Introducing! Pat

Today I would like to take a couple of minutes to introduce another chicken. Her name is Pat, short for Cleopatra. She was named this because of the awesome markings around her eyes when she was a chick. Also the Cleopatra exhibit was in Cincinnati when I got the chicks and a few friends were working on the load in. She is an Araucana or Ameraucana depending on how you want to spell it and lays light bluish green eggs. She usually seems to have a different agenda then the rest of my hens. She is always the first to roost in the evening and generally is only interested in a treat if everyone else has walked away (yeah right!). She is skiddish and not a friendly as my other hens, but she has some adorable habits.

A good picture of why we named Pat Pat @ 1 week old 

Pat in her awkward teenage phase @ 1 month old

Adult Pat on the prowl. I took this picture today @ 1 year old

Pat's favorite dust bowl. All the other chickens forage when I let them out of the run. Pat naps. 

Neighbors

I love having my chickens. They are great entertaining pets who also produce breakfast for me. They are relativity low maintenance. I've never had a dog, but I think they require far less maintenance than a dog. I have to say that the whole process would be much harder if my neighbors were not as amazing as they are.

We bought our house here 2 years ago in May. Before we had even bought the house our neighbors were coming by to say hello- when I would swing by to have inspections or look through it again or show the insurance agent. My three neighbors (4 if you want to count two doors down) are great, and have all lived in their home for around 20 years. The house we moved into was the "transient" home. Hopefully not anymore. Moving here felt like moving into a small town. My neighbors come over and talk when the weather is nice. They talk about the old days, how to fix the government, and the newest neighborhood gossip. I get fresh baked cookies (with my eggs of course!) for Christmas. I ask my neighbor Julie to watch the chickens for me when I am out of town. Everyone knows each other and yet, here I am on my 150' x 50' plot of land inside the city of Cincinnati.

What makes this so great is the atmosphere of caring I get from my neighbors. It is more than just a friendly wave when we both happen to be pulling in the driveway at the same time. It is friendship and talk and a feeling of home, happiness, and security. I can't say it anymore plainly than the fact that about once a month I get a gift from one of my neighbors. Not for me, for the chickens. They bring me egg cartons, leftover produce, and kitchen scraps. This week one of my neighbors brought me 15 pounds of spent grain from his most recent foray into home brewing.

All of these things are normally trash, nothing more. But they think of me and my chickens, and the fresh eggs they receive whenever they want them, and bring me these things so that I can make sure I have the happiest hens ever. Me and my hens thank them- because frankly, my neighbors rock.

I sure hope they aren't going to mind the bees :)

In the Garden

It was absolutely gorgeous today! spent some time in the yard with the cats and the chickens. Raked a bunch of leaves into the chickens run. They always seem to enjoy that once I lock them back in there. Dan and I also burned a bunch of fallen sticks and twigs and pines cones as well as part of our Christmas tree that we just took down last week. I also decided to hand the bird house my brother Marc built for me for Christmas this year. It is made out of ironwood. The design is simple and elegant. It looks like regular wood. But man, that birdhouse weighs about 30 lbs. Ironwood is one of the most durable woods out there. I picked a nice spot in the biggest pine tree closest to the house to put it. It is a great location because it is about 12' off the ground, yet eye level out of the back windows of the house. It is a perfect viewing area! The glue hasn't even begun to dry on the perch yet (this part was separate so not to break it in its trip back from San Juan Island) and it has already got some prospective renters for the season. I didn't have the perch in for the first visitor and the second just barely gave me enough time to clear the ladder away. By time the third came around I had my camera ready. The birdhouse is a hit! Can't wait for spring and some chicks!

 Can you spy the birdhouse? 

Also found these blooming back in the nature preserve. It is February 18th!!!!! All the glass flowers are also popping up. Crazy!

Clawfoot Tub

So I am working on refinishing our upstairs bathroom. I have been working on this since we purchased the house.  Well there was a break in which I brooded six chicks in the tub in that bathroom, but I mean they were only there for like 8 weeks. Anyway I located a claw foot tub that was my bosses father in laws. I bought it for a mere $125 dollars. It was a steal. It is in excellent condition. The date on the bottom says it was manufactured in August of 1923. The tub started its journey near Cleveland Ohio. Which is convenient because we have a second office in Cleveland. So the tub was delivered to our Cleveland office. From there it came down on an interoffice transfer (we have one every other week). apparently no one warned the drivers that there was a tub on the truck because they were both pretty confused when all was said and done. So now that I have my tub in the office I have begun to refurbish the outside of the tub. This a the moment involves getting the feet and plumbing off, and stripping away all the paint. Unfortunately one of the feet was badly rusted on and broke during removal. The other three are in great condition. I will have the last one recast by a company out of Seattle,Wa. Anyway I'm sure there will be many more bost about the tub and the bathroom, but here are a couple of the first!

The plumbing is still on in this picture. It is in great shape! You can see it was repainted recently with the  blue and brown ragging texture. That layer of paint comes of fairly easily. The white paint is a little more difficult.










In this photo you can see the foot that is to eventually be broken off in the attempt to remove it from the tub. Also the drain is still in in this picture. The last owner had put some sort of plumbers putty around the drain because it was much too small. It took me about an hour with a hammer and chisel to remove all the hardened putty and knock the drain out.

Meet the Valentine

I got flowers at work. I suppose it is right before Valentines day. My immediate reaction at the time was "but.. Dan is in Mexico. And he wouldn't do that anyway." My next reaction was "Why is it covered in gum". This was followed by our receptionist, Carolyn, saying, "Oh God, there is a toothbrush. Why would a Valentine send you a tooth brush?" She steps back and looks at me, "Are they trying to say something?" I dug into the package pretty quick to see who played a practical joke on me. It was nothing more than a bunch of flowers delivered courtesy of my dentist for referring Dan to his practice. I love my dentist!

Backyard birds

What a beautiful morning! The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the heat is on, and there is snow on the ground. The only thing that could make this better is if Dan was already home from Mexico. He is scheduled to arrive this evening so I hope there is no interfering weather for him to contend with.

I keep three bird feeders outside in the winter. One each for regular seed, thistle seed, and suet. I get a pretty large variety of birds to come to them and I enjoy watching them frolic around. (I am definitely a crazy bird person). Our most common birds are chickadees, cardinals, yellow finches, house sparrows, blue jays, downy woodpeckers, and mourning doves. We also commonly see starlings, grackles, red-bellied woodpeckers, juncos, white-throated sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, cowbirds, nuthatches, titmouses (titmice??), and hummingbirds (they like the mimosa tree). Last year we had a yellow bellied sapsucker drill about 300 holes in our larger pine tree. I also occasionally spot a golden-crowned kinglet rummaging around in the cedars between our house and the neighbors.

A white-throated sparrow all puffed up :) 

Spring is Here! sort of....

I officially have daffodils  up in the yard. Ok... not just up. Budding. It has been a very mild winter. So much so that when I went outside in the yard last weekend to enjoy the unseasonably nice 50deg Sunday there were flies buzzing around and gnats in the yard.

I am by no means complaining about an early spring. But I am a little worried about the bug population if we indeed are wrapping up winter. However, the weatherman is saying that I should expect 1-3 inches of snow in the next 36hours. I will be sad if my hardy little daffodils get nipped off by Jack Frost though. We got some snow Tuesday night into Wednesday morning this week. But it was gone before ten. Looked pretty though. 

I love that our house backs up to the nature preserve. It makes the yard look amazing in photos like this :)