Change of address

Hey guys, I've moved! I started a new blog called Whistling Girls and Crowing Hens and you're welcome to join me there. So much has changed since I started blogging here that I felt it was time for a fresh start. I even switched blogging platforms, just for fun.  It's brand new, so there's not much going on yet, but I intend (yes, I am a well-intentioned blogger) to post much more regularly than I have here lately.

Goodbye Shack. It was a lot of fun.

Some bragging about our new tiny back forty retreat

A few months ago, Luc saw the cover of a gardening magazine I'd borrowed from the library. It had a picture of a cute garden shed and a headline about backyard retreats. Of course, the article was a dud, but the seed had been planted. Luc figured we could build a little cabin back in our woods and I thought it was a great idea, so we started browsing books and the interwebs looking for inspiration, and pricing out various options.

We figured out pretty quickly that there are a lot of people who would be happy to sell you a shed. Especially if you're not all that fussy about quality, appearance or price. Luckily, we found a company (Timely Touchups) that sells Amish-built structures in pretty much any configuration you want, for less than the cost of materials at Home Depot. Luc built all the windows, because we wanted wood windows, and we couldn't find them to purchase anywhere. We had to order the cabin as a kit, rather than completely built, because we were placing it back in the woods where a truck couldn't go, and with the 12:12 roof pitch it would have been too high anyway. The cabin rests on skids which are sitting on patio stones that we placed and levelled in advance.

Three weeks ago, our cabin arrived - the floor and walls were assembled and the roof trusses pre-cut. We hauled everything up to our site with my dad's tractor and a utility trailer. After many trips back and forth, and two days later, we started building. The whole thing went remarkably smoothly. It took a couple of weeks, but it's finished. Yay for small buildings (8 x 12, plus the porch)!

We've spent lots of time here just sitting and enjoying the woods in a way we never did before when we were only back here while walking. Sitting quietly allows you to hear and see things that you either miss or scare off when you're walking. Sitting here quietly at night is another experience altogether. The drought has enabled us to sit on our porch until well after dark without being pestered by mosquitoes - a very unusual state of affairs in this part of the world.

The cabin is so far unfurnished except for some folding lawn chairs. We intend to put in a bed, a table, a couple of chairs and eventually, a little wood stove. It is not within range of our wireless internet signal, so it is a true distraction-free zone.

Monday Forest photo: June 13, 2012

3:00pm 18C sunny

A fresh day - breezy and coolish. Just perfect for a nice long walk in the woods. Most of the new wildflowers this week are in the sunny open areas in the trails, rather than on the forest floor. It's too shady there now for flowers.

It seems pretty quiet here during the day (after the spring bird frenzy) , but at night we can hear all kinds of action through our open window. I don't even want to know what all those sounds are.

Oxeye Daisy

Red Clover

Sow Thistle

Hop Clover

Hairy Vetch

Canada Anemone

Monday Forest photo: June 4, 2012

3:30pm 16C overcast

A brisk day today. Especially for June, but we've had lots of stinking hot weather already and a bit of relief is welcome sometimes. Last night we had a bear in our backyard, so I was particularly aware of noises in the forest as I walked today. I didn't think I'd see any new flowers today, just because it's been cool and rainy and I was preoccupied, but a few caught my eye, regardless.

Arctic Skipper on Prairie Ragwort

Blue Flag Iris

New England Aster

Monday Forest photo: May 29, 2012

2:00pm 33C cloudy

Wow, what a scorcher! The air is thick and thunderstorms are threatening. I hope we get lots of rain. My walk was short today because this is mad dogs and Englishmen weather and I am neither. There are still a couple more days in May, but summer is in full swing.

Orange Hawkweed

There are a few new wildflowers this week. I was particularly excited to see the Lady's Slipper. I didn't notice it last year, but it is in a unique micro habitat on a hillside beside a little seasonal spring.

Swamp Buttercup

Large Yellow Lady's Slipper 

Seneca Snakeroot

Monday Forest photo: May 21, 2012

2:30pm 29C clear

Wow. It's summer all of a sudden. Most of the spring ephemerals have packed up until next year. There's an amazing scent of honeysuckle in the woods, but I have never actually seen any there. The biting bugs are out, but all that is necessary to avoid them is to keep moving, rather than any repellant or netting. For now. My next level of protection is to take a silly-looking ballcap with a fabric flap that covers your ears and neck, and spray it with Deep Woods Off. I'll wear that with a light coloured long sleeve shirt and that will do me until it doesn't, at which point I'll switch to long sleeves, long pants and a hat with netting attached. I'll admit that when the bugs get that bad, a walk in the woods just doesn't have the same appeal as it does now.

Red Osier Dogwood 

Forget-me-not

Broody Penny; or Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch

A couple of weeks ago, Penny began acting strangely. I noticed her chasing the other chickens away from the entrance to their coop, while fluffing up her feathers in a threatening display. Then she took up residence in one of the egg boxes and made weird noises when I approached. I evicted her, but she'd keep going back. Penny was broody! I figured I'd toss her out of the nesting box a few times and she'd forget about it, but Penny was determined.

Madeleine and I discussed the broody chicken problem and started joking that we might as well let her sit on her eggs, but the problem with letting her do that is that if no chicks hatch, she'd just keep at it. Without any resident roosters, we were unlikely to have any hatching. 

Not to be deterred by a simple lack of roosters, last Sunday (a week ago) Madeleine and I went begging at some neighbours where we had heard roosters crowing. They have a small flock of hens and two roosters and they kindly offered us 9 potentially fertilized eggs for Penny to sit on. We quickly prepared the chicken tractor for Penny's personal use so that she doesn't have to deal with nosy or jealous hens. Kind of like a home for unwed mothers. We told the others she'd gone to stay with an aunt in Toronto for a few weeks.

Once a day, or so, Penny descends to ground level to eat, drink and poo. I took advantage of her absence to check in on the eggs. The observant among you will notice that there are seven eggs, but we started with nine. One egg had a hole pecked in it within hours of being placed under Penny. The other completely disappeared - shell and all, by the next day. Penny had a guilty yolk stain on her face so we can only assume that she ate it. Bad bird.

When Penny comes down to do her business, she becomes the centre of attention. The others are very curious about what she's doing in there.

Penny spends a lot of her short break all fluffed up and warning off the others. Not that chickens normally display a lot of intelligence, but Penny seems to be operating on pure instinct these days. I hope her instinct will carry her through the next two weeks and beyond to caring for the chicks. That may be thinking too far ahead, given her record of egg destruction so far, but she appears to have settled in and no eggs have disappeared for several days.

June 3 is hatch day. I'll post an update - hopefully including pictures of cute little chicks.