Mother's Day (+3 years) Hydrangea

#1 Son gave this to us when it was just a stick.  With a little tlc and 3 year's growing look what we have now!
I’ve been sprinkling sulfur around the plant and from the blue color, it has had an effect, but the mulch or the soil has some residual basic character, so there is still a lot of red showing.

Danger Zone

First day of rifle deer hunting season:  everyone is wearing blaze orange at our house.  We heard lots of shots yesterday (pre-season and no hunting on Sunday in PA); I heard NONE on the early morning walk.  I heard Buddy mumble something about thinking he's in a parade with his special collar, vest and LED light for our dawn outing.  The only hunter (besides our boys) I saw was a redtail streaking over our hill, much earlier than usual.
Only a month till we start getting daylight back.

Bunny Breath

Gambol caught a small bunny this afternoon. At first he didn't want to give it to the Baron but was eventually convinced to trade it for a normal treat.
His (dead) game card is now 5 chipmunks and 1 bunny; he doesn't even have a hawk to help out.
He laid a small box turtle at the Baron's feet but didn't chew on it.

Spring!

Nothing says spring like Maibock, morels and asparagus. Otto's had all 3 on the menu tonight; just the right amount of food, just the right amount of heat and garlic. After a day cleaning up at Laurel Haven with WOCC, that was just the right dinner, too. Gambol came with us but stayed in the car. He'd rather do that than stay in his crate at home.
After painting the inside garage/classroom and fixing up the parking area at Laurel Haven, we came home to weed and hack out poke roots in the new vegetable garden and plant hops behind the chicken coop.
Gambol didn't get his normal morning run in deference to Spring Gobbler Season so he ran free all afternoon. Matt got a gobbler in our Walnut Grove. (Now if he'd only get a doe or 5!)
I gave the peeps their first taste of yogurt. That caused quite a commotion. They ate it off my fingers but also off the wall where I smeared it.
It was a beautiful spring day at the Barony.

Coyote

We heard a shot early this morning. Ron came up to warn us that he took a shot at a large coyote running in our meadow. He missed so Gambol and the girls should beware. This one got away from the Mosquito Creek Coyote Hunters last weekend.

Catching up

Pa Falconry and Hawk Trust (PFHT) on TV
There were 2 segments of the Field Meet on PA Outdoor Life this week (Feb 8) on WNEP with Bob Leonard and Cheri Heimbach and will be other segments (Feb 15). If you look very carefully at the beginning of Cherie's segment as she takes Starlight out of her van, Gambol's nose makes a quick appearance.

Building Permit
We had a visit from Harry Burd today that lasted almost an hour. He presented us with the Building and the Zoning Permits and the signed off set of plans. We wrote the first check for Phase II ($901.00). He had one concern about the transition from the garage to the breezeway and we walked him around the garage to show him how it was currently structured. He is a great talker and we had a very nice visit. We'll bring along the set of plans that he has signed to the 0900 meeting on Friday with Envinity at 331 E Foster Ave.

Neutered!
Gambol had his Big Operation today. He doesn't have a Elizabethan collar, the stitches are internal. He doesn't seem to worry them yet. He wouldn't go into his kennel to get food or water nor when we were eating. He probably didn't like what happened to him last time he was in a crate like that. He's supposed to lay low for a few days. I think we'll be lucky if we get one quiet day with low running. He had his microchip inserted also.

Eggs
The girls are consistently laying 5 eggs now with our total at 105. I have a following of buyers at work who are willing to pay $.25/egg, farm fresh, free-range, cage-less but not entirely organic and definitely not vegetarian. Whoever heard of a vegetarian chicken? They'd cackle at that idea for sure.

First day of deer season

from the Baron:

Well after sitting for 2 hours and seeing only a grey squirrel about 10-12 feet from me, I decided to do some still hunting and walked the paths including up to the top of the property. Nada. Not a doe, fawn, or buck. Oh well, it was a pretty morning with the droplets on the branches looking like jewels and then the fog tried to roll in but never really dropped the visibility much.
I heard some close-in shots, maybe Ron got a shot off.
Maybe tomorrow....

Sunday

It's a great day to read by the fire: ice pellets and 32 degrees. We moved the chicken tractor to the Toy Shed for the winter and backed the (Kubota) tractor in so the Deer Hunter can hang his deer tomorrow. Weather is supposed to be more of the same for the first day of (rifle) hunting. Freddy met us at the Toy Shed for his sunflower seed treat. He hung around while we talked to Ron for about 20 min, purring and cooing, before he fluffed his ruff and fanned his tail and poked off into the pines and Aspen. Ron said he's been spending some time down their way. So has the bear; s/he molested Darlene's bird feeders again. Freddy has quite a range from below R/D's house to above our septic mound.
Last night we packaged the 8 pullets for the freezer but Red will be dinner tonight. Mashed potatoes or dumplings?
Update
We saluted Red's fine life tonight with mashed potatoes like Mom Mac (Greatgrandmother)used to make and a good Oktoberfest beer. He had much longer legs than the cornish Xs that are the normal commercial meaties and his wishbone is twice as long and slender. He tasted very chicken-y; it must have been the blueberries, watermelon, and all those fresh-still-on-the-vine tomatoes and peppers that kept him moist and tender.
I discovered on the forum that the Cornish meat birds have to be butchered between 4 and 8 weeks or they will flip (aka have a heart attack). One poster said they are like 5 year old skeletons in an obese 40 year old body, and that they don't behave like chickens because they have been so inbred for fast growth and meat, especially breast meat. They do things like lay on their side to take the weight off of their lungs so they can breathe better. These birds have to be fed carefully or they will eat themselves to death. Not my kind of bird at all. We'll stick with the slower growers. Barred Rocks were fun this year.

Bugs and Bird Spa

The war against lady bugs has begun for the season. Today was warm after the last 2 frosty nights and the house was covered, inside and out, with them. The Baron sucked up 100 in the living room and when I turned on the lamp by my computer several plummet down to the heat. A small wad is tucked into the corner of the wall and beam. We'll try not to let that grow to the fist-size it was our first Christmas here. The war is on.

As the colors change across our valley, deer are bulking up for hunting season. At least a dozen were in the meadow when I went down this morning. I could easily have hit one near Waddle as she stood in the foggy dark, on the damp and leaf-covered road, at a curve in the road; not a good safety combination. Five or 6 were chowing down on the azaleas in front of the house at (our) dinner tonight.

Now that we have opened up the vegetable garden by pulling out the peppers and tomatoes, the turkeys have discovered the Barony Bird Spa. They cooed and chortled as they splashed compost and dirt all around their bath. Some indentations are 4" deep where they dug in. See Red watching, perhaps protecting his girls from the big boys and girls or perhaps wondering what would happen if he got naked with them.


Look carefully for the snood, the red worm-like protrusion, above this turkey's beak. (above)

What a beautiful beard on this big boy. I've named him Thanksgiving Dinner.