Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Grandma The Chicken]

No Thirsty Thursday but it has been a while since you've all seen Mozzarella. Here are photos. Let's take a break from Grandma for a bit. Sorry Grandma. We still love you. Just give Moxie her time to shine.

 

[ManueB]

Some if the added challenge is the terrain. Rough mountains, pine trees, lots killed by pine beetles, and regulations preventing roads getting into the roughest parts to remove most of the dead wood. Even a lightning strike can and will start fires under those conditions and with all the fuel available, get too big/too strong to do anything about before anyone knows its there.

Montana, for instance, has a total area of 147,040 sq mi (380,800 km2). For reference, the British Isles, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles (Orkney and Shetland), and over six thousand smaller islands. (From Wikipedia) have a TOTAL area of 315,159 km2 (121,684 sq mi). That's 25,000 sq mi (60,000+ km²) more land than the British Isles, at least 1/3rd of which is rough mountain blanketed in evergreen forest.

British Isles population 71,891,524 (2019)
Montana population 1,122,867(2022)

That's a population density of 7.09/sq mi (2.73/km2) vs 216/km2 (559/sq mi) for the Isles. That's a lot or turf to cover. Add in how rough the terrain is, the sparseness of roads to access, and how dry it is....lighning is just as likely as human cause for fires in the back country (inaccessible).

This is the season for thunderstorms. ANY storm coming through now carries a high chance of lining with it....and lasts until mid Sept/frost, whichever happens first.

That is just Montana. The entirety of the Rocky Mountains is like that. Alberta (due north, half Rockies) is also burning....again....in the back country. Area there: 661,849 km2 (255,541 sq mi)
Population: 4,368,370. Population density: 6.82/km2 (17.7/sq mi).


Any way you look at it, wildfires, compounded by dead forest (and not being able to clean it out for whatever the reason) make for big problems. On the plus side, many of the coniferous evergreens don't open the cones unless toasted by fire. Trees die and species don't regrow unless the area has been torched by fire first. It's devastating in the midst of it, but is cleansing, and renewing in the aftermath. They went through that with the fires of 1988 that burnt so much of Yellowstone National Park. Afterwards, they had tree species growing that hadn't been seen in the Park in 30 years.

Rant over.

TaxView attachment 3900985

Actually, this should probably have several pics
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Yes this is correct, many coniferous species require fire to open the seeds. The summer the the big fires in Fort McMurray did so much damage, that winter was very mild, if we had 4” of champs on the ground that was it. There were hardly any days under -10C.

The fires started just after I headed home from being on a project all winter.

The next September I once again headed back there and was gobsmacked at the amount of forest burnt - it was equally terrifying and awe-inspiring.

But the most amazing thing was the Poplar saplings that literally sprang up that summer they were already 4’ high! Burning the forest opened the land to sunlight allowing saplings to burst forth. Over time they will die off and be replaced by black spruce and hemlock. It’s a cycle that has happened for millions of years.

The problem now is that it’s happening more often and lasting longer. And it’s drier, and hotter.

Did you know that fire can smolder for years underground in the muskeg? Many fires start that way here in Canada, and lightning and human started also.

Hot topic tax

I don’t know if she is singing or drinking

Baby Betty
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Thank you both for those informative posts. I didn't have the global picture and it does seem very different from what happens here where 85 to 90% of fires have a human cause.
(Although I just saw in the news that Chico's fire in CA is criminal ).
I realise what rough terrain can mean. My brother is a volunteer firefighter / rescue in one of the mountain valleys across us and he says sometimes it can take up to a day for the foresters to clear them an access to the fire zone, and that's with surfaces that are so much smaller than on the north american continent. It's one of the main reason we mow and clean up dead wood on our steep land and we help my parents with theirs too.

Farmers here had a tradition we call ecoburning, burning the mountain grazing land for the sheeps to clear some of the bad weeds, and now the foresters also do controlled burning in the forest, for the reasons you mention. Ecoburning for farmers is completely illegal now but some of the old-timers still do it and regularly someone loses control of the fire because the weather conditions and the wind have become much more difficult.

Putting your feet in the water you are drinking adds flavor don't you know.

When I posted this pic on my thread, @BDutch informed us that the deutsch have a dedicated name for that : cheesy-toe taste .

Out of subject fluffy butt tax :

I'm so glad Piou-piou has got some of her fluff back after a year being almost naked from plucking her feathers!

Mélisse

Léa

 

[Marie2020]

Princesd wishes everyone a good morning. She said that she's loving this weather so far

 

[Ponypoor]

Cant wait for Fluffy butt friday!!

Like this ?

 

[Ponypoor]

Princesd wishes everyone a good morning. She said that she's loving this weather so far
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Good morning/ afternoon Marie, princess and pusscat

 

[Ponypoor]

It seems to be a lavender feather. Just 1.

Nice! I love it! It’s a beauty mark

 

[Ponypoor]

Ouch!!! !!!

Yep she pecked me eye from the side behind my glasses!

 

[rural mouse]

Thank you both for those informative posts. I didn't have the global picture and it does seem very different from what happens here where 85 to 90% of fires have a human cause.
(Although I just saw in the news that Chico's fire in CA is criminal ).
I realise what rough terrain can mean. My brother is a volunteer firefighter / rescue in one of the mountain valleys across us and he says sometimes it can take up to a day for the foresters to clear them an access to the fire zone, and that's with surfaces that are so much smaller than on the north american continent. It's one of the main reason we mow and clean up dead wood on our steep land and we help my parents with theirs too.

Farmers here had a tradition we call ecoburning, burning the mountain grazing land for the sheeps to clear some of the bad weeds, and now the foresters also do controlled burning in the forest, for the reasons you mention. Ecoburning for farmers is completely illegal now but some of the old-timers still do it and regularly someone loses control of the fire because the weather conditions and the wind have become much more difficult.

When I posted this pic on my thread, @BDutch informed us that the deutsch have a dedicated name for that : cheesy-toe taste .

Out of subject fluffy butt tax :

I'm so glad Piou-piou has got some of her fluff back after a year being almost naked from plucking her feathers!
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Mélisse
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Léa
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The ecoburning there is called controlled burns here, and is allowed during certain times of year with weather conditions getting met. In the areas that are somewhat accessible (dirt tire tracks with lots of bumps and holes), the forest service (responsible for managing the wooded areas of public lands, issuing permits to use those lands which includes cutting firewood and mushroom hunting) will go in and build piles of brush to be burned usually during fall, close to winter so the weather helps keep it under control. In dry years like this, the burns don't happen at all. With so much remote land, it can take much longer for ground crews to get in to fire ares to work on clearing to bare dirt. We also have "smoke jumpers". These are wildfire fighters who parachute in from airplanes, fight the fire, and hike out. Highly dangerous, but needed for those remote areas. They usually have "hotshots" working their way in to link up with the smoke jumpers, both of which work closer to wildfires than most of the other crews.

Ranchers and other large property owners (and their employees) tend to be part of the civilian volunteer crews helping with fires especially when the fire is threatening part of their land. They're also frequently first ones to join in Search and Rescue, looking for lost/missing hikers, hunters, campers.

Fish, Wildlife, & Parks is a branch within the Forst Service who deals with the animals. They set the regulations each year on how many (and how big in some areas) fish and birds of each species can be caught in a day, how many tags are allowed for each species of deer and other large animals. For the rarer ones (like moose, bear, bighorn sheep), drawings are held because more people want to hunt them than the population levels will handle. FWP handles that and when each land can be accessed. I talked to one member of the Forest Service yesterday. He said they're getting ready to close lands for something (camping I think) because of fire dangers.


Ok, tax time/fluffy butts

The junior crew came up by the house

Tuff isn't cooperating on the angle, but Mera and Blurr are working around him....and Mera's providing instruction on how to ignore/evade him. Primula...not so much.

Twirp is looking fiiiine!

Tuff, is still not cooperative, but definitely likes putting his head inside things to crow.

Blurr, demonstrating her name, has a good profile.

Jane, also profile.....they've been taught well on avoiding rhe pic I'm going for.

See? PITA, Havoc, and Cardhu all avoiding the pics.

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

This girl right here, this innocent looking angel.

This girl is now infamous at the vets after her last visit 5 weeks ago.
She will not under any circumstance allow us to clip or dremel her toenails. We have tried it all, muzzle, at home sedation to the point of thinking we overdosed her and nope not having it. They do not wear down properly either. When the vet was out for the yearly shots and coggins on the horses he went ahead and gave her the yearly shots and rabies. We explained the toenail situation to him and he just tried to pick up a foot to look and nope not having it. He scheduled her right away to be brought in to be put under sedation the following Tuesday.
We show up and explain what she was being dropped off for. Told them we could not touch her toes no matter how hard we tried. The vet techs gave us a few skeptical looks like they did not believe us. We forgot to mention microchipping when we dropped her off. The receptionist told us they could go ahead and do it before they brought her out. Hah, she comes back 2 minutes later and says she was grouchy and if it was ok they would do it next time she was in for her nails. We also had to go in the back to get her as she was hateful.
2 days later the vet who actually has property above us that he is logging stopped to talk to me as I was walking her. He wanted to know how she was doing and was she sore. I casually mentioned the hateful remark and he started laughing and said they didn't tell you did they.
Miss CeeCee made a name for herself, and not in a good way. They sedated her, or so they thought. When the clipper touched the first nail she came out of it, and came out fighting. She took another full dose and they waited 30 more minutes to make sure she was fully knocked out before they attempted again. There was no way there were going to attempt to microchip without her under.
This morning Keeper is being neutered and CeeCee is back for another nail trim and microchipping. The minute we walk in the door one of the techs said here comes the grizzly bear disguised as a polar bear. Mom started to remind them she needed extra sedation and they were all like "we know, double the dose and make sure she is OUT before we touch her. Pray for us."
It's finally happened after having dogs and cats all my life. I finally have one of red flag labeled animals at the vets.

Tax.

 

[SimpleJenn]

@RebeccaBoyd it's rough having an infamous dog haha. Fenix is super cute and fluffy, but he nips. So we have to muzzle him. The vet always complains because "he's so cute! Little teddybear that bites us!" He likes to give them free fecal samples too

"I'm a bitey boy!"