Setting your intention for a simple day

A leisurely breakfast of boiled eggs, which I get daily from my chooks, tea and toast and I'm ready for the day. Taking time in preparing a meal, no matter how simple, is one of the great pleasures I enjoy every morning.

I normally rise at around 4am and, with a steaming cup of coffee in hand, check my e-mail, connect with all my blogs I read and spend some time on FaceBook, catching up with family and friends. Around 6am it's time to open for my chooks and let them into the garden, fill all the bird feeders and do a quick survey of the garden to see if there's anything special that needs being done. These times are for summer, in winter it happens a bit later! At about 7am, a hot bath and getting ready for the day. Breakfast follows at around 9am, after which I'm ready to tackle all the necessary tasks that fills one's day.

Spending quality time with yourself goes a long way to increasing peace and harmony. There are many ways one can achieve this. Sketching and painting is an important part of spending time with myself, as is gardening, tending to my animals and spending some time in nature. We have enough everyday pressures of tending to a business, shopping, picking up kids from school and looking after a family, so it's important to look after yourself first in order that you can give your best to the rest of the world. Set your intention early in the day and life will be much simpler.

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A melt-down and a broken heart

I've had a melt-down. And I've got a broken heart. And so have my girls.

First, the melt-down. My girls have absolutely ruined my garden! In about two years they've reduced it to a barren landscape with all but a few of the hardiest plants gone. GONE! My prized Echeverias, which I started with just a few plants given to me by my dad shortly before he passed away in 1990, and which had grown into beautiful specimens which I had in various parts of the garden, are all but annihilated.

The same area as above before the girls arrived.

I've managed to rescue a few of my Echeverias and planted them in a basket and placed them in my bathroom court-yard garden. Hopefully they will recover to their previous glory.

Where there used to be a thick carpet of ground covers, now there's only dead leaves and a big mess. Not that Missy minds, she's quite happy to relax there with Artemis close-by, blissfully unaware of my melt-down.

Kiep takes time out on the rock just behind Missy.

Now for the broken heart part. I'm broken-hearted because I've banned the girls from the garden. Locked up in the chicken run. No more chickens happily doing what chickens do, scratching and foraging in the garden. Having gorgeous sand baths, chasing after grasshoppers and other bugs. One thing I must say, my garden is totally bug-free - no cut-worm, no fruit beetles, no plant lice. In fact, no anything. But I'm not so sure that's entirely a good thing either. I haven't seen a lady bug or a praying mantis for absolute ages. My lizard and frog population has also suffered tremendously. NOTHING is safe from these bug-devouring lovelies!

"Why, oh WHY can't we come out?!" In stead of scouring the grass for insects, the girls would spend hours at the gait, waiting for me to open up.

ChiChi and Snookums, who grew up in my studio, are totally puzzled with this new development. They've never been locked up and cannot understand what's going on.

A couple of months ago, I did start some landscaping inside the run and I presume that, shortly, there will also be nothing left of this.

Now, as I see the matter, I have three or four choices. One is that the girls stay locked up in the run forever. FOREVER! Or I can reduce the population and only keep three or four (that's not likely to happen!). Another option is that I adapt the garden to suit the girls - no beautiful, colourful borders, no tender Echeverias and give up my love for insects and all the other garden visitors.

Hmmmmmm... Decisions, decisions....

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We all have one

Everybody that I know that keeps chickens has one. You know, one of those chickens that's a totally peculiar character and virtually NOTHING like all the other chickens.

And I certainly have one. Or two. We all know each hen (and rooster) has their own character and is unique in their own way, with their peculiar little habits and ways that endear them to us so.

But Chicky-Boo certainly tops the lot. She has bright, intelligent eyes and a lovely loving nature, but she is the 'glutton' of the family. When I'm dishing out snacks, she's always first in line, snatching. Snatching from my hand, snatching mid-air, snatching from the other hens' mouths and running around in a frenzy, picking up as many snacks as she can.

Chicky-Boo (on the left) risking even the wrath of the normally placid Doris, who never interferes with anybody. 

In the garden she will follow somebody closely and as they get ready to zoom in on an insect or some tasty morsel, she would fly in, getting there first and gobbling it up.

A stunned and amazed Artemis watches as Chicky-Boo rushes off with the bread he was busy eating. 

This behaviour has not endeared her to the other chickens. She's ended up at the bottom of the pecking order, often having to flee as one or other hen attacks her.

But maybe she was at the bottom of the pecking order all along, learning that she's got to be quick if she wants to get any food at all. As a baby, she was one of the hens with Fowl Pox that I was treating inside for a few weeks. She recovered really well, and once I returned her to the flock, maybe her absence for such a long time caused her to be the 'outsider'.

Even with her crop filled to bursting, she keeps a close eye on me for more. 

And sometimes I'd get worried as she would just keep on eating and eating. As long as there is food, she would eat, until her crop would be huge and extended. Can't be good...

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A Sunday morning reflection

It's a beautiful summer's day, sun shining brightly and all my girls are contentedly scratching in the garden, silently being watched by Artemis, who has quite a time keeping them all together where he can see them. Kiep, for one, was obscured by the Asparagus Fern, much to his consternation.

Let me introduce you to my flock. Artemis is my Bantam Rooster, who takes his job of looking after the girls very seriously. Kiep, who grew up in my studio freshly out of the egg, is Artemis's lady of choice and she makes this quite clear to the rest of the flock, exercising her right as top-of-the-pecking-order hen by choosing the best perch next to Artemis at night, after which the rest of the girls are allowed to settle in and sort themselves out.

Artemis

 

Next in line are Hettie, Missy, Snooky, Micky, Snookums and Chi-Chi, my baby. They all have a pecking order amongst themselves, with Hettie taking the lead and little Chi-Chi staying well out of everybody's way.

 

 

Hettie

Missy

 

Snooky

Micky

 

Snookums - who loves laying her eggs in my Studio

Chi-Chi - the youngest of the flock

I surveyed my garden. Oh my, no colour and lots of empty patches - 12 chickens are wreaking total havoc, and I don't know HOW they are capable of up-rooting and destroying large areas of Hen & Chicks - there's nothing left of the above plant, just a few roots... The Asparagus Fern is one of the few plants they seem to leave alone. And, of course, the bigger shrubs.

 

One thing my girls love best after chasing insects, is grazing, on the lawn. Which is now just starting to recover from winter and turning green, so the next best thing is anything tender growing in the garden.

 

 Luckily the hydrangeas also escape their attention and these are now displaying the last of their faded flowers, which I picked this morning, first for the vase and then, later, for drying.

I've been getting plenty of eggs despite the hot weather, 5 or 6 every day from 7 hens, and Kiep is broody and is walking around clucking disgustedly at the lack of eggs in her nest.

Not only is the garden depleted of all flowers, but also all insects! I don't know whether that is good or bad, all I know is I miss seeing praying mantids and ladybugs... Because of the wet conditions, the chooks seem to spend a lot of time on the patio, or maybe they're just patio-lovers or like to be close to me when I sit outside having a cup of coffee!

 

Artemis stepping out on the patio

And the muddy conditions, after some much needed rain, is taking it's toll on the white hens - all of them are more brown than white. Time to give the girls a bath! But not today, today is just for reflecting...

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Season's Greetings! 2013

Camera : Canon EOS 550D

My chooks taken in my garden (Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa)

Background texture by Kim Klassen
Edited in MS PowerPoint

We have never had snow over Christmas in South Africa (not that I can remember anyway), but I’m sure if we did, my chooks would be absolutely thrilled!

May you have a wonderful festive season with friends and loved ones this year!

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