First Day of 1st Grade

 Logan is now 45 pounds and 44 inches tall!

Back to School

Logan and Rudy (best buds)! I think Nick said it best, "they imagine well together". 

Turkeys vs. Watermelon

I have discovered how much turkeys LOVE fruits! You can hear Logan asking where Bob is, she is the other chicken that lives with the turkeys. You can see Phillip (named by Lauren) who was sent with the meat chickens but ended up not being a meat chicken (egg layer). Listen closely for the sounds of eating!

Yup, I'm making them again!

 I couldn't fight the urge. I make the base out of pepper tree branches and use either zip ties or hot glue gun to attach the goodies.

 One of the girl turkeys is REALLY curious about everything. So here she is investigating the camera. I have little bruises on my scalp, rump, feet and anywhere there is a mole or freckle. 

I like this picture because the only way that you can tell that there are 2 turkeys in the picture is that there are 4 legs. The girls are very intrigued with the boys rear end every time he fluffs up like this. Do you think she can get any closer?

Boys and Girls and Wilson!

 Ok, so here are the boys and the girls. There is an extra chicken int he 1st picture with the farthest turkey and Wilson is in the 2nd picture.

I had to give you a shot from this end! This one is for you Lauren!

From the garden in early August

 Brandywine tomatoes

 Zucchini & Patty Pan squash

Spaghetti squash and my favorite Strawberry Corn (for popping)

Turkey's in a heat wave!

I can't tell you how difficult it was to keep these guys cool during our heat wave.  During the early day  we tarped part of their coop so that there was no direct sun light, they had ice in their water and a mister with a fan. At about 2pm (hottest part of the day for them) I would let them out so they could find a cool spot. One day I couldn't find them, here is where I eventually found them, they were being incognito under some tomato plants!

Swallowtail Butterfly

Last year Logan and I discovered these caterpillars on our fennel plants. Nick googled them for us and we discovered that they turned into the swallowtail butterfly. Fennel grows wild all over San Diego County so it is pretty hard for us to get anywhere because we stop at every fennel plant to check for these guys. The swallowtail butterfly is endangered so we collect them and let them hatch in the safety of our living room. After they have come out of the cocoon they take a few hours to gain enough strength to try out their new bodies then we release them!

I try to keep up with a natural light cycle for them so in the evenings we carry their box outside so it can get dark naturally. We also have a collection of tomato worms that we feed to the lizard and the turkeys. One day the male turkey broke onto the deck (where he is not allowed) and completely raided the tomato worm habitat, I was grateful he left the swallowtail cocoons alone!

July 2012

Logan watching the sunset on the hammock swing.

tomato jungle

sunflower has yet to open

spaghetti squash

Thornless blackberries

greenie beanies

popcorn 

This year I am have been trying to have some of my heirloom  veggies  go to seed. This is a beet from my winter  garden (notice in the bottom of the picture).  I am waiting for the seed to dry out so I can pull it.

Banana tree with a really crazy sunflower. Macadamia nut trees in the background.

We started our very own strawberry patch. Well, I can't say it is ours, it belongs more to the blue jays.

The tomatoes are coming. We planted A LOT of our favorites this year (pretty sure they are brandywine).

Our 1st time growing Paty Pan squash (scallop squash). They are amazing!

The jacaranda trees are in full bloom, you should see the ground!

Eggs hatching!

Step 1, Baby starts to peck from inside the egg.

Step 2, they peck in a circle all the way around the egg (sometimes the mama helps).

Step 3, they push the two parts of the egg apart. This whole process is not as fast as it looks, it can take up to 48 hours.

And there we have it! It looks kind of exhausting to me!

It's heating up!

There is a pretty nice pool on our property that Logan and I take  full  advantage of. Lots of swimming  for us!

Meat Chickens in their first few days. They were so cute, I couldn't even imagine . . . but then they ate, and ate, and ate, and ate, and ate, and wouldn't stop eating. They were growing at such an alarming rate that we had to take their food out at night so that their skin didn't split. Lucky me, we got hit with rain on and off during the 5 weeks that we had these guys. Rain was probably one of the hardest things, let me explain why. These little eating and pooping machines are not genetically engineered but selectively bred to grow at an astounding rate. One of the parents is a Cornish Hen and the other a Plymouth Rock, in the meat industry these little guys are called Cornish X's (crosses). Most of them, if left to live their natural life won't make it past 12 weeks, prime time for processing (I still haven't come across a word I like for it). Because of their rate of growth their body does not have time to digest fat deposits around the heart. Back to the rain, as we started approaching week 2 I was getting a little nervous watching them put on weight. They would sleep at the food dish and were only able to stand for minutes at a time before needing to take a break and sit down. They spent so much time sitting down that they had no feathers on their underside, it was pink! I learned from my reading that sores on their bellies were the number 1 reason they died. With the rain and how much they pooed it was a daunting task to make sure their living quarters were dry. At times I was in their coop up to 3 times a day scooping poops! Some storms were so bad that I just gave up and carried them all in (in trips that is) into the laundry room for the night, I just through newspaper and wood shavings on the ground and shut the door. I must have looked pretty funny in my rain jacket and boots carrying loads of  fat chickens in laundry baskets. The weeks went on and they grew and grew and grew . . . it was shocking how much they grew. We became very aware that it was not quantity of life for these guys but quality, so we allowed them out in the evenings to free range a little. That was pretty funny tho, 10 feet from the coop was a real adventure for them, they would just lie down and peck at all grass and bugs they could reach from there. The 3rd picture is me holding one of them at week 5. My neighbor and I would stand at the coop during the day and just laugh because when one of them wanted to get somewhere in hurry it sounded like horse hoofs on the ground.
To be continued . . . I am getting tired just writing this story!