Free Range Mama

no more chickens :(

When we woke up on Monday morning, having gotten home from Sock Summit very very late, we went to check on the chickens and were saddened to discover that they were all gone. The coop door had been ripped off (much the same as it was back in April) and there were no chickens to be found. The feed can had been overturned and mostly emptied, and there were a few piles of feathers around the yard to indicate where the ladies had been picked off. We think of our chickens as pets, so this was upsetting to all of us, and even more so when we took the pictures off the game cam and realized exactly what happened.

First we see a bobcat back on the 19th – the coop is closed, so no harm done.

Next we see the bear. Only a few hours after we left for Portland, he’s here sniffing around…

and then prying open the coop.

What kills me here, is that we then have a bunch of shots over the next few days of chickens around the coop – first a few of them, and then eventually only one.

They weren’t taken out by the bear that first night - the bear just left them unprotected, so that they could be picked off by other animals over the next few days. Possibly the bobcat, or even more likely, the coyotes. So basically, if we had been home to repair the coop, or even had someone checking on them, we could have saved a few. From now on, I will definitely be getting sitters when we leave town – I feel so horrible about this. It is clear from the way they are staying so close to the coop that they are anxious.

Yes, the bear did come back again…

and we probably haven’t seen the last. We’re going to hold off of getting chicks again until next spring, and in the meantime put up some better fortifications. We have our best people on it already.

wildlife

A few days ago we had an incident with the chicken coop – we woke up in the morning to find the door had been ripped open (undoubtedly by a bear) and a chicken had been taken.

At the time, we actually thought 2 were gone, but one of them apparently was just hiding, because she returned later in the day.

I had already been worried about the chickens after seeing this (very handsome, if blurry) coyote stalking our yard the previous afternoon.

Obviously coyotes don’t rip doors off of things, so we knew a bear was the culprit, but being high-tech hillbillies, we still had to consult the digital motion-sensor chicken-coop game cam just to check. Not a great picture, but definitely looks like a bear to me.

We’ve had the camera out there for a few months now – we don’t get too much activity on it. Most of the pictures are just possums and stuff. Occasionally we get something cute like this:

Dh repaired the door that evening, and we haven’t had any trouble since. As you can see, it’s business as usual – with a reinforced door – at the coop today.

This weekend we are finally getting some beautiful spring weather, after a very wet April. We are clearing out the vegetable garden to get ready for planting, and enjoying some time outside. Dh found this little robin’s nest in a tree right next to the driveway.

Aww – teeny little eggs!

new camera!

I had  to take a picture right away to test it out, so I snapped this picture of my bird mobile:

Nothing too artsy photograph-wise, but not bad for a poorly lit corner.  Also gave me a chance to show off the mobile, which is also pretty new. I wish I could say I made it, but it was another ETSY score - from Annie’s Mobile Boutique . I saw a similar one in the Etsy Finds e-mail and got a serious case of covet. The original one sold, but she was kind enough to make me one of my very own, and I just adore it. The only challenge was figuring out where to hang it, because I wanted it everywhere. Settled on the gaping blank space over the stairs, though – it was the spot most in need of cheering up.

bad news for sunshine, and little peepers..

I’m sure everyone I know gets sick of hearing me ramble on and on about chickens. Well, here I go again.

The first bit of chicken news is the unfortunate demise of Sunshine the Rooster. Sunshine was an extremely handsome rooster who had the biggest ego of any animal I have ever encountered. It’s no wonder where the term ‘cocky’ comes from. He had been slowly driving me crazy with his obsession to prove what a badass he was by constantly trying to sneak-attack me when I am doing innocent things like getting in my car. I had gotten to the point where I was pretty much ready to do anything to get rid of him, though he had a way of buying himself more time by making scaring off predators who would otherwise be eating my precious hens. Well, the ‘problem’ of Sunshine was solved in a rather grizzly way last week when Z accidentally allowed Mieka and Tasha – the two huskies that we are dog-sitting for – to escape out the front door. The dogs went for him and had roughed him up beyond repair by the the time Dh was able to get out there and call them off.  Dh soon kind of regretted calling them off when he realized that Sunshine was still breathing in his unfortunate condition, and was probably suffering greatly (might have been better off with a quicker death). He got the axe to put him out of his misery, but before the fatal blow, Sunshine hopped up and ran like a bat out of hell underneath the blackberry bushes and into the woods. For the next few days I kept an eye on that part of the woods, wondering if a mangled zombie chicken was about to emerge and take his revenge. Sure enough, he did reappear. Two days later we found his remains huddled up against the back side of the chicken coop – a significant distance from where he entered the forest. I felt terrible for him because he had clearly tried to go home one night, and he had clearly remained alive (and suffering) for quite a while after the dog incident. We felt that under the circumstances, we owed him a proper  burial… so we buried him behind the coop and had our first ever chicken funeral.

Now that we were down to 3 hens with no rooster protection, we felt it was about time to get some new chicks so that we wouldn’t run out of layers. Dh went and picked up 7 new chicks on Sunday, and another 7 on Monday.

They are so freakishly cute. Miss Z spends about 4-5 hours a day in there just petting them and letting them sleep in her hands.

Yes, that is a bathtub they are in. It’s easier to keep them in the house at first where it’s convenient to check on them and pet them and stuff. Fotunately we have an extra bathroom in the basement that nobody uses, and it’s just perfect for this sort of thing.

Anyway, I just love them and want to talk baby talk to them all day long. So. Darn. Cute.

new office!

For a long time now, my office has been in the basement bedroom. It was a good spot – cozy, quiet, nice view, etc.  It was working out fine, until recently,  when I took my fiber business into the online world (read: Etsy shop) and suddenly found myself in need of way more space for shipping and inventory and all that. What was once a cozy little work space had become a jumbled mess of supplies and paperwork that had to be constantly shifted around, causing me much frustration. Then: inspiration!

We’ll have to hop in the ‘way back’ machine for a second here, because a long time ago I blogged about remodeling this really weird part of my house – kind of an awkward narrow space that was part unfinished workshop and part unusable bedroom. This space has served many purposes since then, but it never seemed quite right, and always seemed to be a waste of square footage  in one way or another.  Its most recent incarnation, for example, was as “guinea pig room” if that gives you any indication.  Anyway, we decided to turn it into an additional office designed just for the business stuff – shipping, inventory, etc. – along with a computer workstation. I have to say it it turned out even better than expected.

Dh added some storage….

We put in these cabinets a while ago and some of them still have homebrew wine and canned fruit in them, but the countertop is perfect for laying out orders and inventory and stuff. Check out the electric skein winder I got for my birthday!

Got new glasses, too…

There’s my desk – yes, I did tidy it a bit for the picture, but not much – most of my desk stuff actually fits in those cupboards! Don’t worry, my dye studio is still a disaster – I’m not totally reformed.

Here’s the long view…

I’m still storing my wool in the old office, and we still use it for other things – like a guest room, but I am very excited about having a completely separate space for all of the business stuff. Big huge puffy heart thank you to Dh for setting it up for me!

beautiful day

Seriously perfect weather today. Spent a lot of time just looking around in awe of it. In honor of this glorious day, here's a garden update...

First of all, I am thrilled to report that the chicken coop is finished, and to say Dh outdid himself on it is an understatement. It's awesome!

Here it is from the back, where you can see the little play yard, and the reclaimed wine barrel that will catch the rain off the roof for the chickens to drink. Hopefully they won't get too drunk.

The chickens are getting quite big, especially "Sunshine" who is our evil genius and self-appointed boss chicken.

Z still loves to carry them around...

Though sometimes they can be tricky to catch.

The garden is doing well - all our seeds are sprouting up, and the strawberries are flowering.

Of course the weather is also perfect for drying  wool, so here's a snapshot of what I just took off the drying rack... rainbow!

oops, i lost interest for a while...

in my blog. Yes, it happens. I just haven't been very wordy lately.. mostly just caught up in living life and not so much recording. It. I have faithfully taken pictures however, so I can give you a bit of a recap...

This week we said a sad goodbye to our baby piggies as they went to their new homes...

started building a chicken coop...

went up the space needle in Seattle...

I dyed and spun a lot of yarn...

visited a wildlife park (Northwest Trek)...

And the previous week we took a trip to Portland (here are the kids with their cousins at the Oregon Zoo)...

went to the dentist...

visited Alki beach...

celebrated pi day (3/14) ...

and attended a fairy party!

Not to mention, lots of our everyday stuff like loving on guinea pigs...

playing games...

loving on other people's chickens...

sports...

fiber...

and getting z a new loft bed.

Gosh, and I was feeling so unproductive! Now I remember why I used to blog about stuff - always nice to see how much cool stuff manages to happen while we are just going about our business. Cheers to anyone who is still checking in here, I'll try to be more faithful about doing so myself!

So sweet when they're sleeping...

Yep,  I was up first this morning. Had to be, because I had to have the whole house clean before we left at 10 for swimming. Having the house on the market is quite the strange exercise. I'm not a terrible slob by nature, but I am definitely not accustomed to the level of cleanliness one has to keep up when there is the possibility of realtors and potential buyers showing up at any old time. Every time I leave the house, every bed is made, every dish is washed, every bit of laundry is folded and so on. Even when I'm staying home I can't let things get too far out of order, because I could have to put it all back together at a moment's notice. To add to the annoyance factor, most of the time nobody comes, so a lot of that fluffing up comes to naught.  I have noticed some unexpected benefits, however. First, it is damn nice to walk into a spotless house when one comes home after being out and about. Today, for example, we had been swimming for hours, and I was so tired... it was so lovely to walk in and not have a bunch of undone chores glaring at me. I had some lunch and then vegged out in front of Masterpiece Theatre for a while. Can't beat that. I have also discovered that it's actually not as hard to keep the house clean as I had imagined it would be. I always assumed it was close to impossible, what with all the messy unschooling going on here, but lo and behold it actually doesn't take a whole lot more work than I was already doing. Don't get me wrong - once this house sale business is over I fully intend to relax my standards again. This fussy house cleaning definitely has a negative impact on our unschooling - especially from a spontaneity point of view. I have already put off and pooh-poohed a bunch of perfectly good ideas because of an unwillingness to deal with the resulting mess, I have had to clean up some toys that were clearly not ready to be picked up, and I have passed up some great outings in favor of not having to do a full cleaning.  Definitely not the way I want to be in the long term. I have also had to be much more of a nag when it comes to getting the kids to help out, which may result in some good habits (I've already noticed the shoes are finally being placed on the shoe rack instead of left in the middle of the entryway) but overall is not the kind of relationship that I like to have with them. So, that's how I feel about it at the moment. Ask me again in a few months (it's a mighty slow market) - I'll probably be completely unhinged by then.

new front door

New door - outside (pre-stain), originally uploaded by namztis.

Finally got the giant holes in my house filled in, and not a moment too soon - it's snowing like crazy!

Here is the new front door from the outside. It still needs to be stained... even though it's not real wood (it's fiberglass). I was planning on doing a cedar color, but now I'm afraid it won't have enough contrast with the siding... opinions?

Here it is from the inside - you can see how it was switched with the window, and now the drywall needs to be filled in. It is so nice to be able to walk in the door and not be hanging over the stairs. The funniest thing about the switch is that it confuses the heck out of the dog... when she wants to go out, she sits by the window, where the door used to be. When we go inside, she runs up the steps to the window from the outside.

In the interest of full disclosure.. that's not the real door or the real window. The door window is wrong, so they will be sending over a replacement - the correct design has 3 panes. The real window was shattered during the install (yeah, they were having a heck of a day) so they put in a random vinyl window temporarily until they can make a new one. So... the fun isn't over yet.

This is the new french door from the outside. No goof-ups on this one, but it still needs stain and a bit of moulding on the interior. I'm also considering switching out the door hardware, since the rest of our house has knobs, not levers.

snow falling...and my house has no doors.

Yep, today is the day we are having the new front door installed and the new french doors to the patio, and one last remaining window, and it is actually snowing outside. Brrrrr is it ever cold in here. They were here yesterday doing the remaining downstairs windows, so hopefully this is the last of it. I am looking forward to having the front door in a new spot. For anyone reading this who has never been to my house, our front door used to be in a really inconvenient location - at the top of a flight of stairs and directly in front of a wall - that made bringing in a bag of groceries into a rather perilous proposition. It was really just a matter of time before someone got seriously injured.

Z was really sick yesterday - she just stayed in bed all day, and even threw up at one point, but she seems to be her sunny self again today - quite a relief.

I also donated a huge pile of stuff to my friend's fundraiser/ rummage sale today (she was kind enough to come pick it up amid all of our chaos). I had been accumulating big piles of stuff to sell on craigslist, but I just wasn't getting around to it, and I was sick of tripping over it, so I was pretty psyched to have an excuse to get it out the door. Hooray for more space!