Lesson 604 – The rings that bind us

We (I) are a huge Olympic family. Seriously during the Olympics, if you need me you can find me in front of the TV. Which, of course confuses my kids to no end.

“How come you keep telling us to turn off the TV and find a life but now the TV is on ALL DAY LONG? “ They ask me in their whiney, summer, its-not-fair voices.

Easy answer, because it’s the Olympics. Once every four years, in the summer and winter, mom gets the TV straight for about 2 weeks. Deal with it.

We end up watching it all, from the opening ceremonies to the biking, the pool, track, and rifle shooting. What is there not to watch? I’m usually there narrating the sports I know about, telling my kids what to look for in a dive, analyzing that brilliant backstroke to breaststroke turn, and talking about the angle used in a soccer kick. I listen for the stories of triumph (can anyone say Kieran Behan  – if you don’t know who he is, look him up – a giant among mortals) and share the stories of defeat (Jordyn Weiber ) hey, it happens, as the mother of a gymnast I know, but the important thing is if you fall seven times to get up eight.

Lesson 603 – Quotable Chicks

Friday’s Quotes for the Chicks 

 

For too long we’ve been told about “us” and “them.” Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that “they” are the problem, not “us.” But there can be no “them” in America. There’s only us.

BILL CLINTON

I know I’ve been a little AWOL this week. Been a tad on the busy side with swim meets, interviews (yup, looking for a writing job) and events like seeing Bill Clinton endorse Gubernatorial Primary candidate Maggie Hassan in Nashua. The above photo was taken by Marc at the event, I just wanted to show you that we really were there. And guess what? So was Fatti-Madi. She hasn’t made a political appearance since her last sighting with President Obama, so this catch was particularly exciting.

Here is Addy holding Fatti-Madi in front of President Clinton (that’s why I included the top photo, so that you’d know it was definitely him but let’s face it, it’s pretty easy to recognize Bill in a crowd.) What’s incredible to me is that in this photo my daughter is 3 people away from a former President of the United States.

But then my kids have already met Bill before (have I told you about how cool it is to live in New Hampshire?)

Oh Wait, don’t want anyone to feel left out:

And lastly here is a picture of Fatti-Madi and Maggie Hassan who is currently running for Governor in New Hampshire. (in my defense I had forgotten that I had worn my sparkly Barbie rhinestone sunglasses and that’s why I’m sporting such exciting head gear.)

We were asked several times about “the chicken.” What did it mean? Why did we have it?

We have the chicken because we’re chicken people and that’s just how we roll. No reason on earth why you can’t have chickens and fun at the same time.

See you next week.

*

As always, happy weekend everyone, health and happiness (and safety) to your flock.

Lesson 602 – General Flock Updates

A few little flock updates from previous threads in this blog:

Trevor, my little hatchet man, has miraculously fully recovered from sinking an ax into his leg. He is currently off at a 3 week gymnastics camp as a counselor and although at times a little tight, his leg, he reports, is “just fine.” On the plus side he sports an 11-stitch long (about 5 inch) Frankenstein scar on his calf which allows him to greatly contribute to the best of war stories around the campfire.

We are all aware of just how lucky we were on this one.

Flies. I know, just quickly, here is the latest catch. Two *more* jars. I’ve heard back from the UNH Coop but they told me to contact someone else regarding my question of whether or not others are complaining about flies.

As an unofficial poll, I did post a question on Facebook about flies being a problem this summer and I have heard from people in various states along the East Coast who are reporting larger than usual numbers. My money is on the mild winter. As always, will let you know when I hear anything.

Tomorrow, Bill Clinton is going to be at a local event endorsing a Democratic NH Gubernatorial candidate – Maggie Hassan – for the upcoming election. I’ll be covering the event for a few blogs and a newspaper, I’ll do what I can to see if I can sneak in Fatti-Madi for a photo or two.

And yeah, speaking of living in NH. Last night another nut job was driving down from Maine to NH with the apparent intent of killing his former employer. His car was packed with guns and he had thousands of rounds of ammunition. This guy admitted to going  to a viewing of the Batman movie with a loaded gun in his backpack.

I’m not sure where we are heading but I fear for the direction.

My plan is to keep them down on the farm for as long as I can.

Lesson 601 – Charlie the percher

Charlie is a percher. I have never seen a chicken who loves to perch on high so much. I think that part of this behavior could be attributed to her growing up inside the house. It just might be that she prefers wooden floors to coop woodchips.

I am just constantly amazed at where I’ll find her. Sometimes she’s up near the rooftops sitting on a tiny, post ledge.

Sometimes she’s on a roosting bar overlooking the rest of the flock.

Lesson 600 – Quotable Chicks

Friday’s Quotes for the Chicks 

 

From our flock to yours – prayers and thoughts of strength go out to all those families in Aurora, CO, who are hurting this morning. We share your pain, we share your outrage.

One of my sons went to the premiere of the The Dark Knight Rises in our town last night, it pains me to think that even a fun thing like a movie may not be a safe place to go anymore.

See you next week.

*

As always, happy weekend everyone, health and happiness (and safety) to your flock.

Lesson 599 – taking the farm out of the bird

Charlie is never left out in the flock for more than a few days at a time. We (I) always bring her in to make sure that she gets enough food and water (she grew up eating dog food and she always runs to the Pippin’s dish when she’s in the house.) Whenever she sees me, she barks (yeah, it does sound like a bark) and runs over to me expecting me to pick her up. When I release her to the yard, she always heads to the kitchen back door, she knows where to go.

Yesterday I brought her in the house and sure enough, she made a bee-line to the kibbles. She scratched and pecked and managed to spread the dry food all over the floor. When Pippin came over to see what was going on, Charlie started to attack him, pecking at his black button eyes and nose. Pippin yelped in distress as Charlie made advance after advance.

Once Trevor had picked up Pippin and gotten him to a safe place, Charlie stood in front of the back door leading to the pen where the rest of the flock was outside exercising. I opened the door and without my even saying a word, Charlie hopped down the steps and joined her sisters in the yard. A few moments later when I looked out she was busy having a dirt bath and throwing the dust all over her back.

I guess that try as you may, you can never really take the farm out of the bird.

Lesson 598 – Those darn flies – Part 4 (Last one, I promise)

 

For the record, that’s Marc-Lord-of-the-flies taking this photo, not me.

Because I find this morbidly fascinating and am obviously not done with this topic, here are some more fly photos. We emptied yet another full bottle of flies yesterday and this is what our trap looks like from being hung for just a few hours this morning.

Yup, that’s me with the long, long legs in this photo.

I know, crazy, right?

Can I be the first to say that this is just ridiculous? I have no idea where all these flies are coming from and why all of the sudden there seems to be such an influx of them (and why they hadn’t been bothering us at dinner – polite flies, maybe?)

I’ve sent email to the UNH (University of New Hampshire) Agricultural Cooperative Extension (they’ve been very helpful in the past with both tick and chicken questions) asking them if they’ve gotten complaints of flies from around the State.

I also asked them if they have gotten complaints, might the mild winter be a factor in all this. Basically, what is going on in New Hampshire with regard to flies?

I have yet to hear (the woman who usually answers questions is on vacation) but when I do you can bet I’ll be posting the reply.

In the meantime, we’ll carry on with our fly traps (but I promise you, no more dead fly pictures, enough is enough.)

Lesson 597 – Those darn flies – Part 3

Boy do I have news for you about fly traps!

Last week Marc had gone to the TSC to get some traps because we have a neighbor who is complaining about flies. (Note, although we had seen some flies near our coop, we did not see “problem” numbers and in fact, we eat dinner outside every night without any interruption from flies – so we didn’t even known this was an issue but *sigh* you do what you have to do for neighbors.)

Last week I told you about the useless yellow trap (that is already in the garbage.) In short, don’t bother.

This week I’m going to tell you about  the fabulous Starbar’s Captivator Fly Trap. Captivator is a large plastic jug that comes with a tube of yellow liquid. You mix the yellow liquid with water and hang up the trap. (Hang the trap away from where people will be congregating – tables, chairs, etc.- the reason becomes very evident after a few days of that liquid maturing in the hot sun.) The flies enter an angled black tunnel in the lid to get to the goods. Once inside the bottle, because of the design they can’t figure out how to escape. It’s a deceptively simply and yet ingenious design. One part of me feels sorry for these bugs that are being sent to their death but then another part of me reminds myself (while I’m eating a slice of bacon) that we are talking about flies here.

The first few days we got only a few flies – not entirely impressive.

But then something happened. On about the third day, we noticed that flies were really getting excited about this trap. On a visit out to the coop we saw a single solid layer of flies covering the surface of the liquid inside the bottle. Now, we were beginning to approach impressive.

Then each time we went out to check on the trap, literally an inch of flies had been added. Those insects were going CRAZY over the trap. By the end of the 5th day, we had to close the trap because the flies had filled the bottle and reached the top. Marc left it shut overnight in the hopes that it would kill the ones that were still alive so they wouldn’t fly away when we opened the trap to dispose of them.

Lesson 596 – Those darn flies – part 2

This is a continuation of yesterday’s discussion on coop fly control. The reason I said that we might have a fly problem is that although we have some flies, it’s difficult to know where they are originating from. Our property faces woods and runs along a river, with the mild winter last year and the many trees that came down during the Halloween snowstorm, there is a lot of decay out there right now (let’s not even add in our neighbor’s dogs, cats, flowers, and that dead thing out by the road.) We’ve never had flies before so it all leaves us wondering, which came first? The chicken or the fly?

Anyway, in order to keep neighborhood peace, Marc went out and got a few chambers of doom.

This first one is called EZ Trap and the product description is:

Revolutionary design provides 3 times the trapping surface of leading sticky fly traps and is insecticide-free and odor-free. Ideal for stables, kennels, gardens, homes, patios, porches or anywhere flies and other flying insects are a problem. The special long-lasting adhesive is rainproof, so they can be used indoors or out. Easy to use, can be placed on any level surface or suspended.

Basically it’s a riff on the old sticky tape fly catchers found in every horse barn around (not exactly revolutionary in my book), except that now they’ve put the tape on a pretty bright yellow Escher-like decoration tasteful enough to be displayed at a get-together in anyone’s back yard. The trap is insecticide and odor free, and as an added bonus is rainproof! It all sounds really good right?

Lesson 595 – Those darn flies – Part 1

I had always thought that seeing a lady bug was something special – a lucky sighting, that didn’t happen every day. And if I remember correctly, you got to make a wish on that bright-shelled bug (while you pleaded with her to go home and save her children) making it an extremely fortuitous day for all.

In an effort to control what may or may not be a problem with flies and our chickens (long story) I’ve been looking into different types of fly control.

Offered are standards like those long sticky tapes (the ones that always seem to catch your hair as you walk by and that get tangled in themselves by a touch of the wind) and a large assortment of fly bottle traps (or chambers of doom as we like to call them.)

You can also buy “critters” to combat your flies. Like ladybugs (who wouldn’t like to have an infestation of ladybugs in their backyard, how much fun and luck would that be?) and “predatory ants” whose claim to fame is that that apparently they like to eat fly eggs.  Oh yum.