Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Attack of the Killer Vegetables

“What are they?” squawked Hecky. “Where did they come from?” peeped Arriauna. “I saw Mom put them in here, so they can’t be bad,” offered Henny. “Let’s just freeze in position and see if they move,"whispered Queen B. The girls are very cautious about unknown things outside their area, but even more cautious when four odd shaped things are inside their run. Henny, the more mature levelheaded chickie girl advanced on one of the interlopers. Actually it was more like a canta-louper. I had placed a corncob, two cantaloupe slices, a cornhusk and a tomato inside the door of their run. At first they all ran to the opposite end, away from these unknown objects. Little by little they slowly came forward. Arriauna pecked at the cantaloupe, maybe drawn to the color similar to her own feathers. Queen B stepped on the tomato as she moved to pierce the green cornhusk with her beak. Henny and Hecky are always interested in stealing whatever Queen B has in her beak so those three darted and bobbed around for awhile. Later I saw the tomato had been reduced to a small dirt-coated blob. The cornhusk was in a zillion strips. The cantaloupes were history.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Fox Spies on The Girls

See Arriauna (orange), Hecky and Henny (black) in front of the eglu door, but safely in the run. See Mr. Fox (red and white with triangular face) sneaking closer from the upper left. One second later the girls spotted him and dashed into their eglu house. This photo was taken through the kitchen window screen.

I walked out to watch him from the top of the back steps. He was not frightened by my presence. We stared at each other for a few minutes. The girls (bless their dumb little hearts) came out of the eglu when they heard me talking to him. He sat and watched them for awhile. I told him to leave and moved toward him. He yawned! Finally he strolled away, stopping to pee on some weeds. He slowly walked to the back by the compost pile where he usually hops up on the hay bales surrounding it to scramble over the fence. This time he went not over the fence but into the Austrees. I saw him walking the labyrinth. He was not doing the path properly so I threw a handful of pebbles at him and he scampered out of sight which appeared to put him over the edge toward the creek. I was not confident that he had really gone so I stayed out there for awhile.

He's young and curious. I like him and wish we could all be friends BUT I know he would kill the chickies just for sport if not for food. His regular presence is foiling my simple plans to expand the chickie's foraging territory.

The intermediate solution is to plant a tray of grass to give them. I'll keep a couple going to alternate.

Friday, July 6, 2007

Deer at 7:30 am

(Disclaimer: The pictured deer is not the one I saw, who may not have been real he was so perfect. And of course, I never have a camera at the right time.)
The buck I saw was of noble bearing, walking slowly with stiff, sharp strides. Long straight leg bones punctuating each stride, thrusting through the hips, lifting his hide….oh the hide, tawny is of lions…too light, too yellow. This buck was dark tea amber, rich Mexican tooled leather brown, comfortably stretched vicuna cashmere brown, live animal gold. Neither a scar nor a whorl marred his healthy coat. Atop this graceful warrior was a rack of unnumbered points. It may have been 8 by Texas count (using each tip on both sides) or 4 by more modest woodsmen. Each branch of his crown rack was wrapped in thick velvet tinged in morning sunlight. He came from the creek and strode down the block, each step resisting the new asphalt where real earth used to cushion his hooves. At the corner he stopped to look back at me, who had slipped up to my front gate, then he turned right and continued his odyssey. I hope he went back to the creek through the yards and lanes in that direction.