Good Morning! 2019

[Killerbunny]

Nasty @Jaye hope you heal fast. Well today I found a bird that is even nastier than a broody turkey - a broody guinea hen! I managed to get her off the nest in the end but she was really intimidating. I thought something was up because the male was acting oddly!

[Farrier1987]

Broodies hatching since April here, but slowing down. Bianca hatched 4 yesterday, and the falcon got set on 8 eggs. Been shuch a wonderful fecund broodie bunch of girls year. (Used that word special for you KB) First time since June or so that all three of my broodie pens have not been full. And time will tell, but my guess right now is that I am two to one or so, pullets over cockerels; wouldnt that be wonderful and amazing. Several neighbors wanting a few pullets, so should be able to help them. Garden, mostly dying off. I wasnt as diligent on the weeds this year, and they are definitely winning.

[Kbr42]

Ouch Jaye! Heal fast.

[Ontario Chick]

Good morning.
I spent the last evening of the Labour day weekend in emergency at Winchester hospital. I sliced a nice big gash between the thumb and forefinger of my right hand with a knife that never did travel straight. Lucky I didn't cut off my thumb entirely. I was in a big rush to get some sauerkraut put up. Stupid. I came home with several stitches in a hand that won't be functional for at least a week, but no apparent tendon damage, thank goodness.
So much for finally getting the quail males sorted and into their bachelor pen this weekend (they will be 8 weeks old). At least I got the fall chicken coop clean-out done this past Sunday. Just in time for the fall moult.

That sounds nasty @Jaye and I know the worst part, when you inflict this on yourself, a familiar scenario here.

Pretty spectacular light show here last night, so lovely infusion of free nitrogen.
Prepared base of stone dust for a bird bath that needed to be moved and waited for a really good downpour to pound it in to submission, so got my wish last night and will be able to finish the job.
Somewhat curious about everybody else experience, we seem to have almost no mosquitoes this year, and although I would like to think it's due to my getting a hedger and keeping all the grass low, somehow I feel I can't take all the credit. Anyone else noticed that?

Coming back from doggy walk yesterday, I could see from a distance Mactavish close to the barn doing some peculiar acrobatic moves and the hens sounding some level of alarm, not sure about what, the run is about 100 x100' so it too a bit of time to get around it, by that time I saw Mactavish literally leap straight up in the air and land in more or less the same spot.
When I got there I realized there was a giant frog size of a saucer, heading for the door of the quonset.
It became very obvious that although Mactavish didn't want it in the barn, there was no way he was touching the thing
Not sure if the hens were alarmed at the size of the frog or if they thought Mactavish had lost his marbles.

[kenya]

Very few mosquitos this year here as well, it was so nice you could actually sit out in the yard and enjoy it.

[WLLady]

@Jaye I hope you heal up fast! I too this weekend found out that dull knives don't travel well, and combine that with blood thinners and intermittent stupidity I am going through bandaids like crazy. sigh. i keep opening the darned thing up every time i wash my hands, or use a towel, or put on gloves at work, or type on the computer....it's a nice down the side of my finger with the knife stopping when it hit my nail bed. Just ask poultry_admin about how ladylike i am when i do things like that. thank goodness there are no kids here, or they would have learned a few new words! so i commiserate, and hope you heal up faster than i seem to be! and looks like i'm back up for surgery around christmas time again this year, to fix my heart. oh yay. i'm starting to wonder what power that is that i pissed off somewhere. i'm running out of energy with all this.
So. time to finally cut down on the chickens. i have a pile for the freezer, and some older ones will likely head to auction. i'm going to keep my silver and gold welbars, because i worked hard to make them, but the rest will likely go....and a lot of the turkeys too, several will be freezer camped, and some down to auction when i get a friday to go and do. till then i have 1 course i'm teaching this fall, madly trying to prepare lectures for that. and looks like 2 in the winter. finally healed up from my mean rooster attack. thinking he might hit the bbq this weekend LOL. oh, and my broody hatched 4, killed 3....number 4 just hatched tonight and is under surrogate broody....sigh. sometimes these birds drive me insane.

AND, the mosquitos were all here and north of montreal. just in case you were wondering LOL

[ross]

Yep the old slow down Kathy . Hopefully I got enough oomph to go sit in deer blind . Lol
Gonna try trap shooting again , been 35 yrs , with my 20 ga . Old saying , never been cut by a sharp knife . Luck all
PS lots a monarchs here but few skitters . Barn swallows keep their population down . Fun to watch acrobatics in early evening .

[WLLady]

but but but ROSS i'm not OLD....YET!
yep, the knife was not as sharp as it should have been. after all it had processed almost 40 pounds of plums, and at least 3 bushels of tomatoes. and onions. it's been a busy week! LOL we hit 6C last night. started feeling like hunting season coming around

[ross]

15th squirrel & rabbit .

[kenya]

Took the silkies out to their run, I fence in a bit of the yard just for them. I let them go then fenced in another new section, new grass and bugs . Then I tried to catch to move them into the new section which is right next door and just flip them over the fence into the new section. Well they run they weren't going back in already, then they stopped and saw where the chicks I caught were going and they all lined up to get caught and put into the new section. Funniest thing I ever saw, and who said chickens were stupid.