The Sole Survivor

After countless predator attacks, we were down to one lone and very worried chicken.  This afternoon she entered a Witness Protection Program, and that's all I'm at liberty to say.  

This does mean that we are now a Poultryless Family.....

kind of bittersweet....

SOMETHING FOR SEPTEMBER...........

   Our blog book would be incomplete if I don't have a least one post for September.  

    We did start school early this month, and with Tyler's graduation, we are down to three students.
We have two 11th graders and one 8th grader.  Last year most of their work was on the computer, and this year, we are back to mostly textbooks.  Text books are overwhelmingly preferred, so I guess they aren't completely lost to the cyber world, yet!

   I don't know how anybody can make a living at farming.!  Around here there is some evil creature lurking around every corner ready to devour our livestock or produce.  We haven't seen the Eagles lately so the ducks have been resting easy, but our apples are disappearing by the bushel before they are even ripe enough for the juice and applesauce I had planned for them.

Don't let those big brown eyes fool you, because I am here to tell you that those furry little deer have a very DARK side!

 

They are extremely sneaky. They walk in the yard like they have every right to be there, and let their little fawns frolic around to entertain us while they chow down on our  precious produce (carefully avoiding the weeds, of course)!

They bit a hole in the netting and helped themselves to our strawberry plants....

They chewed off a Hydrangea bloom  from a plant I brought back to life.

Apparently they also like daisies,

 Petunias and,

green tomatoes.

Every web site I've ever read about how to deter deer says to plant marigolds because deer don't like marigolds.  Apparently the deer around here are to busy raiding gardens to surf the web and  find out what they are not supposed to like.  Here's what they think about the marigold theory..

Thank goodness we don't have to totally depend on our farming abilities to survive, because we'd be in trouble.  It's still makes me want to borrow Alanna's BB gun!

Spring Babies

Photos by Mandy

New Birds in Town

As far as I can tell, Swans are not mentioned in the Bible. Eagles, on the other hand, managed to poke their heads in there quite often. I'm not sure why. Swans are beautiful, graceful, calm, and they don't eat people's pets.  Eagles, on the other hand think nothing about swooping down and scarfing up any innocent creature in their line of vision  (I'm not bitter)! Why does the Eagle get all the glory? Sometimes that's the way it is. The loud, pushy, vain, self absorbed creatures crave the spotlight, while the quiet, humble, hardworking creatures are content to be behind the scenes.

We were recently honored with a visit from

 four of the beautiful, shy birds.

The Canadian geese, lined up in the 

background, were NOT happy to see them.

The geese made lots of noise!

The Swans decided they weren't welcome.

I'm not sure where they went, 

but I hope they come back, geese or not.

Darn geese, can't even get their "V" straight!

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
                                                                  Matthew 5:5

GET IT OUT!!

I HATE rodents (other than Guinea Pigs)! I don't like them inside or outside. They are NOT cute, no matter what some people, who will remain nameless, think.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was to find this note when I opened the bedroom door this morning!

 And then there were numerous copies of this note in strategic 

locations throughout the house.

Apparently, after Doug and I had gone to bed, and Mandy had gone down to Grandma's to dog sit,  David had a mouse run into his room and back out.  So David enlisted the help of Alex, Tyler, Evonne and Alanna.

They gathered their mouse catching arsenal
 (aka, weapons of mouse destruction),

 and they spent the next three hours overturning, looking under, and behind every item of furniture downstairs.  At 1:00am they called Mandy to come and help.  Eventually they gave up, wrote the notes and went to bed.



 This morning Doug and Alanna did another thorough search and after reportedly finding no evidence, decided that the vermin little visitor, "has left the building".

How the mouse got into the house remains a mystery. We do have a suspect but he will remain nameless until we have enough evidence to charge him with the crime.

UPDATE 11/5/12: The rodent actually had NOT, "left the building"!  The noises I heard in the Christmas boxes in the den were NOT my imagination, as some people led me to believe. At my request, Alex and Tyler completely tore apart the den, and with Rickey's help, they found the box the pest was in and took it outside to open it. He immediately scurried out of the Christmas mug he was hiding in and hasn't been seen since. Now, he really has, "LEFT THE BUILDING"! Now all I have to do is clean up the MESS!
The perpetrator has still not fessed up, but since he helped find the rodent we'll give him a break.

Spring Comes to the PNW

Signs of spring in our yard that distracted me from pulling weeds this morning.

 

The Mallards

After a bit of preening,   Mr. Mallard was quite willing to strut his stuff for the camera

The Mrs............. not so much.

The camera is a Canon Rebel T1i. I used a 75-300mm telephoto for the ducks and all pictures are straight of the camera.