When we got home from shopping the other day, Anne went back to check on the chickens and almost jumped out of her socks. There in the middle of our six beautiful hens, acting like he owned the place, was this bedraggled rooster of uncertain pedigree. We’re not sure if he got here on his own or if a sneaky neighbor dropped him in there without telling us. By all appearances, though, he might have had to hike it himself. So far, aside from molesting the hens when they’re not interested and crowing at 5am, he’s behaving himself. Apparently, some roosters can be pretty aggressive, or can hurt the hens. Our friends at Southern States Coop say they will take him if he becomes a nuisance, but as long as he doesn’t look like damaging anyone, we’re leaning towards letting him stay.

Here he is trying to look respectable …

There are lots of interesting comings and goings at Kidwell garden. The day before yesterday, our snapping turtle lady came up to the house, dug a hole under one of Anne’s flowers, and acted like she was laying some eggs (see her photo below). After she left, Anne poked around a little, but didn’t find any eggs. We’re speculating that it might have been a trial run, or a dummy for the predators.

Yesterday, a big tom turkey landed right in front of the house. We were running a sprinkler over a meadow bed we’d just seeded, and we think he was curious about the sprinkler. Unfortunately, he absconded before we could take a photo.

We haven’t seen the foxes for while, but we do have at least one mink down in the woods. It’s shown itself in daytime a number of times. Yesterday, there was a big ruckus out in the horse pasture that scattered the Canada geese. It sounded to me like a big cat. A few minutes later, I saw a couple of critters running down by the creek, which could’ve been the mink but might have been groundhogs.

The green herons have returned and appear to be nesting on the other side of the pond. We’ve had an occasional visit from the wood ducks, but there’s no sign that they’re nesting here again (as they did last year). The great blue herons stop by pretty frequently, probably because …

There are very large frogs and fish in the pond. Don’t know what they are, but the frog’s body is about as big as my hand (including the fingers). He hurrumphs away for us every evening.

As for the birds, the barn swallows are nesting on both the front and back of the house (making a bit of a mess), the tree swallows are around (see previous post), and there are lots of goldfinches, blue birds, indigo buntings, cardinals, hawks and vultures. Not to mention the chickens, of course. More pics below.

So far, we’ve had some nice successes  with the new garden – and some disappointments. The spinach was prolific and tasty, but is done for the year. The lettuce was good, but we only planted enough for a few meals. The broccoli is taking up a lot of space, but isn’t producing many large heads. The strawberries are spreading around the small hugel, but so far the mice have enjoyed them more than we have. The reinforced fencing around the bottom of Ft. Knox seems to have held the bunnies at bay for the time being, but baby bunnies are popping up like dandelions and we don’t know how long we can hold them off. Oh, the suspense!

Here’s Anne with an impressive turnip!

Yesterday, as we were enjoying our beer on the patio, a little bunny hopped by on the inside of our patio fence. No worries, the fence is open on the south side. So we chased him out and resumed our reveries. Next thing we know, that bad animal is hopping around inside Ft. Knox, where all the vegies are growing. Linden approached him, and the little Houdini went right through the livestock fence! That landed him inside the chicken yard and, all panicked, he started slamming himself into our chicken wire fence. I managed to open it and let him out before he destroyed the fence or killed himself – not sure what would’ve come first.

Today, I started tying chicken wire around the bottom of Ft. Knox, but ran out of the wire. Only need about 75 feet more. Pretty sure this will never end.

Fresh vegies!

We saw most of these at the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship. I tried to get pictures of the blue-grey gnatcatcher and the golden-crowned kinglet, but they were too small and fast moving. Maybe next time.

Field sparrow:

Bluebirds:

Turkey vulture and Black Vulture:

Cardinals (common as rain, but still beautiful):

Titmouse:

Ok, we’re officially over-producing now, and our neighbors are in danger of finding excess eggs in their mailboxes. Being a biology major and all, Anne has taken to weighing and recording each of the eggs. Most of them come out at about 50 grams. Check out the monster one that came out at 76 grams – 50% bigger than the average! Poor chicken! But none of the dearies has a detectable waddle … maybe one of the darn Canada geese snuck into the comfort of Buckeye-ham Palace.

This is Anne’s seed starting station in the sun room. At the top, she’s converted a fish tank into a hydroponic garden. Initial results aren’t very good, probably because of a combination of seed quality and having the proper nutrients in the water. She’s using Miracle Gro now, which seems to create a lot of salt deposits.

We went birdwatching at this nice place just a few miles up the road – yesterday with a guide and today by ourselves. It’s still pretty early in the season and there wasn’t a lot of activity. We were disappointed we couldn’t get a picture of the yellow-shafted flickers, which were beautiful, and the photo I took of the yellow-bellied sapsucker wasn’t in great focus. But here are a few: mockingbird, white-throated sparrow, ruby-crowned kinglet, hairy woodpecker, and bluebird.

The last couple of days, our neighbors’ herd of sheep has escaped and come down to enjoy our lawn salad. It was hilarious to see them galloping down the road toward us. Bad animals! We helped the neighbor herd them back into their pasture, but they escaped again this morning. So Anne and other neighbors helped them patch the fence again. I’m betting that’s not the last we’ve seen of them. The neighbors are peeved, but it was an entertaining diversion for us.