Thursday, June 15, 2006
Babies babies everywhere!
We went to an animal swap meet earlier this month for a couple days. We sold Froot-Loop (our ferret) the first day which was very nice. I think he went to a good home, too. We also came home with over 100 birds: Guineas, chicks, ducklings and Muscovies.
I wanted to get some Indian Runner and Khaki Campbell ducklings, but no one there had any. So I had to settle with more Black & Blue Swedish and some Cayugas (I wanted some of these anyway) and a couple Crested. All the hatcheries around here sell ducklings for over $3 each . . . one wanted $3.45 each for the Indian Runners, Khakis, and Swedish and $3.65 each for the Cayugas, Crested and other 'exotic' ducklings. I got all my Swedish, Cayugas & Crested at the swap meet for $2 ea! And haven't lost one! (Yet, of course. When you're talking about little guys like this, anything unfortunate can happen.) Speaking of ducklings, we've got 2 duck hens sitting right now, and they should be hatching out soon!
I also got some Muscovy ducklings while we were there . . . 12 of them for $2 each, and 11 others for $1 each. I got a good mix of colors, too - black with white, blue with white, brown (cinnamon) with white and light brown (fawn) and white. It will be so fun to watch these little guys grow up!
Although I paid $2 for each of the guineas, I re-sold 8 of them for $3 each! So now the 16 I have left really only 'cost' me $1 each. That's one of the great things about going to the swap meets (and why they were called 'swap meets' in the first place!) . . . you can do this sort of thing! Along with the $1 Muskovy ducklings I also bought 3 'older' ducklings (Swedish) for $1 each and re-sold one of them for $3.
Of the over 100 birds I brought home, 80 of them were chicks. I got a couple kinds this year, and didn't pay more then 50 cents each for any of them! (They're over $2 each at the hatcheries.) I actually got 15 Silver Laced Wyandottes and 15 Dominiques for 12 cents each! That's a real WOW because both of these are considered 'exotic' breeds and are sold for $3 each (and up!) at hatcheries. The ones I got for 50 cents each are mostly Barred Rocks and Silver Laced Wyandottes, with a couple Cinnamon Queens, Sil-Go-Links and Aracaunas. Son 4 also got himself a chicken while we were there. It's a bantam pullet of some unknown breed and is probably close to full grown. (Bantams are what you'd call 'miniature' chickens.) I also bought a 2 yr. old hen (a Blue Cochin) from my sister. She said the hen likes to go broody, which is what I wanted and why I bought her. (Besides the fact I like Cochins a whole lot!) I don't like to incubate eggs unless I have to - I'd rather have a broody hen do it - they can raise the chicks, then too, which saves me having to do it. I do have a broody Barred Rock hen right now - when we got back this weekend, she was sitting on 6 eggs. (Ducks can be good setters and moms, too - but Guineas . . . that's another matter . . . they definately do better in the incubator.)
So far we've only lost 5 baby chicks. (Out of 80 that's quite good.) I really couldn't believe this little Silver Laced Wyandotte chick. I had it in the house for 3 days, and knew from the first that it wouldn't last. After the second day I found it laying belly-up in it's box with it's head in the water. I picked it up and it was still - dead, and not a surprise, I thought. So I wrapped it in toilet paper and put it in the trash. A couple hours later, the boys said they heard chirping noises from the trash . . . they took it out and it was NOT dead! So we put it back in the box and it managed to keep me up one more night with it's chirping before it died. It would've been great if we could've saved the little thing - call it 'Miracle' or something - but it's really no surprise it didn't make it. The only surprise was how long it stuck it out - it sure did have a will to live!!! Definately a case of 'the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak'!
The hens I have now are pretty much all Barred Rocks, and this is their second year, which means their egg production will be falling off from here on out. I really need to get some bands and a banding clamp at the feed store so I can band some legs of my birds. You know, maybe a different color for different years the birds were gotten/hatched. That way I'll always know how old any certain bird always is. (Also to mark the ones that go broody - I don't mind keeping them as they get older.) I also have some Aracauna types that are probably mostly around 4 yrs. old . . . they really need to go - I'm sure that at this point they lay so few eggs that they're probably not worth the feed they get!
My favorite chickens are (in no particular order) Silver Laced Wyandottes, Partridge Cochins and Light Brahmas. I really would have liked to get some Cochins or Light Brahmas this spring, but I didn't find any in my price range at the swap meet. -sigh- Oh well - there's always next year!
Next year I'd also like to get some 'different' chickens too - like some Cuckoo Marans or Welsummers . . . these two breeds lay wonderfully dark eggs. The Marans' eggs can get so dark they're called 'chocolate', and the Welsummer's eggs get dark like terra cotta. Wow! I'm really not sure which breed I'd go with. Unfortunately, the Cuckoo Marans look a lot like the Barred Rocks and Dominiques - but they are large and are considered a meat bird. Considering they're not prolific layers, maybe that should be the way to go. The Welsummer is a prettier bird, and is the kind that was on the Kellogg's Corn Flakes box - the 'classic' barnyard chicken. But with their large comb (freezes easier in a harsh winter) and their smaller size (than the Marans) they may not be what I should ideally get. Oh well, I've got a year to decide!
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Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Comparing Notes
Over at Peggy's Words of Simplicity blog, she asked the question: "You are going to be taking a weekend retreat alone to a comfy mountain cabin that already has a well stocked kitchen and all bathroom supplies in place. You only have room in your vehicle for 10 things. What would your 10 things be?"
Well, this isn't an easy question for me . . . first off, I've never vacationed alone in my life - Hubby and I (and usually the family) go together. It just wouldn't be the same without him. After all, he is my 'better half' and what good am I without my 'better half'? 
But, if I had this opportunity, I guess here's what I'd take:
- a package of Chips Ahoy for the drive there and home
- a gallon of peppermint or spearmint tea
- my pillow
- extra comfey clothes and a nightshirt or flannel PJs (depending on the time of year)
- my Bible
- my sister journal & pens (My five sisters and I have a 'circle journal' going and I would take the journal I had for that month. Sometimes it's hard to find the time to write in them, and this would be an ideal opportunity.)
- a box of scrapbooking supplies to use in the journal
- a camera
- another book or two to read
- a good movie for the evening (To get my mind off the fact that Hubby's not there!)
I would have listed walking shoes also, but no need . . . that's what I'd wear in the first place! I thought it was interesting how many others said they'd bring their pillows along! I guess I'm not the only one who is partial to her own pillow!
In a way it sounds fun, but it sounds lonely too. I'm not really a "people person" but I just love being around my Hubby. He's the one person in the world I don't ever feel the need to 'get away from' or 'have a break from'!
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Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Summer has arrived
It's official. Summer has arrived. The guage for that around here is the arrival of the chiggers. How could I have forgotten about those nasty little bugs this year!? I ended up with several bites in unmentionable places this weekend and here I've been thinking . . . how could I have gotten so many tick bites in these places? I never found any ticks! Or maybe it was mosquitoes . . . but they just can't get to those places in the first place. Then, after two days, it finally dawned on me . . . CHIGGERS! Ahhhhh! Time to break out the powdered sulphur! I tell you, I think I must have about 100 bites or more . . . and I'm NOT exaggerating! (I'm itching as I type. Then again, with this many bites, I've about been itching all day long!) So, where to go from here . . . from now on, for the rest of the summer (until the first frost) I'll dust powdered sulphur over my ankles and legs. And if I'm going out to work for a while in the yard or garden, I'll even dust my waist area and my wrists/arms. It's the best deterant for chiggers that I know of and it really works, too . . . when you actually use it! I really need to formulate a natural itch-be-gone cream or balm to help with these itches, too!
About the sulphur - I got a bag of 'flowers of sulphur' about 6 years ago at our local feed store. It's a yellow powder and I keep a little tea strainer in it which I use to 'powder' up. It lasts forever - I've still barely made a dent in it. It does smell faintly of sulpher, but not bad at all - definately when you consider the alternative!
About chiggers - they are little, tiny bugs in the mite family - so small you can't even see them. When they bite, they secrete a substance into your skin which actually dissolves your cells. This 'mush' is what the chigger then slurps up. When I was a kid, people used to say that chiggers burrowed down into the skin and lived there until they died - and it would happen a lot quicker if you put nail polish on the bites. Well, that's just not true - but for some reason, the nail polish does seem to stop the itch . . . I wonder . . . a mental thing, maybe?
Any which way you look at it, I'd still rather have tick or mosquitos bites.
First, ticks. You can usually feel them crawling on you and get them before they actually bite. Durring tick season (spring till frost) if you're aware of little tickles that you'd normally 'automatically' itch, instead of itching there, just check it out. I seem to catch most of them that way before they ever get a chance to 'latch on' and bite. If you miss them that way, and they do 'latch on', it should start to itch very soon. They come off quite easily . . . if you do it right! Just pinch/grab it (lightly but securely) as close as possible to where it 'latched on'. Then give a sharp tug in the direction of it's body and it'll come out all in one piece. The trick is to do the whole thing quickly . . . they tend to come off easiest when you haven't messed with them. Maybe when you start messing with them they kind of 'hang on' more fiercely or something! It's also best to do it quickly so you don't have much time to think about what you're really doing! When we first moved here to the Ozarks, I was very paranoid about ticks . . . and was very squeamish about removing them, even from my boys. I remember our oldest was about 3 and had one latched on to the top of his head. Well, we heard that you shouldn't pull them off, so we tried several things we'd heard of to make it let go itself: vaseline, essential oils, a -very- hot nail head . . . nothing worked. Later we found out that these methods are really not good to try . . . the tick will end up dieing and then when you pull it off, the mouth-parts tend to get left behind in the skin. When that happens, then you have an extra-bad bite to deal with! (Trust me, I know!) So, with all this fuss, why would I rather have a chigger bite than a tick bite? Plain and simple - tick bites are smaller and don't itch for nearly as long, and you get fewer of them! You may wonder about Lyme disease and such . . . well, the good thing about Lyme disease (if there is a good thing) is that a tick has to be 'latched on' and feeding for 36 hours before it can start to transmit the disease. So . . . considering most tick bites start to itch immediately to just a couple hours after it attaches, it's easy to get them off before the danger period. Also a good reason to have nightly 'tick checks' with each other!
Second, mosquitoes. I must admit, mosquito bites come in a close second to chigger bites for me. The bites don't seem to bother my hubby nearly as much, but on me they swell up quite large and itch like crazy. When we were first married, my hubby told me that the bites would go away much quicker if I just didn't itch at all. So I tried that. I would put anti-itch stuff on the bites when they would begin to itch . . . and this went on for days! Finally I could stand it no longer and I itched them like mad . . . made them bleed . . . boy, did that feel good! Then they stopped itching. So I did an experiment after that . . . and found (with me, anyway) that my mosquito bites will continue to itch until I break the skin on the bite. So the sooner I do that, the sooner the itch will go away. I know that we have to deal with the West Nile virus now, and I have learned that the virus cannot be transmitted on the mosquito's first 'meal' - only on subsequent 'meals'. (And yes, only the females bite.) Once you get to know me, you'll find that I like to use natural things . . . so I use essential oils as insect repellants which work quite well with mosquitoes (and little to not at all with chiggers and ticks). They'll still buzz around you quite close, but they won't land and bite.
Chigger bites aren't like mosquito bites . . . breaking the skin on the bite doesn't help in the least . . . the bites will just seep a clear liquid, dry over, then itch again. It takes about a whole week for my chigger bites to stop itching. On top of that, they even leave little discolored areas on my skin where the bites were, which sometimes take months to disappear.
Well, enough about my disdain for chiggers. (I must admit, I cannot see why Yahweh created these three critters.)
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Sunday, June 11, 2006
Learning how to swim . . .
is so instinctive for baby ducklings. I think this is a wonderful analogy to compare our children to. I've heard so many christians say, "We should send our children to public school so they can be a witness." Ducklings are born with the ability to swim, but did you know that if they are raised without the mother, the babies will easily die from the water? You see, although they 'know' how to swim, their bodies do not yet produce the natural oils that will protect them from the water. When they stay in close contact with the mother, her oils transfer to the ducklings and keep them safe until their own bodies are able to produce the needed oils. Yahweh God has also provided our children with a source of oil to protect our children from the dangers of the world . . . He called that source 'Mothers'. Just as with the ducklings, our children's very lives are at stake and it will be us Mothers that are held accountable in the end. It's a good reason to homeschool - to keep your children close . . . give them the oil they need . . . and when they're older, they'll be all the stronger to face the world.
