Sweetpea and Daisy have a blooming rosebush in their outdoor coop.

Last week we had a house full of guests. Our youngest son Milo, was married on our deck overlooking the ocean on a sunny afternoon. Guests wandered through the garden and were entertained by Daisy and Sweetpea. The hens love people and several children who were in the wedding party, kept letting them of their outdoor pen. While our garden is fenced, there are a pair of hawks the keep watch on the hens and when they are not protected, will fly down and sit on the fence, waiting for an opportunity to

snag a chicken dinner. After telling the children not to let the hens out again, we put an old padlock on the gate so that we didn’t have to keep watch on the mischievous children. Daisy and Sweetpea had to view the ceremony from “behind bars”.

Wedding on garden deck

"I didn't mean to do it!"

I’ve had to put aside my computer for the last month. I took a fall in the garden and have been in the hospital for the last four weeks. Early one beautiful morning in late February, I broke my hip. I’d taken the labradoodle puppy, Marilyn, the one that had been returned for further training, into the garden bed that I’d selected for her to do her “business”. When she’d finished, I turned one way and she turned the other. As I stumbled backward, I stepped into our river rock drainage ditch and just couldn’t stay upright. The tall pine trees and blue sky rose up as I mentally reviewed the list of chores I needed to get done in the following day, week, month etc.. I had plants waiting to go in the ground, was in the middle of pruning the deciduous shrubs and trees, and was preparing for my “youngest offspring’s” garden wedding in late April. On the way down, I knew it would be a bad fall and I was preparing for the worst.

Happy Mothers Day to those of you who have mothered and will always mother, and who understand the maternal instincts that are so apparent in hens. It is really so touching.

I took this picture off the internet last year. I’d love to give credit to whoever took it and a hearty thanks for the chuckle it gives me each time I look at it. Many thanks.

It doesn't matter what you mother, just mother. The world will be a better place.

Rosie, Our Rhode Island Red (April 2009-January 2011)

We’ve lost one of our beloved hens. She acted a bit lethargic for the past week but continued to eat and drink and get up on the roost with her flockmates. We thought she might be beginning to molt. Then yesterday, when we returned home in the afternoon, she was lying in the damp dirt along the edge of the outdoor run. Don brought her into the house and we wrapped her in a towel. While I was holding her and stirring electrolytes into a cup of water to give to her, she gasped twice and died in my arms. I’m heartbroken. I put her, still wrapped in the towel, in a little cage in the laundry room for an hour believing that she may revive and get up and surprise us all. But alas, she did not. We buried Rosie near the grave of our old chocolate lab and marked her grave with a large river rock.

Rosie did not have the easiest chicken life. She has always been at the bottom of the pecking order. This meant that she was chased away from the finest of treats and was the last to be allowed to get up on the roost at night. A piece of her comb was missing from an exceptionally hard peck and some of the feathers on her head were gone.

Granddaughter Carolyn and Rosie

But Rosie was a resilient little thing. She was first up on our laps. She kept her eyes glued on the house during the day hoping we would emerge with a bowl of scraps in our hands. She was quick to grab a worm or snail that was thrown into the outdoor run. Grandchildren loved her and even strangers could easily pick her up.

It is hard to know why a hen less than two years old would die for no obvious reason. After her death, we examined her to see if we could identify the cause of her death. She had a yellow discharge from her vent as did Daisy when an egg broke inside her. This disease, that kills so many “high egg producers”, is called “egg peritonitis”. Had she shown more symptoms or acted really sick, I might have been able to treat her and save her life. If only…..if only……If only.

Along with the joy of having loved pets in our lives comes the inevitable sadness and loss. This simple creature enriched our lives, made us laugh, and provided us with hundreds of her beautiful eggs. Thank you and farewell, dear Rosie.

Three handsome cocks in the oaks

We have a lovely flock of wild turkeys that walk by our house each day. They roost in the trees in the “open space” and migrate each morning to more populated areas. They look nothing like the domesticated turkeys that you see in farmyards. They are slim, streamlined, and gangly. They stroll up the street but will break into a trot if a dog or human come toward them. They can fly, and do fly, to perches high in the oaks and pines each evening.

If you are wondering why they were called turkeys, it is because the Europeans that found them here, mistakenly mistook them for the guineafowl that they the were familiar with, that were imported through the country of Turkey. Just a bit of trivia to share at your Thanksgiving table today.

Four males and one hen. Poor thing!

Indoo.r Cam Focused on Nest Boxes

We’ve had people ask us how we put the images from a camera onto the website for public viewing. As novices, we found it challenging to do and even more difficult to explain. It has taken us awhile to write out a brief explanation of the process that we went through to make our images public and hope you will find it helpful.

We’ve written directions and put the explanation as a “page” or article so that the title will be permanently displayed across the top of the first page of our website. You will find the explanation under Hencam Tech Talk on the menu bar across the top.

I hope this will be of help to any of you wanting to embark on this journey. Please let us know if you have hencams so that we can see your completed project and visit your site.

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