Blue Moon

 

 

 

 

 

I was wrong about the Firebird's position on the varsity soccer team.  He has been first string, a starter playing outside mid.

I also had the camera settings wrong, been making a lot of mistakes lately! 

Mostly I have been trying to forge my way ahead by backtracking, and that seems to consist of finding out I never want to do (whatever) again!

Hopefully a new door will open ahead and the path forward will become apparent. In the meantime, I try and enjoy the moment and make do with what is available.

We had a rooster appear in our dooryard this week. A young handsome rhode island red. I thought he wandered down from the neighbor, who has chickens and at least one rooster, so I tried to shoo him up there, but he didn't want to go.

A short while later he seemed to be heading in the direction of another neighbors who also has poultry,( in the mornings you can hear the roosters calling up and down the road, it is funny) so Willow and I shooed him that way.  A little while later he was back.

We have three roosters of our own, separated into two groups, and no room for a fourth. Our flock is locked in for the summer, so we weren't having any fights, and the newcomer was well behaved and not trying to be a bad bird. We all sort of admired him, truthfully.

As soon as I saw him I thought of my old Boss, and a couple days later I was answering an email from her and asked about her rooster. She had taken in three Red hens and a rooster a couple years ago someone dumped at HER neighbors. She told me her rooster had died, and agreed to take the newcomer off our hands.

I saw him in the goose house around noon and shut him in. That way I could catch him. I put him in a carrier and drove him over to the farm. He was very happy! The hens looked happy! Everyone was happy!

Willow and I saw a large spotted fawn and an enormous doe on the way there, and then two wild hen turkeys and a large brood of young turkeys.  Then we learned the peafowl at the farm had hatched some chicks, and saw three cute peafowl chics!

 

 

Here are some pix Willow and I took of the last soccer game.

 

 

 

 

 

Number 2 in this shot by Willow looks to be trying to trip the fast Firebird up before he can beat 14 to the ball

This was right afterwards, the Firebird had the ball and something happened with 14 and he was down.  Willow snapped this pic just as he fell, and he lept right back up and took off again, but the pic of him flat like that is a bit unnerving for this mother.

I took this lo-res shot of him coming down from a header, boy he sent that ball high! But when I looked closer it looks like the guy from the other team is trying to elbow the Firebird on his descent. Maybe he was just trying to keep his balance. I have overheard a coach(not ours) encouraging his players to play rough, so I pray the flashy Firebird doesn't become a target on the field.

 

The coach from the best team in the league was at the game watching. The Firebird played with his son in 8th grade. The coach commented to me that the Firebird was coming right along and nodded approvingly. So now I am in the unenviable position of wanting the Firebird to slow down and not draw so much attention to himself. He'll have the toughest guys on him. He's still my baby, after all.

 

He had two assists on goals and we won the game. 

 

 

still Wednesday

I was stacking wood today and thought the white rooster looked so handsome with his girls. He is a leghorn/barred rock cross with this year's pullets-three leghorn and two black australop..

We finally finished the puzzle yesterday, yay!

I walked over to the pond this am with Peko and the water was high over the ice and almost to the top of the dam. I followed fresh footprints to the spillway and something caught my eye. I thought it was a bait container someone had stuffed under the rocks, but it turned out to be a geocache. It was just a plastic glad container with a few oddments and a small pad with names and dates and the instructions.

Apparently folks stash these things around and post their coordinates online and folks try and find them using GPS. Then you sign the paper and may take an item but you have to leave something to replace it. Don't get too excited-they were like cheap stickers and a magnet. I wanted to toss a dollar bill in there just to thrill the next person.

The most amazing thing was the first date on there was almost exactly two years ago. So I guess my eyes aren't too sharp or the last person was careless when they put it back. It is in a vulnerable spot since the water does flow over the top of the dam but I guess if it has lasted two years it is ok...I showed the kids and they were all excited and wanted to start geocaching. LOL.

Now I know why I get strangers pulling up my drive at times...once two older ladies said they were with the census and someone told me they were geocaching so now I know...

Home to Roost

One of the white roosters we gave to the neighbor has returned. It has been months but he still knew his way home. Our flock is free ranging, and he has made no attempt to attack our senior rooster, which was one of the reasons I gave them away in the first place.

He is quite wild and remembers me chasing and catching him several times to return him, because he lets me nowhere near him and runs away and sqawks when he sees me. The first night he slept in the coop and that might have been a chance to catch him; last night he roosted in the pine tree, and when I crept out the the crack of dawn to get a pic of him, he jumped on the coop and started running around.


Here's a pic of the bag I received as a gift from Boss after her trip to Turkey.

More rooster drama

The neighbor who took our roosters stopped by yesterday with an armful of homemade fabric grocery sacks and said, "I'm here to barter."

Apparently a raccoon got into the rooster pen the previous night, and tore up one of the roosters. She needed some muscle to help move some panels around to secure the pen. I saw the hurt rooster and suggested we let them out. I felt sorry for them and was sure they would stick around now it had been a few more days.

It started to rain, so we sat in her screen house chatting. Then I felt guilty and thought I should help her fix the pen just in case she needed it, since that had been the original plan. We got the pen altogether, and then couldn't find the roosters. I sent the Firebird home to check it out, since I could hear crowing coming from our house.

He came back with the report that one rooster had returned-the hurt one was no where to be found. So I went home and we spent some time chasing the rooster, trying to get him into the chicken house. He was trying to fight our old rooster through the fence, so I shut the coop to lock everyone else in the pen, and tried to get him in the chickenhouse.

Well, chickens are not too dumb, I guess. That plan worked before, but there was no way we were getting that guy cornered yesterday. Finally I gave up and went in to start dinner. Then the neighbor showed up and I told her I would call her when we caught him.

Today it poured like mad. We ended up with three inches of rain. I reversed the plan, and locked the flock in the chicken house and left the pen open. The rooster huddled by the chicken house door crowing pathetically, but running whenever he saw us. Big drowned rats are scary. ;)

This afternoon I looked out and Whitey, the little white leghorn hen, had escaped the house and was in the yard with the rooster. Sure enough, she showed him the pen was open, and in a little while I went out and locked them in. I left a place open for them to get in the house but be in a separate cage so they could get out of the rain but not in with the flock.

Nope, they stayed in the rain. Finally I decided I should catch him and take him to the neighbor, so I called her and told her I would be bringing him by. I felt he would be better off over there even if I had to chase him around the flooded pen. I had chicken feathers stuck to my mud boots by the time I caught him.

I arrived next door and saw the hurt rooster in the pen was as soaked and muddy as the one I was returning. The tarp she had thrown over the pen was leaking like a sieve. She said she was going to get a plastic tarp and put over it, so I left her to it.

I have to feel badly for taking those poor guys away from their home. It's really not bad running free at the neighbors', and if they had stayed put like their two brothers, they wouldn't be locked in the pen and nearly eaten by a raccoon.

Thursday

Beautiful weather this week. 62 and sunny and 72 in the house feels like a greenhouse!
The kids are asking if the ice is out in the pond, can we go swimming?? (NO!) LOL.

We have been working on the garden-yesterday we turned over three beds. Today we cleaned out the chicken coop and the goose shelter. We gave our neighbor the four beautiful white roosters. They were fighting too much and the kids want to keep the old barred rock and his son for roosters.

Poor Loosey the Goose loved those white roosters! He was courting them! So I am going to have to get goslings if I can't find him a goose friend soon!

A friend went to Johnny's selected seed today and dropped off some stuff for us. I told him just get extra and we will split the order. Some of the packets we were splitting by hand-who needs 30 zuccinni or summer squash plants?

We combed again at the farm today. Four of us were on wethers this am. I took on Emerson-the jackpot. He just dumps all of his at once. Two huge bags full and he still has more. He was much better this year-and he has gotten sooooo fat! He was new to the farm last spring and skin and bones and jumpy. He was so glad I was combing him today! Awwww>

Can't wait to get the peas and lettuce and spinach in-but I think I will wait for the new moon, another week. It seems if I plant before that the weather is lousy. I might plant a little this weekend and again in a week and compare how they do.