No - really!

When Dorky was just a few months old, she had something happen to her back (probably a rooster jumping on her). We thought it was broke. She could barely walk and when she finally did she propelled herself smacking into walls and everything. It seemed that her nerves were messed up somehow. We kept her inside for quite a while. Now she still propels herself unwillingly and plows into others. But, she is a great chick anyway and fends for herself pretty well.

This is Goldy...

Oops! Bad hair day. It was really windy when I took this pic and she was being blown over cuz her hair is soooo big. She's a Golden Polish. Can't see a blasted thing, but she is about four years old so she's doing okay with it.

And this is Spike...

Running away...
Okay, this is Spike...

Still running away...
Okay...this is Spike...

Okay...so that was Spike's butt.
Spike is a Hamburg. She is running away because we are always threatening her with death. Why? Well...she is really super annoying. She lays her eggs in the top of the barn, she has an annoying voice, she never does what she is supposed to, she is annoying to the others...etc.
For years we have said things like "Spike, why don't you go check out the worms on the road?" or "Spike, why don't you stay out and talk to the raccoons tonight?" She refuses to be tricked.
So, when I told her I needed a shot for the blog...she kept running away. Go figure.

The chix on our farm are too cool. All different kinds of heritage breeds. We have 13 right now and are gettting another 30 in two weeks. They are free-range, meaning they get to run all over the place all day long. Each have their own personalities. Some are motherly, some are smart, some are funny, some like to help in the garden...

They all go in at night by themselves and aren't a lick of trouble. We only have to feed them in the winter (November to March). They are great bug patrol, participate (as they can, except Spike of course) in the Egg Program, and help clean up any candy wrappers left by guests. And all of them are nice, none chase people even when they are chased first.
All in all, we are glad they are here. (okay...even Spike)

Stairway to...Heaven?

   Well, just a quick mushroom note...we found another 2 1/2 pounds of half-free morels on Tuesday. Yippee! (Sorry Cindy!) We are going looking again later on. We did end up selling the three pounds of the half-free to Thad at Bacaro restaurant in Champaign (eat there and taste them!) and keeping the blondes (which we promptly devoured). I also found out that what we call a "black" morel might really be a dark-morph blonde one. Interesting tidbit.
   We are also continuing to work on projects. Here is the latest...a stairway in the small barn.

   This is the small barn. Longer ago in the farm's history it was a small milking barn. The cows were brought into stalls and milked in here. Then the milk was taken to another little building for separation and cold storage. This barn was fixed up, thanks to mom, by Jim Yoder a few years ago. It was missing the east side, on the left in the pic, and leaning pretty precariously. He did a great job with it, new roof and everything.
   The little white door you can see in the picture is the mill room door. We made the mill room a while back and it has washable walls, ceiling and floor. We mill all our flours and corn meal in there. But this is the area beside the mill room...

   We want to make this area, where the work bench is, into a veggie wash room. That way we can bring the veggies in the door where Marty is standing (on the right), to the washing contraption (still need to buy it), and run it thru. The water would drain out the old dairy floor drain out the wall to the field. To the left of the post we will build a walk in cooler. We can wash the veggies and pop them right into this cooler. It won't have to be set as cold as our other walk-in so we can store root crops over winter for seed the next year.
   But, here is Will working on the stairs...

   The upstairs, which was the old hay mow, is huge. It is all open with a very large (5' or so tall) window on the south. Gets great light! The floor is a mess and we are careful not to fall thru. But, we store stuff up there for our operation. Boxes, water jugs to put over plants, bread trays that hold squash for drying for saving seed, garlic drying area, etc. is all up there. Unfortunately we had to always climb an old ladder on the wall and hand stuff up to each other. Now...

   wha-la! We can just traipse on up there with our squash or whatever! Cool, eh? It is super great! Makes me sooo excited. I just go up and down, up and down, up and down, to get the feel of how easy it is now. Heavenly! Someday I dream of converting the hay mow to hold my loom and then have art classes on weaving, spinning, etc. ah! dreams...so many! Maybe someday!!
   Next project? We'll put a sliding door on the side wall across from this staircase. The sliding door will block off the area where we back the grain wagon in when we unload it. I'll fix the cement floor in this area and we will have a nicer area for storing our grains before milling them. We'll also begin to work on framing in the new cooler space. Keep up to date on our progress by checking back!

Mushroom Madness

   Here they are! Morels.

We went shroom hunting on Sunday. It was really nice out, sunny and somewhat calm. And, wet. Great mushroom weather. After scavenging the woods for a few hours we ended up with lots of different mushrooms, including the morels.
   Now correct me if I'm wrong, but in the picture above, on the left is the black morel, middle is half-free morel, and right is blonde morel. We found about 1 1/3 pound of the half-free all in one area near a dead oak tree. We also found these little guys...






Marty researching different shrooms

   If we aren't sure what they are, we SURE don't eat them. We looked up and learned about three or four different kinds that we didn't put on the plate. Here's one that we do know and it is okay to eat, tasting a little like watermelon but kinda tough...


Dryad's Saddle (this one is too old already tho)

   We had a great time, just walking slowly around, heads down, waiting for the big find. It is so much fun! I get the giggles every time I find one. Like a treasure hunt. The black morels were on higher ground and not all in one spot, very difficult to see as they look somewhat like nuts that squirrels have chomped open. The blonde morels were in one area around a dead elm that Marty had put some micro-rhyz...whatever...bacteria around earlier in the season. We might check around that tree again later.
   Usually we don't find that many morels in our woods. And, we have NEVER found all three kinds at one time. That is unusual in that the blondes are usually a week later (being born blonde myself I won't mention the blonde joke that goes with that comment). The dryad's saddles come out all throughout the summer after rains but are only really good when they are a creamy white after they first come out. Otherwise they are a bit tought to naw on.
   We brought our treats back to the house and fixed this delicious spring meal.

   Clockwise around...one o'clock is the blonde morel, half-free morel, asparagus, black morel, and YES! fiddleheads at 10 o'clock. With a (in the middle) delicious corn bread stuffing cake and drizzled with some kind of fancy sauce that my great cook of a husband Marty dreamed up.
   Contrary to what SOME people believe - we DO NOT sell everything we grow and harvest. Some things are just tooooo valuable and tasty to give away at any price. The morels and fiddleheads are two of those items. Maybe, just maybe, someday in the future, on a day when you catch us in a good mood, we might, just might, sell some of the morels and fiddleheads. But, only after we get ours first!



The Amazing Radiator Pig

This is Didi...oops those are the boys...

Now, this is Didi in the pic below.

She is the super tiny piggie second to the right.

   Didi is our Amazing Radiator Pig. She is tiny as you can see partly because she is from the third litter (the larger girls in the pic are from the second litter). She is also just small. And, very curly. But the small part is the important part of the story that caused the whole problem.
   Last Tuesday it rained. Many days lately are rainy. And, the pigs were out on pasture in the old tomato area which has some white clover in it. Our pigs are total pasture pigs, no grain or feed and just hay in the winter. So, springtime is when we move them onto the new clover. They do pretty well eating the clover, until it rains. Then the clover becomes a huge mud hole.
   I went out in the early eve to move the cages and say good night. Boys first as they were closest, all fine. Then to the girls and...no Didi! I saw the larger girls in the mud, mucking toward me, but no Didi. Then I saw her. All the way at the back and half in the mud just lying still. I climbed in.
   oops. I was wearing some boots that came from someone much larger than me, boots two sizes too big and slit halfway down the back also. I got stuck! I couldn't pull my feet up without the damn boots coming off! Finally, struggling, I got to her and pulled her up out of the mud. She was limp. I struggled back to the front of the pen and yelled YELLED for help. One boot came off and was lopped over in the mud and I was balancing with the pig on the other foot with my sock foot on the cage, trying to figure out how to get out.
   Marty heard me, thank goodness, and came to help. I took Didi up to the house and put her in the tub, thinking I would just start some warm water on her to get the mud off and see if she was okay. Her eyes were open and a little responsive, opening wide when worried and then drooping again. So, I knew she was in there. I started lightly pouring warm water over her along her neck and back, warming her up. She was freezing. She never moved. Every now and then I would lift her and let the water drain, still no movement but a widening of the eyes again.
   After a couple hours Marty found me. He didn't know where I had taken her as he had set out to get the cages onto some more sturdy grass areas. By then Didi was somewhat cleaned up and warmer, but I didn't know what to do. Every time I quit with the warm water she would begin to shiver and breath raspy. She had closed her eyes and was just lying there. I didn't know how much mud got in her mouth and nose, or in her lungs. So, I just kept the water going to keep her warm. I was exhausted by the time Marty found me and wondering if we should just put her down. It wasn't looking too good.
   But, we decided to wrap her in a couple of old towels and lay her on the radiator. She was tiny enough that she fit on it perfectly. Marty pumped up the heat in the house and she was staying warm. But, she was still rasping and not looking good. We considered just putting her down, but decided to give her the night and see how she was in the morning. Unfortunately, in the morning and for all the next day we would be in Chicago delivering. So, we had to decide by morning what to do.
   I got worried she would roll off the radiator if she woke up, so after a couple of hours on it when she was good and warm I moved her to the floor in front of it. She laid there and didn't move, sometimes opening her eyes, and sometimes rasping a little. We left her for the night.
   At 4am, my usual thinking time, I got up and checked on her. She had scooted herself around and out from under the towel, nose still under the radiator. She made a little grunt. Hm. Good sign. So I left her again. And, of course, Petie was concerned (he is very sensitive to others' needs) and he stayed outside the door the whole night worrying away about the radiator piggie and keeping watch.
   At 6:30 I checked again and she grunted more and was moving a little. I opened the cabinet and when the door squeeked she grunted more. Then Marty came into the bathroom and she popped up to see him. Weird! She appeared fine! She started trying to eat his socks. I got some wheat berries in a little water with a dash of milk and she gobbled it up, grunting for more. Whew! If a pig eats, it is okay!
   We still didn't want to put her out in the cold so kept her in the dog kennel all day. Mom came and checked on her and moved the kennel near the hall radiator when Didi looked cold. She fed her and the piggie gobbled that down too.
   The next day we took her outside and put her in a small cage while I cleaned out the kennel. She ate some grass, laid in the sun, and just grunted like normal. Now she appears fat and fine. We put her in with Pea (in the pic on the far left) and they are doing great now.
   That is how Didi became our Amazing Radiator Pig