Showing posts with label Fun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fun. Show all posts
DH and I made a quick get-away a week or so ago (leaving the animals in the hands of a kindly and experienced temporary care-giver) and headed to Fallingwater for a couple of days. For those of you who may not know, Fallingwater is American architect Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece of organic architectural design. Surrounded by a woodland and situated over Bear Run Creek, the house features floors made from sandstone quarried on-site (ideas!) and is primarily fabricated from concrete and steel. Built by the Kaufmann family as a "cabin in the woods" in the late 1930's for $155, 000 (including the $8, 000 Wright was paid for his designs), the house was given, with artwork and furnishings intact, to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in the early 1960's.
I haven't been to Fallingwater in a very long time. It is still an amazing conceptual work of art. And the place smells great! - moss, trees, water, earth - the elements of nature, along with the arresting visual impact of the house, inside and out, combine to give the viewer a nearly complete sensory experience.
Plus - we were able to get away from the endless work and challenges (i.e. problems) here and actually relax. It was fun. And having fun is important.
I haven't been to Fallingwater in a very long time. It is still an amazing conceptual work of art. And the place smells great! - moss, trees, water, earth - the elements of nature, along with the arresting visual impact of the house, inside and out, combine to give the viewer a nearly complete sensory experience.
I hard-boiled some of their eggs (older and cracked ones) -
Made up a pot of oatmeal -
Crushed the eggs (with shells) into the cooked oatmeal -
Opened a can of pumpkin near the expiration date, added two big glops -
Added some crushed red pepper flakes, turmeric and garlic (good for gastrointestinal chicken workings). Whew! Good thing chickens can't smell.
Took it outside. They came running immediately.
Added some of their layer mash and scratch seeds to the mess. It looked sort of like...alien egg salad. But a weirder color.
By this time, they were all waiting outside the tack room. Some were peeking in through the cat access door. Impatiently. Tapping their little chicken toes on the concrete.
Emerged with the bowl in my arms, and proceeded to spoon out the gunk into their flat Tupperware dishes. Old ones, you know, that we don't use anymore.
THEY WENT WILD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Everyone had some, and some more, and YAY! PARTY! And some more. YAY! (again)...peck, peck, peck...chickens waddling everywhere with egg/oatmeal/whatever all over their beaks, faces - oh, the joy of just snarfing something extra yummy on a Friday afternoon! And then to doze in the sun!
Later, I came back out to take some photos of some lazy pasture-ranging as the day wore on:
Stonewall and one of the girls relaxing on the cart:
Buddy patrolling the front of the barn:
In other news, a clandestine friendship has apparently sprung up between an evidently lonely bachelor pheasant and several of our ladies. I caught them together on the loft side of the hill (again) this afternoon:
He had spotted me by the time I took the picture and retreated to the left side of the rain barrel. He is gorgeous, very vividly colored, so who knows - maybe the ladies think him an odd but companionable sort of fellow, a rooster! maybe, then again...maybe not, but hey, whatever, plenty of room to hang out, so yeah...let's!
Happy Friday!
Happy Spring!
First, let's dispel some myths. Chickens are not filthy animals, no dirtier than any other creature, unless they are forced to live in filthy conditions, that is. Our chickens live in a clean (meaning regularly maintained) environment. They don't harbor mites, lice or any other such pests, because we dust for them, and we use food-grade DE in their coop to keep pests at bay (or at a minimum).
Yes, they poo, but Joanna sat on a bunch of paper towels while she roosted on my lap, and was therefore not walking around the house poo-ing at will on any and all surfaces. I'm pro-cleanliness, so that is a no-no in my book.
So Joanna is no worse in terms of her overall hygiene than a cat, dog or other large bird such as a parrot (aside from the fact that she is not house-trained). She is also on the low end of the pecking order in the coop. As I was feeding yesterday, I observed how she stands alone on her part of the roost and how easily the others are able to make her move off. Joanna is an unusually sweet, quiet and gentle chicken who, from babyhood, has always sought human interaction. She will squat, spread her wings and make a soft trilling sound when either I or DH lightly rub her back.
Having always had a bit of a soft spot for the underdog (or, in this case, chicken) I decided to bring her in, play with her for a while and let her have some time away from the hierarchy of the coop.
Joanna spent about an hour inside, contentedly snuggled up on my lap on her paper towel barrier, eating and watching TV. We watched a BBC period drama set in Victorian England, and she seemed especially fascinated when she heard birds chirping in the background.
Evening fell, and once again it was time for Joanna to return to her flock. I made sure the other chickens were not able to peck at her as she re-entered the coop, then placed her on the roost, wished the girls sweet dreams, and turned out the light.
Everyone needs a break once in awhile.
Yes, they poo, but Joanna sat on a bunch of paper towels while she roosted on my lap, and was therefore not walking around the house poo-ing at will on any and all surfaces. I'm pro-cleanliness, so that is a no-no in my book.
So Joanna is no worse in terms of her overall hygiene than a cat, dog or other large bird such as a parrot (aside from the fact that she is not house-trained). She is also on the low end of the pecking order in the coop. As I was feeding yesterday, I observed how she stands alone on her part of the roost and how easily the others are able to make her move off. Joanna is an unusually sweet, quiet and gentle chicken who, from babyhood, has always sought human interaction. She will squat, spread her wings and make a soft trilling sound when either I or DH lightly rub her back.
Having always had a bit of a soft spot for the underdog (or, in this case, chicken) I decided to bring her in, play with her for a while and let her have some time away from the hierarchy of the coop.
Evening fell, and once again it was time for Joanna to return to her flock. I made sure the other chickens were not able to peck at her as she re-entered the coop, then placed her on the roost, wished the girls sweet dreams, and turned out the light.
Everyone needs a break once in awhile.
Or:
How I Spent My Christmas Vacation.
Well, folks, the story this year has been rain, and lots of it, and in an area where there is little concrete or other hardscape, the predictable outcome is mud. Mud, wonderful mud. Anyone know of any practical use for mud? Just wondering, because I happen to have a surplus on hand at the moment.
But I digress.
Observe:
Ordinarily a photograph of a muddy rut wouldn't qualify as remotely informative or interesting, but there is more to tell. Our neighbor's Kubota became mired in this spot on Thursday afternoon and absolutely could not, would not be moved; every attempt to pull out of the slop only resulted in a more stubbornly planted machine.
So, after a few jokes about how our neighbor might have to swim for it, we trudged up to his place to get his truck (although ours is also a 4 X 4, his has more towing capacity). Said truck was positioned in front of the Kubota, which was then chained to the truck hitch, and the fun began. Several minutes (of spinning tires and flying muck) later, not only was the Kubota still sunk in the mud, but so was the truck.
Quick time out for a few chuckles all around. Ah, fun.
After consulting with one another on the matter, and engaging in a bit of experimentation, we arrived at an improvisational method of successively shortening the chain and tightening it as a brace against the motionless pick-up truck, which allowed the Kubota to crawl a couple of feet out of the pit - enough so that DH could lower the struts and use them to lift the machine up and sidle it out onto drier ground.
But still, there was this:
And this:
So, our truck was called into service for a first attempt (that's my neighbor waving - wave back!):
Nope, didn't work, and the concern was that we were going to leap-frog across the field with bogged-down vehicles all afternoon, so in came the sidelined Kubota for one more play:
Voila! Finally.
All the spinning of tires and lurching around of large machines startled a small unidentifiable field creature, and it ran terrified around the vehicles, trying to escape. It wasn't a mouse. I'm not sure what it was - it was rather tiny, brown, with large, dark eyes. I felt sorry for it, so I picked it up by its tail, carried it some distance away and gave it a gentle toss into the brush.
The tiny thing was frightened. I have received mercy on so many occasions in my life; who am I to be hard-hearted, even toward a creature of the fields?
Still. I've come a long way!
In other news: The horses had a good time outside in the mild weather. They rolled around on the wet ground and undid the good brushing out we had given them the night before, as horses will do, turning themselves into great muddy yaks, but it was gratifying to see them enjoying themselves.
Grooming horses is good exercise, so I suspect we'll do it all over again.
And YES. It's raining. STILL.
How I Spent My Christmas Vacation.
Well, folks, the story this year has been rain, and lots of it, and in an area where there is little concrete or other hardscape, the predictable outcome is mud. Mud, wonderful mud. Anyone know of any practical use for mud? Just wondering, because I happen to have a surplus on hand at the moment.
But I digress.
Observe:
So, after a few jokes about how our neighbor might have to swim for it, we trudged up to his place to get his truck (although ours is also a 4 X 4, his has more towing capacity). Said truck was positioned in front of the Kubota, which was then chained to the truck hitch, and the fun began. Several minutes (of spinning tires and flying muck) later, not only was the Kubota still sunk in the mud, but so was the truck.
Quick time out for a few chuckles all around. Ah, fun.
After consulting with one another on the matter, and engaging in a bit of experimentation, we arrived at an improvisational method of successively shortening the chain and tightening it as a brace against the motionless pick-up truck, which allowed the Kubota to crawl a couple of feet out of the pit - enough so that DH could lower the struts and use them to lift the machine up and sidle it out onto drier ground.
But still, there was this:
And this:
So, our truck was called into service for a first attempt (that's my neighbor waving - wave back!):
All the spinning of tires and lurching around of large machines startled a small unidentifiable field creature, and it ran terrified around the vehicles, trying to escape. It wasn't a mouse. I'm not sure what it was - it was rather tiny, brown, with large, dark eyes. I felt sorry for it, so I picked it up by its tail, carried it some distance away and gave it a gentle toss into the brush.
The tiny thing was frightened. I have received mercy on so many occasions in my life; who am I to be hard-hearted, even toward a creature of the fields?
Still. I've come a long way!
In other news: The horses had a good time outside in the mild weather. They rolled around on the wet ground and undid the good brushing out we had given them the night before, as horses will do, turning themselves into great muddy yaks, but it was gratifying to see them enjoying themselves.
Grooming horses is good exercise, so I suspect we'll do it all over again.
And YES. It's raining. STILL.
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