There is always something unexpected to divert my attention around here. This morning, I opened the front door to be confronted by what usually is a sign that Miss Lynne has been gardening. But she is away so I can’t blame her. How on earth did all that shrubbery get on the front porch?
Such a big mess for a small bird
Looking up I quickly had an answer to my question. An opportunist little bird had decided that the porch light fitting would make a great nesting box. Sadly for that little bird, I had to disagree. Back to square one then.
I’ve been busy, on and off over the last couple of weeks, building a house for our next batch of chickens. I made my usual error of flinching at the price of a new one and foolishly say … nah, I can do that. Well, yes I can, but it always takes twice as long as I think and lots of trips into town for the bits and pieces I forgot the last time.
Anyroad, here it is. A luxury accommodation for 6 birds with nesting for 3 simultaneous egg laying. This open plan space has forest fresh, multi level roosting and fine views over the Georgia countryside.
New home for the new birds (coming soon)Inside view
Last night I decided to treat the old bloke as it was his last day at ?? years old. So we fired up the new Kamado grill and had home made pizza followed by BBQ bananas with nutella. He said it was his best meal for a long time but I think he was just merry from the beer he drank!
I decided to follow up with French toast for breakfast this morning, made with home made fruit bread and our own fresh eggs. yum !!! I like this change of pace.
Who knew that eggs grew in the wild …….. Well not really. Rocky the runaway chicken; the one that just won’t stay confined, has been laying her eggs in her own secret place. It’s a pity I didn’t find them until this morning. It feels wrong to throw so many eggs away.
A walk around the garden is nearly always rewarded with wildlife of one sort or another. Firstly there’s Rocky the runaway. She loves to get out of the pasture and away from the other chickens. Perhaps she is escaping the attentions of Roger Rooster.
Rocky runaway
We have lots of Cardinals coming to the feeders and the ground beneath them.
Lots of Cardinals
We always had these in NY. One new bird to us was this little Indigo Bunting. Nice plumage as the pythons would say.
I’ve not seen an Indigo Bunting before
We really enjoy seeing the birds in out garden and Miss Lynne has a full time job keeping the feeders topped up. Not all the wild life is welcomed though.
I’m afraid this visitor didn’t last long
It’s amazing the difference a week makes. Just a few days of warm weather and the trees are humming with activity.
The whole tree was humming
The warm weather also answered the question about having turtles in the lake. We spotted at least three. That might not be good news for the recently added fish!
We have a small lake (100ft sq) at the front of the property that has been created by damming the stream as it runs down the valley. I suspect it was originally for irrigation purposes. Apart from frogs we don’t think there is anything interesting there although it had been stocked and used for fishing at some stage.
While we were visiting Turner Feed and Seed we spotted a notice saying “Fish man 10 to 11.30 Sat”. Twice a year a guy drives a tanker from Arkansas with live fish and people gather from around the Atlanta area to restock their lakes.
We don’t have any interest in fishing but we did think it might be a good idea to introduce some fish to keep the frog population under control. It might also help to encourage the heron to keep coming around.
So we got out there early to wait with the crowd. It turned out to be a Georgia 10am but we had fun chatting while we waited. Like luck winners at the country fair, we eventually walked away with a bag of Hybrid Blue Gill Brim (Bream). There are supposed to be 100 in that bag but I think it’s closer to 50.
To allow for some acclimatisation, I place the bag in the lake for an hour before releasing the Brim in to their new home. Lets hope they do well.
I really enjoyed my two wheeling dirt bike days, I’ve had fantastic times hang gliding and I still get a real buzz on skis after all these years. But if I had to choose, hand on heart, the “thing” that I would not want to live without; It would be an easy choice. A no brainer. I could not imagine a world without music. Music punctuates my entire life. If there really is a meaning to life then surely music holds the key.
Music is a mathematical thing. There are patterns and cycles. One of those cycles played out for me tonight. It’s only taken 38 years.
Back in 1975 I was traveling with my, soon to be, father in law. He was crazy on Country & Western music and was always keen to introduce me to some old yodeler or other. This was hopeless, of course, as I only had ears for Hendrix, Floyd, Roxy Music etc, On this particular night, however, I had to admit that I really quite liked the female artist whose cassette he had just picked up. She had a wonderful voice ….. just a shame she was singing that C&W stuff! Anyway, he made a copy of the tape for me and I often played it until it got eaten by the machine. For one reason or another I almost completely forgot the name and voice of Emmylou Harris for the next 20 years.
By the mid 90’s my unhealthy obsession with Q Magazine, that fueled an addiction to CD’s, re-introduced me to the work of Emmylou Harris. It was the association with U2 producer, Daniel Lanois, that tipped me over the edge. The “Wrecking Ball” album is simply divine; A cherished physical entity on the rack under the letter “H”. I have since collected three additional EH CD’s but nothing surpasses “Wrecking Ball”.
An so to the cycle close. After 38 years, Emmylou Harris has teamed up with her original collaborator, Rodney Crowell and old band members, to go out on the road and have fun with those old songs from that long ago chewed up tape. The band played in Atlanta (now last night) and were wonderful. At 66 years of age, EH still has command of a truly magical voice. As Rodney Crowell put it – she has the soul of a poet, the voice of an angel and she’s still hot! I couldn’t agree with him more.
As musical icing on the cake, the support act was none other than Richard Thompson. A folk/rock guitar icon and an all time favorite of mine. The last time Lynne and I saw him was in Basingstoke (UK), seven years ago. He did not disappoint. If there is a heaven, I think I might have visited tonight..
Things started off pretty normal, nice blue skies, chores done and then…. 9.30 a power outage …. this was one of the reasons we escaped Pine Bush was to get away from these. 2 major differences though, it only lasted for 20 mins instead of 4 days and even better AT & T have the good sense to install battery back up in their systems and also not pull their power from the same supply to the house. So we at least had continuous internet.
enjoying their cooked oatmeal
And talking of escape – I think our chickens must have been watching the Chicken Run movie. As they have spent most of the day looking for holes in the fence to climb through and Mr Rob has spent most of the day chasing them back in. Did I hear someone mention gravy and mixed veg.
Not to be out done, two of the boy pacas decided to spit at each other, now with Alpacas this is not just a little mouth spit. They actually bring up some disgusting smelly and as you can see from the picture nasty tasting stuff from their stomach. The funny thing is that even they don’t like the taste and smell so the both of them were wondering around with their bottom jaw hanging open waiting for the smell to go away. I guess it will be a while before they do that again… Boys !
Went through our normal morning routines, Rob cooked up a large pot of sweet potato mash, our contribution for our lunch hosts. Final check around before we left and one chicken was no where to be seen. No feathers or any other signs of predators, hmmm maybe it was an eagle? Anyway nothing we could do so off we went for lunch.
Lunch was a real fun event, Jane and Norman plus all their children, grandchildren and friends. Norman showed me his vintage phone collection which is really something very special.
Good food, great company and a nice glass of wine. Perfect.
Left early evening and when we got home the missing chicken was out the back of the horse ring, no idea how she had managed it. It took Rob and I a short while to get at her and get her back in with the rest of the gang. We had a good laugh when we went up the other barn, there tucked behind a flake of hay was an egg. She must have heard about Easter egg hunts and decided to break out and hide one for us.
Anyway all’s well that ends well and we are happy everyone is safe.
Posted with Blogsy by Miss Lynne