Gains, Loss, The Future

ah, the beginning of fall.  when the temperatures drift down into the balmy mid-nineties, and there is a chance of rain sometimes.  actually, all facetiousness aside, the mornings and evenings have been beautiful!  and enough rain has fallen that the back yard is full of chickweed and egg production is ramping up again. i'm excited about the change of seasons, and fall air is some of the best air.

sadly, we have lost another chicken.  this time there was no disease or predation involved...earlier this week bolo vanished without a trace! there she is to the left, the big black one, having a roll in the dust with pearl last sunday.  by tuesday, however, she was gone. just gone!  no feathers, no yard kerfuffle, everyone had been in the run all day.  all other fowl were fine and normal. but when i went out to the yard after work to give the ladies and gentleman their yard time, she simply was nowhere to be found.

i keep hoping she might come back, but i think it's been long enough that such hope is lost.  my best thought is that she's been bodily assumed into heaven, rapture-style.  at least that's my favorite theory...several others make perhaps more sense but are far more depressing.  she was a non-flyer, but had accidentally hopped out of the run once a long time ago--she was never one for adventure.  

needless to say, all remaining chickens now have flight feathers 1-8 clipped on their right wing, like i did sammo a couple months ago, to prevent further chicken raptures.

i wonder if she accidentally hopped out again, went for a mosey, got lost....and then was bodily assumed.  at any rate, wherever she is, i hope she enjoyed her life here and is enjoying her next life.  if not, i'd like it if she would come back.

in other, better news, we recently acquired two new girls to bump up egg production and add some new feathers to the flock.  introducing tony parker and scotty pippen!

tony parker

tony parker is a lovely young barred rock hen, a classic breed. true to her name, she is especially quick and agile, and does not seem to like to get picked up yet.  however, once caught, she will happily sit on the available lap for pets and chicken talk.  she should start laying big brown eggs any minute!

scotty pippen

scotty pippen is a beautiful red star chicken who, unlike her new sister thus far, is quite friendly. she seems to enjoy being picked up and cuddled, and even hangs around waiting for such attention.  her breed is also an egg-laying machine, and so we are much anticipating her egg scene debut.  in fact, she was destined to go to an _actual_ egg laying machine--a big production chicken house--which explains why her beak was cut.  but here on the TUF, her beak can grow back in all its glory and she can party in the run and yard all day.  i look forward to seeing her beak back!

all chickens have made the adjustment seamlessly, both to the new additions and the loss of dear old bolo.  the flock numbers six once again--tumblr (the rooster), sammo (easter egger), pearl and ninja (original silkies), scotty pippen and tony parker.  we pause to remember the TUFlock chickens who have gone on to the great free-range in the sky: soft grey twitter, baby lil' bitz (we barely new ye!), and big black ol' bolo.  thanks for all the eggs and fun.

milk snail enjoying a fall morning

and finally, a bit about the future: dan and i are pleased to be expecting a new HUMAN addition to the TUF to join us in early march 2013!  all is well so far, and of course we will appreciate another TUF hand around to help care for all these crazy creatures. that's why people originally starting having kids anyway, right? more help around the farm?  maybe we can actually start that garden i've been screaming about since the beginning of this whole experiment!

speaking of experiment, and as a final note, here is a picture of the fantastic carrot soup i concocted the other day.  i had also (true to TUF philosophy) used a bunch of farmer's market vegetable odds and ends, and the frozen carcasses of a roasted local duck and chicken, to make a killer-awesome no-waste stock as the base for this soup.  i basically used this recipe, with lemon juice but no zest, a zillion cloves of garlic, and only 1/4 cup of cream, and it came out pretty dang delightful.  and healthy! mostly!

anyway, there is much coming up to discuss, what with the changing seasons, new girls, new food, new future prospects and all.  thank you for reading, Dear Reader, and though i'm clearly not the best at it, i'll renew my efforts to keep y'all posted and document the process!

TUFlock (semi)Unexpected Part Deux: Sammo and Bolo

as a dear friend put it, we "tripped and fell" into two more chickens!

now, the original goals of this Totally Urban Farm project specified keeping up to 4 chickens in our coop and run.  between pearl and ninja and twitter and tumblr, we were already getting beautiful eggs on a regular basis while watching the littles grow quickly and awkwardly into bigs.

then last monday happened.  another lovely friend calls to tell me that HER friend must rehome his flock, as he was making an unexpected move out of state.  bleeding heart, cue bleeding!  i tried to stop myself.  but i heard me say, "oh yeah, we could probably take 2 more chickens," and then i watched myself text message the guy to arrange for a chicken pick up.  i didn't hear from him, so i thought the gig was off.  and so much the better, said i to myself.

that night, i dreamt of chickens.  i was walking down some strange garden path lined with plants that looked like chicken combs sticking out of the ground like carrot tops.  i reached down for one of the carrot combs, and pulled up an enormous black chicken.  she fell in behind me like a puppy.  delighted, i continued down the path, pulling up more and more huge chickens until i had an army of beautiful adoring chickens following me.  they were so black their feathers were greenly purply irridescent, and so big it took two arms to hold them.  it was a nice dream.

the next day i did hear from the man with the flock--the gig NOT off!--and went out to choose two of his beautiful hens to add to our TUFlock. (i laughed at myself a little, ha HA!) as i walked into his coop, the first chicken i see is THIS CHICKEN:

the EXACT chicken that was in my dream!  i couldn't believe it.  he told me she is a cochin, one of the largest breeds of chicken around, with origins in china and victorian england.  she has spectacular pantaloons, and the softest, shiniest, purply-green blackiest feathers.  when i pick her up, i can't believe the volume of her feathers!  it helps that she immediately proved to be quite sweet and tame, even seeking out strokes and scratches.  i found my dream chicken. literally.

the second chicken i noticed had amazing cheek feathers and a fluffy beard!  she was splashed with red and gold, and had slate gray feet.  the flockmaster said she was an araucauna, the predecessor to the ameraucana, with origins in south america.  to my obvious and desperately hopeful  next question...."araucauna....does she lay green eggs?" he casually replied, "oh sure!  she lays easter eggs." !!!!!

another TUF reverie come true!  tumblr, we think, is also destined to lay green or blue eggs...but to come into an easter-egg laying chicken 6 months before schedule?  *faint*

she is not as big nor as fluffysoft as the cochin...her feathers are sleeker, with the exception of that almost impossibly fluffy face fuzz.  tumbler, as an ameraucauna herself, also shows signs of impressive cheek feathers.  so one day soon we will have TWO beautiful blue-green egg layers!

they have adjusted well to our backyard set up, and i was pleasantly surprised at how quickly and gently the new pecking order was established.  the two new ladies definitely have the size advantage on the silkies and chicks, but after only a little while and a few pecks and runabouts, who is who was established. and so, we needed names.

the golden araucauna has been dubbed Sammo, and the black cochin christened Bolo.  Pearl and Ninja came with their  names, of course, but when the chicks came around we decided to go with a particular theme for naming--hence Twitter and Tumblr.  due to the fact that we acquired these two lovelies later, and they are HUGE in comparison to our OCs (Original Chickens), i chose a new theme: my favorite kung fu movie bad guy actors. Sammo Hung (jowly!) and Bolo Yeung (GINORMOUS).

welcome yogurt party

they haven't started laying quite yet, but that's to be expected as they settle into their new environs.  which they seem to be doing really well.  it appears that sammo is in charge of everyone at the moment, though i think her reign will be challenged by tumblr in the future. i wonder!

dustbath hunker!

twitter knows how to party.

poulet des rêves

pearl, sammo and bolo

yin yang OCs

an amusing develoment in coop politics: it appears that the enormous bolo and the dimunitive ninja have hit it off.  my theory is that when one looks at the other, she sees herself............

i think this makes pearl a little tiny bit lonely, for she has been especially cuddly lately.  and indeed, all chickens are cuddly in the evening, it would seem...at least these six. and i pet each of them before chicken-bedtime every night.  i'm so glad the new ladies seem to like their new digs, avian colleagues...and me!

(and hopefully i will not contract poison ivy secondary to chicken cuddling again. dan has warned me. we shall see.)