Celebrating with food

The leaves are turning color faster than ever. Is it possible to go from green to peak color in a week or 2? Probably not, but it feels like it. I took this photo out the car window (while Tim was driving) to show Tara in London what she was missing. I don't think she was as jealous as I wanted her to be.

Tim took the day off on Friday to celebrate our 22nd anniversary. First we did some international food shopping in Utica, then we went to dinner in Cooperstown.

I did not get the names of any of these stores, but we will definitely go back. At the Italian place we bought some hot sausage, ravioli, and pork braciole. I made the pork on Saturday with some of our garden plum tomatoes, olive oil, lots of garlic, and leftover pasta (see below). Excellent!

We went in the Asian store (I think it was Vietnamese) in search of hot chili oil which we have been unable to find. No chili oil, but we got a dried and a fried chili paste, a red curry paste (my fave) some fresh hot peppers, rice noodles, sesame oil, and Hub's fave—the fried shallots. Now we just have to figure out what to make with all this.

And finally, the Polish store provided some pierogies, kielbasa, vanilla cookies, rye bread, and some hot dogs that we already tested and gave a thumbs up.

After all the food shopping, we went to dinner at Toscana. Great food (but too much pasta) and they just kept refilling our glasses with the house red wine. The leftover pasta made a nice addition to the pork on Saturday. I forgot that it was Coffee House night and I didn't have time for a proper dinner...

Fall eagle and bees

To distract us all from the latest political nightmare, I will share some pretty pictures.

I was talking to a contractor on Thursday about our new enlarged dog fence, when I saw something over his head off in the distance. I interrupted our discussion for what turned out to be a crow.

Minutes after he left, I was texting him to tell him he forgot his axe, and the eagle I was expecting earlier flew right over the house.

Also, I recently talked to Frank, our favorite beekeeper, about there not being many honeybees in his bee boxes. I am still trying to convince him (not seriously) to bring his boxes over here. Our weedy property has no shortage of honeys and bumbles.

Oh, and an abundance of wasps. Every variety. One stung my pinky finger while I was sitting outside with a cup of tea yesterday. Why?

Which came first

Poor little thing, looking so sad, but all fluffy and cute the next day just like the rest of them. I am sorry that I missed it—I never saw an egg hatch before. I was at work on Ugly Tuesday last week while The Husband did a chick check just in time to catch the little one coming out of her shell.

Ugly Tuesday again today—probably uglier than ever as Tara is (now) in London. Yesterday she was in Paris, one of my favorite places to visit. She went to the Louvre but didn't even go in! Really? Guess one day in Paris is not enough to include the Louvre... Great photo though!

Phirst Day of Phall and the Phanatic

Friends Tara and Barn sent me a pic from Paris "where we are right now" at the Eiffel Tower. So I returned the favor with where I was "right now" in the backyard, with the dogs, drinking tea.

There have been almost too many beautiful days in August and September, so you will hear no complaints about the weather. First day of autumn today and it is 80°. It is supposed to rain later, and then cool off, but that is welcome as well.

My heritage tomatoes—grown from last year's seeds—are just starting to get ripe. Just in time. Yesterday The Husband mowed down the larger vegetable garden which was pretty much destroyed by critters. Woody is happy to clean up all the mowed tomatoes. What he doesn't find, the chickens will.

And because these last photos are too precious to pass up, I am sharing the Phillie Phanatic with you all. Little Sister thought it would be great fun to invite him to the elementary school where she teaches. It took a whole lot of phinagling over the summer to work something into his schedule, but last Tuesday was the magic day.

Doesn't matter if you are a Phillies fan, ya gotta love the Phanatic. Look at those little kids' faces!

Basement chickens

The one who overthinks her chickens came up with a solution to last week's expanding basement chicken population: Yesterday, I gave Biele Mama and the 2 chicks that she hatched to Karen, our goat lady friend. They will be very happy in their new large warm calf hutch in the sun with plenty of room to roam. By the time it starts getting really cold, the chicks should have all of their adult feathers, and in the meantime Biele is keeping them warm underneath her. She was definitely not happy with her transport, but she calmed down once I added her chicks in a box nearby and they could chat with each other during the 15-minute ride.

On Tuesday, while I was in work, The Husband watched a 6th chick hatch from an egg I had taken from Biele. She had abandoned the 9 eggs left with her, so I put them in the crate with the 5 chicks under the heat lamp, not expecting any more to hatch. Unfortunately, 1 of the larger chicks in the crate decided it was his/her duty to beat up the newly hatched one.

Rather than make a third chicken crate in the basement, I contacted my 2 goat lady friends on Wednesday. I didn't expect them both to say yes, but that created the perfect solution to my problem. Biele and her 2 went to Karen, and the remaining eggs, the newest chick, and 1 of the smaller younger ones went to June. She is a pre-school teacher who has hatched chicks before in her classroom. She was happy to have these little ones, especially because she had just been reading books about chickens to the kids.

Perfect timing!

So now we are left with a more manageable 4 chicks in the basement.All are starting to feather out. I know they are all half Buff Orpington (our roo) and I think all came from white eggs which would mean half Brown Leghorn, but the one in the front doesn't have any of the brown feathers like the others. She might have come from one of the different eggs I gave to Elmer. We may never know her breed, but we don't really care.

I will save my latest appliance rant for next week, after I find out how much it will cost to repair my 3YO refrigerator...my third refrigerator in the 10 years we have been in this house. I can add GE to my list of brands that can't be trusted.

All this excitement

With all this excitement in the basement, I was able to get a better pic of an interested Cyrus with his head through the cat door. :)

Biele hen hatched 1 chick yesterday, and another today. This inspired me to call Elmer the Incubator, and indeed, he had 3 chicks hatched yesterday as well. That is all I will get from him, but Biele still has 8 eggs left under her.

At first I was worried (overthinking my chickens according to The Hub) that Biele would peck at the chicks she was hatching. There was quite a bit of chick hollering that alerted me to the first one being born, and she did not accept the aliens I had put in with her before. But after a day of coexisting, she's got the mama thing down. She was giving me the stink eye when I was trying to get pics of her chicks today. You can just see their 2 little heads poking out behind hers.

Elmer's 3 were easily added to the 2 in the other crate. In the red pic, you can see the size difference that a few days makes. I turned off the heat lamp in the other pic, and the poor little ones were struggling to get under the bigger ones for warmth. They get chilled pretty fast.

And in the final pic you can see the week-old chicks are already getting wing feathers. Growing up already!

Hijacker gets hijacked

Last summer I had this same problem—the German Bielefelder hen started sitting on eggs, trying to hatch them, only she wasn't very good at it.

http://lestersflat.blogspot.com/2018/07/happy-birthday-little-chicks.html

This year was a repeat performance. In early July, one of last year's youngsters decided to sit on eggs in the nest box. She was soon joined/kicked out by Biele. Blondie gave up 2 weeks ago and rejoined the others, but Biele was insistent that she could hatch some. Come September, no chicks, and my only white-egg layer is laying new eggs in with the old ones almost every day.

I ditched the old eggs twice, and finally took some from under her and gave them to Elmer, a neighbor with an incubator. Last year he hatched 4 fuzzballs from under Biele. Saturday he brought over 2 little blonde ones.

This inspired me to hijack the hijacker and put her in the big brooder box in the basement. If she ever does hatch any chicks, she won't be able to care for them on the second floor of the nest box. She was NOT happy—screamed and pecked at me the whole way back to the house. I thought maybe I could sneak the little ones in with her and her eggs, but no, just like last year she went after them when they came anywhere near her.

So all this ruckus in the basement had the regular residents all in a stir. Cyrus had his head poked through the cat door, trying to join the fun. At least he kept the cats from coming downstairs while I was getting the chicks and Biele set up. The MonkeyCat made his way down eventually and approved. Biele is happier without the heat lamp and the little pests. Chicks are happier with heat and food and water (and a visiting Monkey) all to themselves.

If Elmer hatches any more, it should be by the end of this week. Biele is sitting on 11. We could end up with far too many chicks at a time of year when it won't be easy to get them outside. We will have chickens in the basement until Christmas at this rate...