Growing Like Weeds!
Things are really starting to grow around this place since I did my New faces 'round here post...
...It seems like days ago that this chicken was a little yellow ball of fluff, now it's an armful for Isabel! (please disregard the cherry juice stained undershirt...she's a hooligan like that!)
I can't believe they go from this...
...to THIS in weeks!!
We don't use growth accelerator feed but offer them a drug free chicken scratch, that is made at a local feed mill...if I were a chicken, this would be me...parked close to the trough for easy access!
We also let our birds roam free to peck away at bugs or whatever else they find...
...which, lately has been vegetables in the garden!! It isn't an uncommon sight to look out the window and see James or Isabel running around shooing chickens out of the garden with a corn broom!
Since we have had a bit of rain (although it poured last night), the vegetables have really started to take off...I will take no credit for this as it has been James religiously watering and weeding this patch!
I usually step in to harvest the bounty once James has done all the work...but I do appreciate it!(and in case you're reading this James...I'm not patronizing you either!) :)
The strawberries and rhubarb were at a stand still and are slowing growing but we do have apple growth!!
...sadly, this was the only cherry left after the birds feasted on them while we weren't looking...I was hoping to make a sour cherry pie but they had different ideas! Lol!
The bees are also going nuts!! It has been so hot lately that they have started to "beard" outside of the hive! I thought they were picking up to swarm on outta there but trusty Google reassured me that this is called "bearding" and they do this in the summer when it gets too crowded and hot inside their hive.
I don't know how this would be any cooler, crowding together like this?! If it were me, I would have crowd rage and be needing some personal space, but they seem to know what they're doing!! James and I opened this particular bee box and put on another layer (called a "super") and a "queen excluder", which keeps the queen in the lower brood boxes, allowing the workers to move up into the super box to fill those frames with honey...it also gives them more space and air flow in the hive.
Isabel's kittens are also growing like little ferocious weeds as well......she has named her three little troublemakers, Bubbles, Daisy Mae and Pip (middle name Squeak)...they remind me of the Beatrix Potter kittens...a handful! They are forever rolling around in the dirt fighting with each other...
...or trying to be tough when sneaking up on bugs!
With all of the activity around here, it even takes it's toll on a rambunctious little ball of energy! The little Greyhound pups from the New faces 'round here post have been moved over to a larger pen at my in-law's property and are thriving as well! I don't have any current photos of them just now but they look like gangly ferrets that are forever getting into mischief too!
With all of this daily action, we should be getting enough excercise just trying to keep up with the explosion of growth around here! (p.s. I really wish I had a photo of James chasing chickens around the garden with a corn broom!!)