One Red Hen

The garden I tend at the back of our home is long, shade-filled and barely manageable. Full days can be spent outback and one would never know that work had been done. A happy pleasure of mine while toiling is to have the next door neighbor chickens cluster 'round my shovel to see what delicacy I may gift them. These girls are a delight - ruinous - but, a delight!

Years ago the first hen to breach her confines and master an obstacle course path over the fence to a ladder on my side was a statuesque, snow white clucker. Hubby named her Clarabelle. We decided to name the hens, since no one on the other side of the fence had. I always felt Clarabelle to be a daring, independent adventuress!! My, she solo-ed the rough terrain and decided our garden was the place to forage and dust-bath in the sun - that is worthy of an Amelia Earhart flying-wings pin!

News traveled over-top of the neighbor fence last night, as I gardened. Clarabelle and another hen {we called her Maria-Tomasa-Conchita-Alonso-Vergara} tussled with a nighttime stalker, and LOST! Tears welled in my eyes while I spoke over the fence to sweet Italian neighbor-next-door. This stalker that we're sure is a raccoon, had been to the coop on another occasion - but I always felt that Clarabelle was a strong fighter girl and with her hearty spirit would find her way out of the clutches of the bandit. I was wrong. And it took another with her.

 

 

our Biloxi
 

Our very own hen, Biloxi, went missing more than a year ago. Funny that chickens in your yard become family in your heart.

 

Penny - the One Red Hen

Maria-Conchita-Tomasa

3 hens all in a row...

One red hen - Penny - alone in her sanctuary spot (our garden) watched me last night, waiting for the worms I would dig. She was skittish - and rightly so! The sweet-Italian-lady neighbor says Penny isn't eating, and won't go back inside the coop. She darn well knows what happens in there, me thinks ! Penny left via the ladder, back to her home and stayed there amidst fig leaves that shelter the rooftop while the sun began to set. If she won't go inside -  that rascal raccoon will take my last garden pal.

A melancholy morn at the ol' home today.

March Madness... of the Non-Basketball Sort....

Hubby and I, also MIL and numerous friends share the month of March for our Birthdays. We always end up with quite the fiesta extravaganza for  the start of spring. This past week being no exception.


Let's open up the photo files and look at what we did ~

We sipped wine on more than one occasion

 

Shared time with family and friends...

Meals, noshes and sweets galore!

San Francisco and my Girls were in the mix (sorta early in the Bday schedule) ~

Yes, of course - we walked the beach a time or two ~

I gardened some ~

with chickens by my side.. they gave their interpretation of Birthday salutations!!

Madness of the sane crazily busy sort! All for fun. All to celebrate that which we are truly blessed and happy to have - another YEAR. (or any portion there of - we'll take!)


March! Spring has begun!

                                                                      JOY!!

On The Sad Side of Sunny

Without truly knowing - yet fairly certain - and in denial - we believe our sweet lil' hen, Biloxi Brown is gone.  There is reason to think that a bigger, more muscular brute found her hiding spot. I try not to envision it. Most surely, I am glad not to have heard anything, or witnessed the food chain in action. In all of my children's-fantasy-book fashion, I'm going to have Ms. B. Brown scurrying off on her next adventure - bidding adieu to us two - and pigeon-footing over to the next home willing to take her in and dote on her.

Tell-tale sign ...

Biloxi's gorgeous feathers strewn about the back lawn... not the whole of them.. but, just enough that we can question her whereabouts. I've collected this few. I will tie them up in a pretty bow and save them under a cloche, to remind me of her short, sweet fluffy body.

Sorry, little dearie, that we could not keep you safe from harm. You see, you lived life just as you wished - no wire windows looking out for you. Our garden as your domain..

strolling her paths - alongside resident squirrels

                  {picture taken the day before we realized she wasn't just visiting next door}


RIP, petite one!

Chicken Gifts & Gold

Have chicken and get egg abundance!

While I appreciate the goodness of an egg, I do not eat one every day. They are good protein, and I am fond of all that the egg can do in the kitchen... but, we're on egg overload here! We are gifted with one creamy white egg each day, and as of late, one of the next-door-neighbor-chickens has decided that our garden is as good a place as any to leave us her brown present. The coop over the fence must be too busy!

What to do when the egg carton total is above one dozen? Make a quiche...

Slice a chunk, accompany with tea. Protein galore - and head out the door!! {rhymin' Simon} :-)

Morning walk time - filled with goodness and energy - let's go to ... ?? {remember Where's Shari?}
Each day I find myself in awe of the place that I live; the freedom I'm given to search out these environments; profoundly blessed with my ability to walk,jog,hike,bike for hours at a time.

I traveled that highway above ^ to get to the hills I would hike...



Mary Knoll sits in the hills above Cupertino, CA ~

Beautiful garden and spectacular Bay Area views ~

It's dry in those hills.. as America the Beautiful lyrics say... "amber waves of grain" - though these California hills are mostly weeds and dried grass, not grain. Still have a beauty all of their own though.

Golden hills, golden sunshine, I feel Golden myself... quite lucky and blessed.

Who's That Knocking At My Door?

 A welcome and funny sight at my backdoor screen ~

Peck, peck, peck... {softer than a knock, knock, knock}....

Biloxi asking to come inside?? more like seeking out food ...

She had me chuckling! Then along came one of the others to beg also ~

Penny always gets her way with handouts! That red hen gobbles faster than lightening..

Photo-a-day {which I've attempted to follow for the month of July} was to Instagram a pet/animal. Biloxi and crew are pets that we never knew we'd adopt. But, ours, they are!

These chicks are a smile a minute!

Backyard Musings...

Believe!  Wish! guess that must be all it takes in order for a surprise to be granted...
I'd always hoped to be a chicken-keeper one day. Well maybe a tendress. Wasn't sure that Hubby and I had the time it takes to stay at home, clean coops and poops, and truly KEEP a flock of our own. It's best to be a good pet steward. Still I ended up with one, a solo feathered friend - a dear sweet girl - yes, she's still here ~

BILOXI

You haven't seen her lately, huh? I know... I was wont to make you  tire of her story! Still loving every minute of her and her co-conspirators {the next-door-neighbor-chickens}. Messy, messy girls that they are! Tons of dirt beneath their nails, I'll tell ya.

Clarabelle

In other backyard news ~

An old-time cement sink ^ that I salvaged from a trash heap sits right outside the kitchen door and has purpose as my herb garden. Makes it awfully easy to snip when it's just steps away. I have another cement sink being gifted to me sometime soon. That'll make 4 in the yard.


This vessel of gray-green enamel came from Hungary. A shop out in the far-spread reaches of our coast - Patine - had a container sale, and I came home with this FIND!

Jasmine and Nasturtium are twining and vining to the heavens...

The Magnolia tree furiously sheds her brown velvet coating in time for summer.... those leaves cover every space of lawn. Huge, fragrant blooms of white are the perfect perfume for the living room...

Enjoying our space, every chance I get!

Shared our space with a couple of friends for a short TGIF tapas evening and that's where I'll leave off. Will share our space and that lovely visit on my next visit here....

No Goats This Time 'Round....

Wanna hear about chickens instead ?

Golden morning light; roses of golden hue picked for table decor ^

Our bantam girl - Biloxi - is still wandering about the backyard, sleeping in trees and stealing our hearts. There was a point I thought it possible that she was sick. Really? What do I know about chicken illness? Hubby saw it too. There's a long story attached to our fear of her perceived "chicken pox". Shortened version is that it took us hours to corral Biloxi, wrap her in a towel, follow instructions from the Internet to give olive oil and massage (sounds weirder than it was), decide to call our bird vet... proceed to be ridiculed, patronized, yelled at and demonized, let Biloxi free in the yard again, and thus decide to let nature take it's course. 

Biloxi Brown nesting

Illness scare was a month or two ago.  Days progressed and the 3 chicks... ya know - Biloxi, Clarabelle and Penny - still scratch about, make a ruckus, wreak havoc in the raised garden beds and make me smile. New issue now however. See that photo above? Biloxi sitting in a plant pot? She is brooding. Apparently there is a hormonal type problem when a hen sits on an egg, in a nest, hoping to hatch a chick. Some hens starve themselves as they never leave.  PULEEEAZE not another patient to care for......

We are able to lift Bil-b out of the pot to eat. Amazing she lets us near. She'll stay out wandering the yard in very short intervals... then right back to her nest. As yet, the ideas from others haven't worked.

Penny can be seen lurking in the Shasta Daisies - even without her cohort ~

Hit the "dislike" button on the chicken's eyes in photographs ^... too spooky!

Whatever the outcome may be.. and we're hoping for the very best... Biloxi chooses to live free and somewhat unfazed by the human world, thus we'll honor that. Whatever nature decides.

 Hop on out of that nest, little chick.... you found your way to freedom before, now do it again!

Lunch Break

In order to get out of the ninety degree sun for an hour or two, I came inside to have me some lunch. Now I've decided that since I'm inside, I may as well write a quick post and just for prosperity sake add some pretty photos too.

It's heating up around here! Scrumptious days of beach, flowers, chickens and sun!

Lot's more to write about. Fragrant, frilly, flowery splendor everywhere. Back soon....

A Brownie

Can't say as I realized just how smart a miniature size chicken can be. Our Biloxi Brown has lived on the streets for an unspecified amount of time. Fending for herself against all manner of tough obstacles.

Bil-B. appeared in our yard one winter day and was determined to stay here. Assuming that she was part of the flock next door, the objective was to get her back over the fence to her proper home. Catching an intelligent, quick footed, street wise chick is no small feat. My heart was pained each evening when she had eluded us again, and found her way to the tippy-top of a tree to roost. She was dutifully following "her instinct" to be at highest ground for safety against nighttime predators, we were informed by many.

So, I dutifully followed my instinct and ran to the feed store to get her munchies for her sleep-overs.

Her food?... It's called SCRATCH ! Dunno why, but I just adore that! scratch, chicken-scratch... so apropos when you watch their feeding movements.

She gets other fresh items and food too.... but, I swear I wasn't trying to keep her here! I just didn't want her to starve while hanging out in our yard and sleeping in trees.

Eventually we were able to spook her into flying and up over the fence into her "real home" she went. We knocked next door and told them that their lost hen was back, and they invited us in to go see the rest of the hens and their coop. What a surprise to find that our neighbors had only one breed of chicken and Biloxi was definitely the black sheep of the clutch! She was not theirs.

Then where had Bil-B. come from? Ah well, she was with other chicks and she would be safe from harm having a coop to roost in at night. The first couple of nights she stayed in their tree also. Smart one she is, she didn't want to push her luck with the "BIG" girls who didn't know her yet. No
"hen-pecking" for her! It seemed a compromise had been worked out when she was able to lay eggs in the coop and rest there too.

Coop residency lasted about one week. Biloxi found her way back into our yard! Not sure how, as flying is not her forte. No one had coaxed {ahemmm - scared} her over the fence as we had. OH SO SMART!! She was bound to get back to the luscious grounds of our garden... {if I do say so myself}
Next door has safety, we have an open world waiting to explore! Free range of the ultimate kind....

she just kills me when she runs & waddles down the path!

Attempts were made in the middle of a rain storm {so blustery that I swore she'd fall out of her tree-house in the middle of the night} to make her a temporary coop-cage....

A construction worker, I'm not! Biloxi would not be enticed. Planks to the front door, worms, straw bedding... nothing worked. Each morning, the walk through the yard to find her was painful. Had a raccoon come in the night?

Instinctively she found safe, quiet areas to nest. Some quite funny - a lying down barrel filled with twigs and leaves. A wooden planter with only fallen leaves from the fig.

She graces us each day with her own type of chicken-magic... and that tiny being can even nourish us too!

The intention at this point was still not to view her as OURS. Yet, why had she found our haven? And where did she belong?

There's still more to this chick's story....