Im almost to midterms

     I miss pampering my girls.  I usually see them for only 15 minutes at night around 7pm when I get home from being on campus all day.  They seem to be healthy and well fed for the most part.  I see no battle wounds, and for now no one else has melted their feathers under the heat lamp.  Just the same I'm sure they are going stir crazy stuck in the coop all week.  It looks like it might be sunny this weekend so I will be sure to let them out Saturday and Sunday, and possibly take a break from studies to take some photos!. 
   Chemistry midterm on Friday, Trig on Monday and Medical Term next Friday. So I'm off again to study.  I'm off to see the Wizard...the Wonderful Wizard of Oz!!!!!

Winter in the Northwest

 
     Well Sally Jean's tanning bed, rather heat lamp (which they probably don't need, cause the weather is super mild right now) has melted 3 of my hens feathers, on their backs... like concave holes. They were definitely in the back of the line when it was time to collect the brain!  Luckily the dummies decided to move away from the heat lamp before the skin on their backs became exposed.  It smelled just like hair burning!   
    Been super busy with school, no time to take pictures. I should get out there tomorrow on my one day at home and do some coop cleaning and rearranging .  I did ascertain that they have grown considerably in size and fluff and decided to re-position their ladder up against the wall (which they use to perch on) and moved the lamp on a higher hook....geezzzz.   It could have gone badly, glad I didn't find 9 roasted hens and the coop burnt to the ground... I'll tell ya, my girls never cease to amaze and entertain me....
    First Trig & Chem exams next Friday & Monday, dear Lord please help me memorize this stuff...yikes...:) STRESSSSSS

roxy n r Crispy hens  LOL

And then, I almost lost 5 in one winter afternoon :(

     What a nerve wracking day the hens had yesterday and an eyeopening one for me.  As you all know I lost a Rhode Island Red the day after Christmas...leaving me with 9 hens instead of 10.  I have been relatively comfortable with letting the girls run about the property, only checking on them time to time with a treat and then making sure they all check themselves into the coop at dusk.  Yesterday, being a Holiday, I was able to stay home and lounge about doing homework interrupted by impulses to go outside and watch my hens in all their glory as they have never seen snow before and we were getting quite a bit of it.  It was around 2pm and I went out to give them a snack and noticed a few were making loud warning sounds from the coop.  My first thought was that they were announcing eggs had been laid, they become extremely boisterous with every egg they pop out.
     1st red flag, the girls were not in the yard.  It's the middle of the afternoon, surely they weren't all in the coop.  2nd red flag,  the coop only had 4 hens in the laying boxes. As I called out for the other 5 I started to panic, ( thoughts of  bobcats, cougars, hawks and raccoons danced in my head ) After an hour of walking all around in the snow I saw no chicken tracks outside of 5 ft from the coop. Well that was it, I was too casual with them and now the predators have eaten my girls, but all 5 of them in a matter of 40 minutes, didn't make sense .  No blood, no feathers, no signs of struggle no discernible animal tracks except for the dogs and mine.
     I resigned that they were gone, but  the wise woodsman that he is, with all his experience, and in a matter of 15 minutes, discovered coyote tracks with one track in to the coop area and one track out. He then delivered to me the scenario that most likely ensued. He was sure the girls, if minus one, were hunkered down somewhere and very still with fear.  So Tyler, my son and I, set out to find them.  As soon as we began the search, Tyler found Leghorn. She was missing a few feathers and paralyzed with fear in a corner of the garage like structure next the the neighbors home. Then I suddenly saw Lucy Lynne slinking slowly around the woodshed headed back to the coop.  She was shaken but unharmed and determined to get into the safety of the coop.  We let her in and set out to look for the other 3. Starting with the wood shed, then under the coop, in the bushes and finally success they were crowded and cowering deep under the neighbor's porch, all 3 of them!
    The predators are lurking, closer than I ever imagined. I'm relieved but now the girls are not going to be able to linger about as they have for the past 9 months.  I'll have to build some sort of enclosed area or run for them to get out in and exercise or they will end up as food for the local critters.  Yuk... geezz I need not be so attached to these stupid birds LOL  And all this time I thought a boyfriend would be just too much trouble, what was I thinking. LOL.
    Well off to class I go, and to all that are reading this I will post pictures of the girls in the snow sometime soon.

over and out  

cos tan sin....yuk

      Jumping into trig without a geometry background ...is blowing my mind. So I thought I'd take a break and say hello and talk about my girls. :)  When I first brought my chicks home last March, I often visited a site called backyardchickens.  They are great (since school haven't been able to visit them as much)... I felt like a new mother all over again and this site was like webmd....but for chickens.  Some of the posts are so funny and people often talked about their horrible chicken math ......well now I have horrible trig math...so I'm recommending to those who are inquisitive about everything having to do with their chickens go to Backyardchickens.com

     Very cool, My chemistry teacher used my chicken water dispenser as a visual to explain in detail how atmospheric pressure keeps the water up in the dispenser until its needed by my hens. That was very cool....I like

Just sharing a YouTube clip

Gotta love this advertisement...one of the better ones...http://youtu.be/qB_64aKCKeI.  (chicken coop YouTube)

Put this URL in your search bar and hit enter.  If nothing else it provides great ideas for  unique portable and small hen coops/runs

This will be the new normal

    Today is the end of the first week of 2012.  It's been a couple of days since I've posted anything.  I've learned, since living in Oregon, that one sits around and mildews quite often. The rains come on suddenly and can stay for long periods.
     So, on January 1st, the rains came in. If one has minimal commitments scheduled in town, then one can deduce that activities may range from reading a book, to putting another log on the fire, to letting the girls (hens) out into their covered pen, to checking the mail for a new Netflix, to lunch, to another log on the fire... then collect the eggs out of the coop, another log on the fire, a nap, create lists of things to do for days when it is not raining, did I say put another log on the fire.... Anyway this paints the picture.
     There has to be a very good reason why everything is so radioactive green out here and well, it is for the rain that Oregon is green.  I have to remind myself of this every time I get cranky and unmotivated during these bouts of rain which occur in October, November, December, January, February, March, April and May. Count them that is 8 out of 12 months. Wow!  I might add that last year, the Oregonians took notice that the rain continued through June and July making for a soggy hit and miss berry season :(.

Average Days per Month: Clear, Cloudy, and Rainy Skies
	Type of Day	Jan.	Feb.	Mar.	Apr.	May	June	July	Aug.	Sept.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.
	Clear Days	2.9	2.9	3.3	3.5	5.0	6.2	12.6	11.4	10.3	5.4	2.8	2.1
	Partly Cloudy	3.6	3.8	4.9	5.8	7.2	7.7	8.5	9.6	8.1	7.6	4.3	3.3
	Cloudy Days	24.4	21.5	22.8	20.7	18.9	16.1	9.9	10.1	11.6	18.0	22.9	25.5
	Rainy Days*	18	15.6	16.9	14.4	11.8	9.2	3.9	4.9	7.5	12.3	18.0	18.7
	Source:  Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, Nevada.  The data is based on daylight hours only. A clear day denotes zero to 3/10 average sky cover. Partly cloudy is 4/10 to 7/10 tenths. Cloudy is 8/10 to 10/10 tenths. *.01 inches or more of precipitation.

Sally-Jean's tanning bed

           Of course when school is in session, I hardly notice if it's raining or not since I'm buried in books and generally move like a well oiled robot during the entire term. Up early, eat, study, school, study and sleep little. I generally come up for air, for a short spell only after finals. I hope the girls have enjoyed all the pampering because after Monday they will be lucky to get fresh water in the morning and a couple minutes of attention at night.  The worst part for them is when school is in session they will not get to traipse all over the property all day long and plant their little bombs. They will be stuck in their coop and run (at least till the weekends ) and this they will not like, not one bit. :(.

5 days left before Winter Term begins....yikes

      After this long Holiday I have lost all sensibility.  I sleep in till 11am and stay up too late and eat all hours of the day and well that just isn't going to fly come this Monday. Wow back to; up at 6am,12 hour days and study sessions, but frankly I'm ready. All I've done is eat and lounge and fraternize with my girls,  and subsequently they become overfed as well.  Just way too much time on my hands. Isn't this blog  proof!
      Of course, next week I'll being crying about too much Trig homework, Crazy Chemistry formulas as well as night terrors about medical terms I can not pronounce. Which brings me to ask who was the first to coin "Feast or Famine"?


... speaking of idioms or phrases, I had the strangest ahhaa moment the other day. Just a random thought or connection occurred when I was cat calling out to my hens, "Girls" with a shriek and noticed that the white leghorns always get to me first (they run at me like they are going to break a leg at any moment, or burst into flames or flight). Immediately they swallow up whatever goodie I offer up (like they've won first prize) and then I feel bad for all the late comers cause they don't get any.....dah "The early bird gets the worm!"


     Please pipe in anytime..can someone throw me a bone...LOL

      I was trying to figure out the purpose of this distinguishing feature made up of red, fleshy, wobbly skin that makes up the comb, waddle and ear lobe.  Thanks to the book Bambi gave me for my birthday I learned that they can not sweat and the only way their body cools off is with the help of blood that pumps through this exposed skin.  As much as I love to snuggle them, as above, I should probably refrain from wrapping them tightly in furry blankets that could cause them to overheat LOL

Jan 3 2012

     To start the New Year off, I want to share 3 Great Books for any other enthusiastic chicken owners ...Of course the subject is obvious

• Carpenter, Novella. Farm City, The Education Of An Urban Farmer. 1st ed. New York, NY: Penguin                   Group USA, 2012. Print.

• Goldhammer, Catherine. Still Life With Chickens, Starting Over In A House By The Sea. 1st ed. New York, NY: Plume, 2007. Print.

• Lewis, Celia. The Illustrated Guide To Chickens. 1st ed. New York, NY: Metro Books, 2010. Print.

The grass is green, the oats are sweet, and we girls want to wish you all, a Stupendous New Year.