Illinois...

[Faraday40]

My Neighbors:
Please keep all of my wonderful neighbors in your prayers. It is because of them that we have kept chickens these past 5 years. We live in a string of 5 houses that have double long yards. Our houses all blend in with the neighborhood in front, but the alley stops, so we have a big, secret, hidden parcel of land for our backyards.

My fav 96 yr old neighbor is now in a nursing home. She will not be returning home, but has not decided to sell her house yet. She moved there in 1945! (Hers is the biggest yard with a little over an acre. Developers have wanted that valuable land for decades.) My next door neighbor (like a grandma to my kids) decided that she's going to move into a senior community near her son. Then, I just got the news on Monday that the neighbor between them is now on Hospice. It really shook me up because we talked when she was out gardening 4 weeks ago! The last neighbor on my other side is an elderly single man who likes tinkering with his Model T Ford. He seems capable of caring for his property, has lived here since 1968, but I do not know his future plans. With 3 out of 5 houses going on the market, who knows if we'll get a new neighbor who dislikes poultry. That's all it would take to end our daughter's poultry science projects. If a developer buys all 3 properties, it could easily be made into 8 normal size yards. I know life changes, but it hurts to think of my friends / neighbors leaving soon.

My next door neighbor's health has been weakened and taking care of a whole house has been getting harder. She is more like family, so I know we'd still visit her. The other 2 neighbors are in their 90s. It's pretty hard for me to accept the upcoming changes. I love them more than I realized, so it really hurts. Please keep them in your prayers. They are all such wonderful women.

 

[Faraday40]

I took some orp pics today. These hatched June 17th. (Papas Poultry eggs from @Junibutt)

Blue Buff Colombian (project bird)
Still not sure if we're keeping her.

That hatch was raised by 2 diff broodies. This group of 4 (from broody "Cookie") is especially tight.

"Mr Wonderful" waiting hopefully on the treat chair.

My sweet silver laced pullet

I really love these two!!!!

The blue laced & black/lav split were from broody "Trouble's" group. Likewise they are also always together. These two are not yet very people friendly but they sleep with the big girls and have a higher status in the flock. (Cookie's babies still act like "babies." They follow ME around like chicks & are afraid to go anywhere near the adults.

The blk/lav is beginning to shine.

My blue laced orp. I plan to breed her to my roo next spring & hope to see some nicer lacing.
What do you think?

 

[Faraday40]

Here are a few more non-orpington pics

DS's "Chizzy"
She's rough & tough like her owner. The missing comb (from a amorous cockerel) has healed into a shark fin. She now looks like a chicken version of a junkyard dog. She's fearless & runs around the place looking for adventure.

DD's spoiled silkie strikes a pose. She's the complete opposite of Chizzy in personality. This one walks out of the run & cries out to be carried.

Wendy the Welsummer laying an egg. (She looked rather surprised by the interruption.)

Penciled rock

 

[Justso]

Thanks for all the wonderful pictures!

 

[Faraday40]

Thank you. Things looked so beautiful on Thurs/Friday before the storm.....and what a storm we got!

Our neighbor who was put on Hospice on Monday, just past away Friday night around midnight. I'm pretty shaken up about it.

Yesterday was a very sad & difficult day for many reasons. The sky opened up & we had T-storms, periods of hard rain, and nonstop rain from Fri night through this morning. Our big dog got sick & we have Poop-Armageddon. (Floors, walls, dog blankets, poop soaked fur, etc.) Our sewers backed up from tree roots, so the bubbling black-water is popping up through the lower level shower & floor drain in the laundry room. This means that we can't use water or it will just be flushed back up into the lower level of the house. We finally saved up $ to get our line rodded & made an appointment for Monday. (This was before all the rain & we didn't realize how severely slow the drain is.) We've been conserving flushes & not running showers, laundry, dishwasher, etc. We're a pretty stinky family. Add a dog with explosive diarrhea and the stench is incredible. We're washing floors & walls & dumping the buckets outside. Our other dog caught it, so he's adding to the excitement today. The coop/run was flooded for most of yesterday. Thankfully we have sand in the run, so the standing water has already drained, and no chickens were washed away. When I spoke with the neighbors to see how they were doing, they asked if we were building an ark. I jokingly said that my problem was having more than 2 of every animal. I gotta keep laughing or I'll cry.

The solutions are almost here. With the rain stopped, we washed the dogs outside with the hose and I cooked them up some rice. The plumber comes tomorrow at 8am. The sub-pump is ejecting every 2 min (last night it was every 9 seconds!). With the decreased activity, we can at least wash up in the sink and do dishes by hand. Today we'll be doing a lot of clean up. (I'm so thankful it's on a weekend, so DH & the kids are here to make the work go faster.)

 

[Molpet]

ack!! Faraday40 seems like it all goes on at once... prayers

 

[cavemanrich]

@Faraday40
Despite ALLLLLLL the bad, you still have a spark of humor left. The winner is not being able to take only 2 of every animal........ Probably goes back to chicken math. I'm glad Noah didn't have it. We would have encountered way fewer species left. The chickens were probably the last animals loaded on board, or they flew on board on their own. Unnoticed.
Here by my hacienda we did get just as much rain as you. Parts of the back yard were flooded. Water drained now. I ALWAYS WANTED AND STILL WANT A SMALL FISH POND. Last night would have been "PRISON BREAK" if I had one. My chickens are in a different part and on higher elevation. With my tarp sun shades, their run area is mostly dry. Some of the moist areas which always get wet during any rain are bringing out some welcomed treats... WORMS
Wishing you and everyone else the BEST with the "post storm issues"

 

[Faraday40]

@Faraday40
Despite ALLLLLLL the bad, you still have a spark of humor left. The winner is not being able to take only 2 of every animal........ Probably goes back to chicken math. I'm glad Noah didn't have it. We would have encountered way fewer species left. The chickens were probably the last animals loaded on board, or they flew on board on their own. Unnoticed.
Here by my hacienda we did get just as much rain as you. Parts of the back yard were flooded. Water drained now. I ALWAYS WANTED AND STILL WANT A SMALL FISH POND. Last night would have been "PRISON BREAK" if I had one. My chickens are in a different part and on higher elevation. With my tarp sun shades, their run area is mostly dry. Some of the moist areas which always get wet during any rain are bringing out some welcomed treats... WORMS
Wishing you and everyone else the BEST with the "post storm issues"

I know what you mean about "prison break." As a kid, my dad made a fountain. We kept feeder fish in there & I loved it! Boy did they grow! Every winter we had to get bigger tanks. Sometimes when they got too big, we simply gave the 4-6" fish back to the pet store. I do however remember finding some dead little fish in the lawn after big storms. Ick!

Things are starting to dry out. The chickens seem fine, but probably a few more days until dust bathing.

My niece from IN is visiting us for her Bday. I got crafty & made her a card.
Below's my masterpiece.

I watercolor cardstock, then emboss it for the cover backgrounds. I like to do paper quilling and then add other misc. embellishments - like Ribbon & Chicken feathers of course! I'm not always as creative with the insides, but this particular card was all about the folding & math.

 

[cavemanrich]

The personally made cards come with meaning and ...
On the subjects of ponds and fish tanks, this is my story. Well, no pond as of yet, but used to keep aquariums. Kept a painted turtle for many years. Built a special attachment for top of tank. Kind of a patio where he/she could crawl onto and park. Placed food there. Turtle would take food off deck and eat it in the water. Climb up again and do same until dinner was thru. Turtles are kind of messy eaters, so there was quite a bit of food floating around in the water afterwards. My solution to that was fish to pick up the scraps. I kept native fish that I caught locally. Sunfish, bluegill, and bullhead. I was the only one in town with such fish in home aquarium. I did not need a heater since fish did fine in room temperature water. Tropical fish do need heat for the obvious. I ran 2 power filers to keep tank really nice and clean. The forced jet flow of discharge also aerated the water. Decommissioned my tanks but still have them in storage for anyone that would want them. I never just throw stuff away if it is still good.
In my pond (hopefully soon) I would keep those same native fish. I catch them on a hook with the barb filed off. That is how I would always do fishing with my children. We only catch and release. Afterwards we went for fillet-a-fish at McDonald's. The fish are removed with minimal effort and injury. For winter I would release them back to where I caught them. It is appropriate to do except with carp. I would not keep those. Next spring, I would go fishing again. Need to keep fish in a pond to avoid mosquito propagation. Fish will eat the larvae. I also would keep some water plants that I could get locally. Trial and error.

 

[Faraday40]

The personally made cards come with meaning and ...
On the subjects of ponds and fish tanks, this is my story. Well, no pond as of yet, but used to keep aquariums. Kept a painted turtle for many years. Built a special attachment for top of tank. Kind of a patio where he/she could crawl onto and park. Placed food there. Turtle would take food off deck and eat it in the water. Climb up again and do same until dinner was thru. Turtles are kind of messy eaters, so there was quite a bit of food floating around in the water afterwards. My solution to that was fish to pick up the scraps. I kept native fish that I caught locally. Sunfish, bluegill, and bullhead. I was the only one in town with such fish in home aquarium. I did not need a heater since fish did fine in room temperature water. Tropical fish do need heat for the obvious. I ran 2 power filers to keep tank really nice and clean. The forced jet flow of discharge also aerated the water. Decommissioned my tanks but still have them in storage for anyone that would want them. I never just throw stuff away if it is still good.
In my pond (hopefully soon) I would keep those same native fish. I catch them on a hook with the barb filed off. That is how I would always do fishing with my children. We only catch and release. Afterwards we went for fillet-a-fish at McDonald's. The fish are removed with minimal effort and injury. For winter I would release them back to where I caught them. It is appropriate to do except with carp. I would not keep those. Next spring, I would go fishing again. Need to keep fish in a pond to avoid mosquito propagation. Fish will eat the larvae. I also would keep some water plants that I could get locally. Trial and error.

Cool. It seems like we're related. LOL As a kid I used to catch fish (with a net) at the pond. I often brought the bluegills, crayfish, & sometimes snails home for the fountain (or aquarium) because they were my favorites. If they got along, they got to stay. Once we had a naughty little crayfish that tried to catch our big fish. His hopes were much too high as he'd go tail surfing every time he grabbed a big goldfish by its fin. Most of the crayfish would stay at the bottom, but that one had to go. Also any fish that were not a compatible size. I never really did much fishing with hooks, but I have several amusing stories from the few times I tried.

In college I still kept my trusty nets in my car's trunk because you never know when you might come across something fun, right? I became a science teacher & married an electrical engineer. He hates camping & believes nature is too messy. He prefers a/c and grew up eating veggies from a can & vacationing in hotels. I no longer have a net in my trunk, but our back screened room is filled with seasonal critters. The kids are a pretty good blend of loving nature and computer programming. As far as DH, he has grown to appreciate what real food tastes like and even brags about our gardens & chickens. (He just doesn't do any of the care.)