First Snowy Day of Winter

First snow fall of the year...  hooray!

We looked out our front windows and saw actual snow on the ground!  Immediately, the kids asked to put on their snow suits, and Aidan was all set to make snow angels.  

We went outside and tromped about in the mud for awhile, but there were no snow angels on this day!  It was fun, though, to sit by the pellet stove and look out at the pretty snow til it was gone.

My girls were running back and forth, very happy to see me and get some water that wasn't frozen!  They had mud and snow caked on their feet.  I wish they'd hang out in the warm and straw-filled coop!  Still got plenty of eggs, though.

The Shockingly Ugly Molt

Forget Motley Crew.  This is the Moltly Crew.  =)

Here's my whole flock of eight girls!
3 Australorps
2 Ameracaunas
1 Rhode Island Red
2 Delawares

I have been keeping an eye on my pecked chicken, and she keeps looking pretty bad.  BUT!  I noticed that Cannibal was looking a bit scruffy last week, too.  But wait, she's at the top of the pecking order!  And my best layer, Big Mama, has great globs of feathers missing from her neck.   !!   I began to worry!  Worms!  Fleas!  Mites!  Illness!  Disease!  Filth!  Ackk!

So I cornered the worst looking girl, Cannibal, and she was very upset at being picked up.  So to calm her down, I hung her upside down by her feet.  She rested quietly while I gave her the once over twice.  =)

A decent chicken

An indecent chicken, but the baby feathers are already growing in, masking her nudity.

She had dandruff (actually, it was the casing on the feathers) and she was so incredibly naked, I couldn't believe it.  No feathers on her belly, almost naked wings, but her vent was in fine condition: healthy, pink and moist.  Gross, eh?  I set her down, concerned, and went inside to disinfect my hands.  After doing so, it occurred to me that maybe she, and Big Mama were molting.  I inspected the other girls, and the rest of them look much better. Why would that be?  One of them is the same breed!

My new babies, (not laying yet) which are white and red, have been leaving feathers all over the yard as they grow in more adult and winter feathers, but they look sleek and fluffy.  Even Shane agrees they are cute!

Off to the internet where I discovered that, yes, of COURSE my birds are molting, and that's why we are also seeing maybe one egg a day.  And that really good layers molt HARD, and the average layers molt slowly over a longer period of time and don't look quite as scary.  What a relief!

The girls have been switched over to the yard that I gardened in all summer, and are enjoying new and interesting things to peck at.  They love the raised garden bed! I am planning to till up the soil in the yard they just vacated and plant some winter rye in there.  I want to garden there next spring, as well.

I also fixed up a broody hen yard, so that if Crystal (or anybody else) decides to set again next spring, she'll have a little coop all to herself, a fenced in yard and the winter rye in that yard is already three or four inches high.  =)  How nice!

Sister in Afghanistan!

My sister, Susan, is a Marine and is currently over in Afghanistan with the FET.  They are an all female group that is a go-between for male marines and Afghan women.  The women over there aren't allowed to talk to males other than their husbands, and I might assume possibly their brothers?  Anyway, certainly not male marines.  So the FET goes in to assess their needs and ease tensions.

Susan with son, Carson and bro, Wesley

My sisters and I have enjoyed putting together boxes for her and sending them, things like canned food and snacks, baby wipes and face wipes, etc.  Susan also told us that we could send things like shoes and socks and gloves, especially with winter on the way for Afghan children.  So Calysta has been sending over some of her famous Babushka dolls (she cut out 60 in one day!).  It's nice for Susan to have little gifts to pass out to kids, so we try to think of safe things that can't be used by enemies, like pens.  =)  Interesting point that Susan made is that the grandma's often have an education, Ph.D's even, because back in their day, things were much less oppressive for women.  I can't imagine how it must feel to have daughters and granddaughters growing up with so much less opportunity.

Recently, Susan called Calysta and told her about an Afghan family that is their "favorite".  I don't know how many children they have, but their youngest is two months old.  Apparently the mother is the last to eat, and since there's not much, her milk has mostly dried up.  So this little baby is getting fed weak chai tea.  Period.  Suz says the backbone is just sticking up on this little girl baby!  I could hardly sleep last night for thinking of that poor mother and her poor baby.  How to solve such an issue?  Well, of course I ran to the store and got a huge can of formula to send to Susan, but the needs go deeper.  More food for the family?  Birth control options?  It's just so sad.  Calysta passed on that the FET girls brought the family strawberry shake powder and a few other things they could glean from the base.

I've you-tubed all the videos I can about the area, and the Marine involvement.  I'm trying to take a deeper interest, but it can be really depressing.  Some of these hurdles are just so huge that stand between everyday families and their basic needs.  I walk through my house and all of a sudden there's so much WASTE and EXCESS!  I haven't crunched the numbers, but we could probably support several families easily, without changing our current bills.  I guess for now I'm just glad that I can know about a problem and at least send a little band-aid.  I'll be looking at my closet full of baby blankets in a whole new light, and some will go on to fulfill a better destiny than sitting unused on a shelf.  They'll go from being dearly loved, to really needed!

Naming Things and Other Stuff

Julia has been on a naming kick lately.  Or at least the names she is using are attracting unprecedented levels of attention.

"I know a cute name for a pet cat, Mom!  It could be **itty!  Because it rhymes with Kitty!"
Lucas askes "Shatty?" and is quickly corrected with emphasis and volume.

Today I played a little Polly Pocket with her at rest time.  I asked the name of her horse, thinking I knew the answer, but lo and behold the horses' name is Pisto.  I enquired if she meant "Pinto" and again got the correction with emphasis and volume: PISto!  Because it's pretty, she says.

One morning, as the kids were romping on me trying to get me to get OUT of bed, I got a kick out of Aidan.  He wanted to play this new game we discovered, Dust, and upon being told no(it wasn't his turn), he tried a few tactics.  He was laying on my pillow and we were face to face.  His whole face crumples and he begins to sob and says "Mom!  I don't like your deCIsions!"
I feel a rumble of a chuckle deep down, but keep ahold of myself.
He continues, "You are so un............comfortable and so un..........happy!
Bwah hah haaaaaa!  Poor guy began to realize I wasn't feeling repentant and his manipulation was backfiring somehow.  But at that very instant, Lucas asked him to play a two man version of Dust, and the tearless, fake crying face melted away to reveal the sunshine.
As he departed, I commented "I thought you said I was uncomfortable?"
Big smile: "I was just kidding, Mom!"

Back in the Saddle Again

Well, I've had good reasons for being absent for this long, one of which is FAMILY!

We got to be all together right at the end of August, and that was no small feat!  Everyone made tremendous effort to get there, oh, except for Calysta who just lazed around because everyone came to her house. ;)  Poor girl was caught pulling weeds, cleaning siding, re-screening windows and washing and dusting entry windows that were only reachable by ladder and teeny ledges.  She was expecting a mere 15 people to add to her family.  

So we got some much coveted family photos, thanks to Calysta's Mike.  Thanks, Mike.  You're the man.

So here's a sweet pix of Mom and Dad, who started all this business:

And here's all of us, from 32 to 10:

Melita, Virginia, Calysta, Susan, Marian, Wesley and Brynna

And we seem to have kept the business going:

A lovely jaunt to Guemes Island to visit my mother's parents, Bruce and Jeanne Notson.  I guess this is how the kids smile as hard as they can. =)  I think my kids would like to move there!

I took the kids on this trip up north and we were gone for 15 days, whew!  Still, it felt like our time at each place was too short.  Next time, we take Papa with us and stay for longer!  =)  

Now that I'm home, it's been a bear getting back in the swing of things.  I'm being a homebody and a recluse.  But that's a subject for another post.