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Time for a Change!

I've been thinking of changing the platform and URL for this blog for a long time. I figured the one year anniversary of the blog was a good time to switch, so started working on it the first of this month.

I hoped to have it all fancied up and perfect before announcing it, but I’ve got too much going on and it’s taking too long. I’m going to start posting to the new blog address from now on… just leave off the /blog in the address to
http://www.ruralramblings.com/ and you’re there!

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY & HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Not only is this July 4th Independence Day...

1776 The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

But also on this day in ...

1802 The U.S. Military Academy opened at West Point, N.Y.

1804 Author Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Mass.

1845 American writer Henry David Thoreau began a two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond near Concord, Mass.

1939 Baseball player Lou Gehrig, afflicted with a fatal illness, bid a tearful farewell at Yankee Stadium in New York, telling fans, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth."

1959 A 49th star was added to the American flag to represent the new state of Alaska.

1960 The number of stars on the American flag was increased to 50 to honor the new state of Hawaii.

2004 A 20-ton slab of granite, inscribed to honor "the enduring spirit of freedom," was laid at the World Trade Center site as the cornerstone of the Freedom Tower.

2007 The birth of our little blog, Rural Ramblings!

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY to us!
Hope you enjoy our missives and come back and visit often!

Fowl Rescue

Why is that things seem to go wrong the most when you’re short on time? I’ve got more company than I expected coming this weekend, the house is a wreck, and I needed to get some groceries. But I haven’t been sleeping well, so after the guys went off to work this morning, I laid down for a quick nap figuring I’d be more energetic after a little rest.

I was dreaming about catching chicks, and that there were all kinds all over the house. Little did I realize when I woke up almost two hours later that was a prophetic dream. Two hours! Oh man! I didn’t have that kind of time to waste today! But okay, I feel better, so time to get moving, and fast.

My one little injured chick was peeping. I figured she was lonely. I kept wishing for something else to hatch out soon so she’d have a buddy. I held her a while and talked to her, then zipped outside to do the morning chores.

The wound is healing, even though it still looks pretty yuck.

The animals were all giving me the hairy eyeball, like, “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” I was mobbed by chickens and guineas looking for some scratch grain, peafowl screeching for their morning chow, and indignant goats butting my legs because they hadn’t got their morning treat of animal crackers yet. Okay, okay! I’m moving as fast as I can.

Then I heard it.

If you’ve ever had guineas with keets, you know this sound. It’s that high-pitched locater cheep that means, “Help me, I’m lost!” One little keet was running around in the back yard screaming at the top of its little lungs. At first I figured it got separated from the group we saw last night, and when the guineas all came in for food, it’d find its mama. No such luck.

Instead, the older guineas were pecking at it, so I figured I’d better go to the rescue. I got out my trusty net, waded through the other critters, and went after it.

Now if you’ve ever chased a guinea keet you’re probably already laughing, because you know those short little legs move like they’re jet-propelled. It’s really too bad no one had a camera, cause I’m sure this would have qualified for a winner on “Funniest Home Videos.”

After much running around in the 90 degree heat, I finally captured the little twerp, took it inside, and put it in the brooder box with the injured chick. Finally! Now back out to finish my chores.

I wasn’t out there for very long until I heard that sound again. Uh-oh, there’s another keet somewhere! I grabbed my trusty net again, and went off to hunt it down. This one was in the weeds along the driveway. Those weeds include poison ivy.

We went around in circles, I slipped on some rocks and skinned my leg up a little, and about that time I was thinking, “I sure hope you appreciate me saving your life little keet, cause if I get poison ivy for the first time in MY life, I ain’t gonna be happy.” After a whole lot of tries, I finally netted the little speedball, put it in a bucket in the feed room and figured I’d finish my chores, then take it inside.

Only once it shut-up, I heard that sound again. HOW MANY OF THESE KEETS ARE RUNNING LOOSE!?! I’m sure about that time I heard God laughing and saying, “You’d think by now you’d be careful what you wish for! Now you’ve got some little cheeps to keep your lonesome chick company.”

The trouble is, this one was down in the bottom pasture. Now keets are nigh impossible to see in grass, let alone tall weeds like’s in that pasture. The only way you can find one is to home in on the cheeps, and then you still have to extremely lucky to locate it.

I went to look at a known nest site there, and discovered a mass of adult guinea feathers. Hmmmm, so that’s probably why these are running loose on their own – someone had mama for a midnight snack. But where is this little cheeper?

Feathers to the left, two nests of eggs to the right.

I waded through a whole lot of weeds, and probably still wouldn’t have found it except for one thing. This one doesn’t blend in. It’s a light gray. I’ve never seen a keet this color. We had some white guineas way back when we first got some, but I don’t remember them hatching out any gray keets. What I do remember is white guineas are the first to go when the predators come looking for food. They stand out, unlike the regular colored ones, so get picked off quickly.

At any rate, I captured that chick, and thankfully didn’t hear any more cheeps, so took them inside. Unfortunately, I just thought I was done chasing keets, cause when I got in the house I heard the sound again, and it wasn’t coming from the brooder box.

Oh no! The first little cheep had jumped out of the box and was running around all over the house. I headed towards the sound and stepped in something squishy. “Oh crap!” Yep, that’s what it was alright. Guess the little fink’s digestive system is working fine.

It ran in the office, where there are far too many places for it to hide. I crawled around on my hands and knees trying to find it. It ran out of there and into another room and under the bed.

Hiding out among some stuff on a shelf in the office.

By this time my legs were really itching and I knew I couldn’t reach the keet, so I figured I’d take a shower and get ready to go to the grocery store and maybe by then it would be out again. About the time I started to step in the shower, I heard cheeping in the hallway.

I headed after the little cheep, and it zipped towards the living room. I was praying, “Please Lord, I don’t care if you laugh, but don’t let anyone come to the door and see me running around the house with no clothes on, trying to catch this little beast. I haven’t got time to explain it the psychiatrist after they take me away in the straight-jacket!”

Lucky for me, when those little keet feet hit the linoleum in front of the door, the keet went sliding and I grabbed it.

That's the little gray one hopping out of the water dish.

Once I got it back in the brooder box, I threw a towel over the box and went looking for a screen to put over it so there’d be no more jailbreaks. I now have 1 chick and 3 keets cheeping away in a hopefully escape proof box.

And I’m NOT going back outside for fear I might hear more cheeps!

Play this movie, and you'll hear a lot of those locator cheeps!

CSA Basket of the Week

Well, I leave it to you experts out there (if you buy food, you're an expert, right?), what do you think of this basket of food?

I don't usually leave pictures full sized, but if you click on this, it'll bring up a huge picture so you can get pretty good detail on this week's items.

There is a nice basket of berries there in front I need to clean. To the right is a package of sausage, hot. And I do mean hot. Last time I cooked some of this, it was so hot we couldn't eat it, and The Farmer loves to pile jalapeno peppers on salads or sandwiches. I have to wonder if they put it in the baskets because nobody else wants it.

As you can see in the basket, there's 3 yellow squash, a cucumber, 6 little tomatoes, 3 onions, and a few sprigs of herbs. Oh, and a box of mixed beans that are decent.

Now, research by myself and a friend at the local Publix and Farmer's Market would suggest the following prices (and I tried to err on the generous side):

• $4.50 Beans (selling .42/ounce for organically grown beans at Publix)
• $4.99 Berries (per quart at Farmer's Market; guessing that's right size)
• $-.50 Cucumber (2 for $1 at Farmer's Market)
• $2.50 Herbs ($2.50 for bag with about 12 sprigs at Publix)
• $-.45 Onions (10 for $1.49 at Farmer's Market)
• $6.00 Sausage (for 1 1/2 pounds as advertised on CSA site)
• $1.99 Squash (8 or 9 for $1.99 of young squash at Farmer's Market)
• $2.10 Tomatoes (10 for $3.50 at Farmer's Market)
  $23.03 Total

We started the second week of May, and run through the first week of October. As near as I can tell, that's 21 weeks for $650, or $30.95 a week. If I'm wrong and there's another week in there, it'd only be $29.54 a week, but I think it's 21 weeks and the higher price.

I know they have to buy baskets and boxes, but then, the people at the Farmer's Market and Publix had to package their goods also, so I don't really think it's fair to add anything on the cost for that.

I would also hope that as their garden produces more, we'd get more in the basket. But leaving quantity aside, which I realize would vary with what the garden is producing, there's the issue of quality. Maybe it's just me, but the squash are way too big - they're supposed to be young and small so there are few seeds. The cucumber is also too old, and several veggies in the past have been the same, like the snowpeas and broccoli.

The sausage is excellent quality meat, but so hot we can't eat it. The Farmer suggested I mix it with some unseasoned pork to tone down the heat, so that might work. I'd hate to feed another $6 worth of meat to the dogs.

I went into this hoping for some high quality food and a great experience to write about. I just know CSA is a good thing, and I wanted to be able to brag about how great the one was I joined. I figured, hey, I could write them up and they get some free advertisment! But you notice I've been careful not to mention the name, and even 'erased' their stamp off the sausage package.

Cause unless I'm missing something, I don't think they've earned bragging rights.

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P.S. I finally figured out what form the email should take I send to the people running this particular CSA (trying to be as non-confrontational as possible). I think I will let them know I've been putting pictures of the produce on my blog, and gotten several comments, and thought they might be interested in reading some of them... then make a list of some I've gotten over the last 8 weeks, along with a comment or two of my own at the end. I'll wait for people to comment on this post, then send them an email tomorrow.

Phantom of the Peeps

Yesterday Young Son and I were doing some staining. (Yes, we are finally moving again on the bathroom remodeling project, though still quite slowly.) We had a door, several crown molding corners and a couple of corbels to stain.

Young Son went out to the workshop to get some sawhorses. When he came back, he asked me if I'd seen the dead chick in front of the feedroom door. Rats! No, and I'd been out there just a couple hours before.

There's a hen sitting on eggs under the workshed, but she hasn't shown up in the yard with any chicks in tow yet. Maybe one of her eggs hatched early? At any rate, I figured I'd check it out when we took the sawhorses back and did the evening chores.

Sure enough, there was a tiny little form on the ground in front of the feed room. Poor little fluffball! I touched it with my toe to scoot it out of the way until I could deal with it... and it peeped! Whoa! Buzzing flies notwithstanding, the little chick was still living. Guess the vulture flies would have to wait for a meal.

On first glance it looked it really bad shape, like something stepped on it, just catching the side of the head and taking the feathers and skin off. I wasn't sure if I shouldn't just put it out of its' misery, but I like to give every critter every chance to make it. I decided to take it inside and see if I could doctor it up a little then put it in an incubator for a while.

Once I cleaned all the dirt off, and used some Visine saline drops to clear the junk out of both eyes, I could see that although it was nasty looking, it wasn't as bad as I feared.

Actually, it sort of reminds me of a 'Phantom of the Opera' mask.

I'm not positive both eyes are undamaged, but they're open and the chick is moving around. The little peep is now residing in a brooder box with a nice heat lamp to keep it warm, and a teddy bear to cuddle up to.

Hopefully the little Phantom gets to grow up and make lots of operatic clucks.

Chicks & Peafowl & Frogs & Bats

It’s been another hot day on the farm, and high time to get the bigger chicks out of their brooder box and into a "big chicken" pen.

They weren’t too sure what to make of such a big wilderness to explore, and didn’t want to come out of the cage at first. The Farmer walked up behind them and shook the cage a little to encourage them to go out.

Once The Farmer moved out of the way, a couple of the peahens decided to come up on the other side of the fence and check out the small fowl. That gave the little ones the needed incentive to move. I'm sure those peahens looked gigantic to them!

Besides, they were thirsty, and I had put out a fresh jug of water for them.

This evening when I went out and checked on them, they were running around in the tall weeds at one end of the pen, playing hide and seek. I stayed a while to watch them flitting about, then walked down into the bottom pasture to enjoy the fireflies fairy twinkles for a while.

From there I wandered on over to the pond and listened to the frog chorus. I got a surprise bonus, and watched a fancy aerial display from several bats.

They were munching up some of the bugs flying above the pond. It was too dark for the camera to focus on them zipping around down close to the pond, so I had to catch them up in the sky. Listen close and you can hear the frog chorus, with a short solo from our peacock.
Summer nights may be hot, but they're still pretty cool.