Miller Farm Friday Archives - Page 36 of 48

14 08, 2015

Five Little Ducks

By judythemorgan|2015-07-25T16:49:11-05:00August 14th, 2015|Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

By Guest Blogger Chicken Wrangler Sara

One morning while in Colorado, I went fishing with Brian and my father. Actually I didn’t fish. I took a book and soaked in the scenery.

I was joined at one point by a chipmunk- not something we have a lot of in Texas.

Then I spotted a momma duck and her babies. I watched as they walked into the water and swam among the plants. I even saw the momma duck put her head in the water and tail in the air.

There is a children’s chant about that:

“See the little ducklings swimming here and there; Heads down in the water tails up in the air.”

Soon they headed out across the lake – momma and the four little ducklings close by.(I couldn’t get all four ducks in the picture. Just like family photos when the kids were young – someone didn’t cooperate.)

That too reminded me of a song. I sent the picture to Catherine, our daughter, who is in music school. She also thought of the song. I’ve trained her well She has heard the song and seen the book from the time she was born.It is one of my favorites and in fact my copy is falling apart. Perhaps I need to invest in a library edition.

In all it was a pleasant morning. I could think about my job without having to do it and smile.

7 08, 2015

Chick Update

By judythemorgan|2015-07-25T08:00:41-05:00August 7th, 2015|Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

By Guest Blogger Chicken Wrangler Sara

While Beekeeper Brian and I were in Colorado, Rachel was on chicken/dog duty. She did an outstanding job especially considering the 32 chicks quickly outgrew the brooder. That meant Rachel had to move them out to the chicken yard. This is no easy process and usually involves two people Rachel grabbed one of the girls next door to come help. They are all experienced chicken handlers.

Since they were too small to go directly into the bantam yard, she put them in the long cage that originally had quail in it. She started with it on the ground but discovered what appeared to be bug bites on some of the chicks the first morning. She blamed the infamous Texas fire ant.

She moved the cage up onto sawhorses. When we got home the chicks looked great and had adjusted nicely to their new home.

They stay all together as one chick pile, and I worried at first that they would crush each other. So far everyone has survived. I guess they take turns being on the bottom.

The next step will be putting them out in the bantam yard. Since there are so many, we are considering options for keeping them safe at night because they will not all fit in the bantam coop. We have another week or so to come up with a solution.

I’ll keep you posted. . .

31 07, 2015

A New Trick

By judythemorgan|2015-07-25T07:51:37-05:00July 31st, 2015|Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

By Guest Blogger Chicken Wrangler Sara

Our neighbors have started keeping chickens again. The coop is up against the privacy fence between our yards. It drove the dogs crazy at first. Bella, the chicken hunter, tried to dig under the fence to get to them. This was while Brian and I were in Colorado so Rachel had to be extra vigilant to protect the neighbor’s chickens

There is a tree growing right along the fence line. In fact, it is between the privacy fence and our chain link fence. It has, over the years, bent the chain link fence and pushed the bottom out ever so slightly. It is just enough for Sadie to get between the two fences.

This was a problem.

The chain link fence has points at the top and is just tall enough that I couldn’t reach over to get Sadie. Not to worry – Rachel came out with dog treats and Sadie found her way back into our yard.

The next day Sadie taught Bella her new trick. I guess we’ll be buying lots of dog treats until we can get the fence fixed.

17 07, 2015

Lessons from a Jigsaw Puzzle

By judythemorgan|2015-07-09T10:29:49-05:00July 17th, 2015|Miller Farm Friday|1 Comment

A blog by Guest Blogger Chicken Wrangler Sara

My husband and I visit my parents in Colorado every summer. He goes to fly fish and I go to work jigsaw puzzles. I realize they have jigsaw puzzles in Texas but my obsession with them prevents me from setting one up in my home. I would not be able to do anything until the puzzle was complete.

At my parent’s house, I can spend hours sitting at the jigsaw table and no one minds. People even stop by to help. So far this trip I have done 6 puzzles. Five of them were 550 piece puzzles and completed in a matter of hours. The last puzzle had many fewer pieces but was much harder.

I gave the puzzle made from a picture of North Creek Falls that I took last year to my mom as a present, and she’d been unable to complete it. That challenge was all I needed.

As I worked on this puzzle, I learned many things.

If I had thought about it, I would have realized there were not enough different colors in this picture to make it a practical puzzle. Every piece was gray, black, green or white. When separated, they all looked about the same color.

Lesson: Consider the results carefully before you make a decision.

Since all the pieces looked alike, the only way to know if they fit together correctly was to try them. That meant methodically picking up every piece and putting it in a spot and sorting out the “no” pieces. It was very tedious work.

Lesson: Sometimes the only way to know if something works is to try it.

There were times when the last piece we tried was the one that fit. Persistence was crucial. Giving up would have been easy but we wouldn’t have finished the puzzle.

Lesson: Keep trying until you find what works.

Sometimes the pieces looked like they fit together. Later we discovered something was not right when every piece we tried was a “no” piece. The right piece was in the wrong place. We had to take the wrong piece out and find the right place.

Lesson: When things aren’t going right, it may mean backing up to see where things went wrong to begin with. Then make it right and move ahead.

For me, working jigsaw puzzles is therapeutic. Part of my mind can wander while part is fixated on finding the right piece for the right spot. While my mind is wandering, sometimes it stumbles upon some important life lessons.

10 07, 2015

Bee “keeping”?

By judythemorgan|2015-07-04T08:50:56-05:00July 10th, 2015|Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

A blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

One afternoon this spring, I got a call from Beekeeper Brian on his way home from work asking if I would make a phone call. I must confess this seemed too easy of a task. He asked me to call a local restaurant and ask if they had a swarm in a tree in their parking lot. Ok, sure.

I called and talked to the manager and sure enough there was a swarm in a tree in their parking lot. The manager did say he had already talked to one beekeeper that could not come get it immediately but would contact a fellow beekeeper. I told him the fellow beekeeper is my husband Beekeeper Brian. It is a tight knit community – this group of beekeepers.

So Brian came home, put on his bee suit, got his bee boxes and went to get some bees. He returned an hour later with a box of bees, including the queen, and a $30 gift card to the restaurant. He put the BOB (box of bees) on the back porch. It was a successful trip for everyone.

The next day Rachel noticed a lot of commotion in the back yard.

Apparently the new bees were not happy with their new home. They swarmed to a tree in our back yard.

Brian put out a bee trap to entice them back into a hive. In case you were wondering, bees are attracted to the scent of lemon grass. They went into the box for a while. Then they left again.

They were back in the tree in a different spot. We stood in the yard looking at them for a while. Then Brian decided to let them” be”. “Bees are going to do what bees are going to do” he said.

So the name “beekeeper” is really a misnomer. You can’t “keep” bees. You can only invite them to come make honey in your bee box. Sometimes they oblige.

3 07, 2015

Chickens – The Next Generation

By judythemorgan|2015-06-27T19:35:00-05:00July 3rd, 2015|Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

There has been a tremendous decline in egg production on Miller Farm. Perhaps the chickens are just commiserating with those who have Avian Flu. Perhaps the grumpy game bird hens are intimidating the others by staying in the nest boxes. Perhaps it is a result of a decline in the chicken population – several have died over the past few weeks. Whatever the cause, Assistant CW Rachel decided to address the issue by hatching eggs.

It actually started when she was asked to incubate peacock eggs. As long as she was setting up the incubator, she might as well fill it. As long as she was filling one incubator, she might as well fill another one. After all if one is good, two is better – right?

The peacock eggs were not fertile. It turns out the birds were too young. That left us with 48 chicken eggs. These were not all from our chickens since our chickens seem to be on strike. Rachel gathered eggs from three different flocks. She carefully marked each egg in order to determine which flock had the best hatch rate.

One of the incubators did not hold its temperature very well. The other one was in her closet away from drafts or heat from the windows. Rachel was afraid the variation in temperature would kill the developing chicks. She bought a special light for “candling” eggs to see which were fertile and still alive. She carefully marked the air sack on each egg. That way if one pipped – poked the first hole – outside the air sack, she could help it along. They were set to hatch on Friday, June 26.

Thursday morning we got up to swim and Rachel discovered a chick had already hatched – an overachiever. As it called out other chicks began to hatch. We cleared off the brooder in the garage and began the process of moving chicks outside as they hatched.

Rachel has been helping a family with 7, soon to be 8, children so she was gone Friday. I sent her updates as chicks hatched.

We ended up with 32 chicks.

Hopefully most of them will be hens and we will be able to replace our older birds.

And the cycle of life continues…..

5 06, 2015

Annabel’s New Home

By judythemorgan|2015-06-04T20:20:02-05:00June 5th, 2015|Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

A blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

Annabel, our foster dog, has found a forever home —-next door. The neighbors had planned to get a dog and their middle daughter fell in love with Annabel. I would frequently come home and find her at the gate talking to Annabel.

After several visits to see how Annabel would get along with the cat and the two younger children, the adoption was finalized. The children were all excited as was Annabel. Perhaps the children would be more cooperative than the chickens when they were “herded.” Bella was relieved. Annabel liked to lick and Bella was used to being the licker and not the lickee.

They renamed the dog Rosie to avoid confusion with their youngest daughter whose middle name is Arabella. The first few days were a little rough – for me. I kept wondering how she was doing. Our dachshunds were also confused. These are the neighbors with the privacy fence so the dogs could hear but not see each other.

Our dogs spent time sniffing along the fence.

Rose/Annabel tried to get through.

Anytime she got out, she came straight to our house. I took her straight back, explaining along the way that she had a new home.

It’s been about a month now and Rosie has adjusted nicely (and so have I). She goes to the kids’ soccer games and runs with the dad.

She came to see me yesterday for the first time in a couple of weeks. I walked her home glad to know she is loved. I’m pretty sure I could never foster children. I’ll stick to wrangling chickens and other random animals running down the street.

29 05, 2015

Where There’s Smoke…

By judythemorgan|2021-05-04T09:16:35-05:00May 29th, 2015|Friday on the Miller Farm, Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

I consider myself a fairly intelligent person. In fact, there are several pieces of paper on my wall that would confirm this fact. Every once in a while, however, I come across something that makes no sense to me.

This was the case a couple of weeks ago when I went to let the chickens out. There was smoke coming from the compost pile. We have had an inordinate amount of rain recently (see lasts Friday’s post on mud) and the compost was soaking wet so I could not figure out how it could be smoking.

On this Friday, I was traveling with grades 7 and 8 to the Austin to play ukuleles in the rotunda of the State Capital. (This is a story in and of itself and might serve to contradict my claim to intelligence.)

Anyway, since I would not be at home, I could not monitor the situation so I poured more water on the smoke and went on to school.

The bus driver happened to be very knowledgeable about gardening so I asked her about the smoking compost. She assured me this was a good thing and simply meant we needed to turn the compost. I was relieved.

Yesterday, Matt came to me somewhat concerned and asked “Is there a reason there is smoke coming from the green wire things with grass in them?”

I knew he was referring to the smoking compost and explained that it meant the compost was cooking and needed to be turned.

He said, “I guess you could say things are really ‘cooking’ at the Miller house this summer.”

1 05, 2015

Annabel Update

By judythemorgan|2015-05-01T06:00:39-05:00May 1st, 2015|Miller Farm Friday|2 Comments

By Guest Blogger Chicken Wrangler Sara

Annabel, our “foster “dog, has adjusted quite nicely to life on Miller Farm. She even adds another aspect of entertainment to life here.

I recently gave her part of a dried out baguette to keep her occupied while I fed the chickens. She carried it around the yard for quite some time looking for a place to bury it.

She was somewhat successful.

As soon as I went into the house she went and dug it up. I guess she didn’t want to have to share with me.Her other trick is to follow me into the chicken yard and “herd” the chickens. She chases them ‘round and ‘round the chicken coop but they refuse to get in a group.

I have explained to her that chickens are not herding animals. She is determined.

I’ve started closing the gate completely so she does not get into the chicken yard. This week she got her head stuck in between the gate and the fence. Like I said – she is determined. She is also smart. She hasn’t put her head in that spot again.

We currently have two potential homes for Annabel. Hopefully within a week she can move out. Of course the two homes are the ones on either side of ours so she won’t be moving far.

24 04, 2015

Letter to Chickens

By judythemorgan|2015-04-24T06:00:13-05:00April 24th, 2015|Miller Farm Friday|0 Comments

Guest Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

Dear Chickens,

Please stop playing hide and seek. I realize that for you this may be very amusing, however, I am not having fun.

There are also other reasons to stay in your chicken yard.

When you hide under the shed, there is a real possibility that Bella will be the one who finds you. She is a dachshund – bred to crawl into small spaces and retrieve animals. I’m not quite sure how you got under there. Beekeeper Brian had sealed every possible opening he could find. Apparently he missed one.

When you hide in the quail cage I can see you but cannot get to you easily.

I have to get a cinder block to stand on and there is a great potential for injury to me and to you. I know you are cramped and may feel invisible, but I see you there and since you have no food or water, you will not be comfortable for long.

I am ready to surrender and declare you “Hide and Seek Champions” if you will just stay in your chicken yard.

Thank you,

Chicken Wrangler Sara