Cluck, Cluck, Buzz, Buzz (and whatever a hummingbird says)

Cluck, Cluck, Buzz, Buzz (and whatever a hummingbird says)

May 10, 2011, 5:57 am
Filed under: Bees, Chickens

Hello, friends!  I hope the springtime is treating you all well.  As Mark pointed out, I am a bit “backblogged,” and there is quite a lot happening in the backyard these days. 

The chickens are 10 weeks old, and what big beautiful birds they are!  Moxy is just gorgeous, with her puffy cheeks, her lovely feather pattern, and her big fluffy tail feathers.  She is still a bit skittish, but as long as she is with the other girls, she is pretty sure of herself.  I was a little worried that she might be a rooster, and though we’re still not 100% in the clear at this point, I’m pretty sure that she is every bit a lady.

Roxy is my favorite hands down.  She is so curious and brave and is always interested in what her human counterparts in the yard are up to.  She does give us the occasional love bite, but generally, she is such a sweet little thing.

Ginger is a regal chicken.  Probably, though not arrogantly, the queen of the henhouse, she is the smartest and most confident of all the chickens.  And SO pretty!

Cluck is one smooth bird.  Always calm, cool, and collected (until another bird gets the whole flock worked up), she seems to keep order among the ladies.  Here she is showing off her wings.

The girls are plenty big enough these days to spend some serious time exploring the yard.  They’re intrepid little ladies, though they do tend to travel as a flock, which is probably what has kept the cats from getting too close.  It also makes it pretty easy to herd them all back into the coop. 

While the chickens do love their time outside, the humans on the farm just don’t have the lifestyle to allow them to range free all day.  So, this weekend Mark and I built an extension off the front of the coop.  They have so much more room inside their run now.  We still need to paint it and level it off a bit better, but as DIY-projects go, we’re pretty happy with it, and the girls are loving the extra space! 

The bees have been in the yard for just about a month now, and they are thriving!  As of a week ago, they had built comb on nine bars.  The first six or seven filled with brood (eggs & larvae), and food for the brood.  And on the seventh bar, we found the queen!  That’s right!  She’s alive and well and laying up a storm.

Mark mustered up the nerve to take photos while I checked in on the hive.  We only have one bee bonnet, so he was a bit trepidatious.  In the end, though, I think he was amazed (and no doubt relieved) at how docile the bees actually are.  The truth is they’re just too busy building and maintaining their society to bother with us humans.  Take a look…

Click on the next photo to zoom in, and you can actually see what’s in the individual hive cells.  Fascinating!

Probably the most exciting news this time of year is that our favorite hummingbird has nested just outside our back door for the second year in a row.  We noticed her a couple of weeks ago rebuilding her nest in the same spot on the persimmon tree, and we’ve been keeping an eye on her ever since.  Last year we monitored the whole process, and Mark even witnessed the babies’ first flight.  We’re so thrilled to be able to watch it happen all over again.

She is a very trusting hummingbird…

with a beautiful nest (fun fact:  hummingbirds build their nests out of spider webbing, which allows the nest to expand as the baby birds grow)…

and a family on the way.  Don’t be fooled by the zoom; the eggs are each less than half an inch long, no bigger than jelly beans.

Here she is watching me check out her nest.

Well, that’s the update for now.  The veggie garden is coming along nicely and the fruit trees are looking pretty bountiful this season, but that, my friends, is the subject of another blog post. 

Until then, may you all dream of hummingbirds and honeybees!

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