TRIMMING AND CLIPPING IN BIRDLAND

MULTI-COLORED FEATHER TIPS, SWIRLING AROUND ME

IN BIRDLAND WE'VE BEEN SPOILED WITH THE MILD WEATHER. Yes, it's damp. Yesterday it rained the whole dang day. We went ahead and turned the furnace on, but it hasn't been cold enough yet, to warrant a fire in the wood stove. If we light a fire when it's above 30 degrees, we roast, and have to open windows to compensate. This is just as well, since we haven't yet replenished the wood pile for the winter. We have dipped a little into the frost zone, a couple of times, and the peonies, tomatoes, and most of the chrysanthemums are now brown and dried, waiting to be trimmed away to make room for next year's growth. The asparagus is a feathery bush of gold, and I need to cut that down too, and burn it, to keep the patch disease free. This year the wild asparagus that came up volunteer in the old pony pasture did much better than the tame asparagus by the grape arbor, so I want to make sure to tend to that patch, especially. 

CLOUDS AND JET TRAILS
PAINTED BY THE SUNSET

Earlier sundown means I drive home just before dusk, when the sky is still glowing but the earth is dark. I love the silhouettes of the farm-scape against the still bright sky, clouds and jet trails painted by the sunset. This is also chicken dark, and I have to hurry if I want to coop all the birds. About half the flock meekly follows the old rooster into the coop, clucking and scratching on the way. The others like to perch high in the apple tree, and look down over the aviary. They are getting picked off one by one. A few nights ago we lost another lovely Maran pullet. I counted one fewer in the morning, and found only her wing at the foot of the tree, spread like a beautiful fan with a deep brown pattern, a stump of bloody bone at the base. I used to hose the renegades out of the tree and shoo them into the safety of the coop, but now they perch higher up, out of my range, so yesterday before I let them out in the morning I clipped their wings, and not just figuratively. I grabbed my shears and went into the aviary, grabbing those who usually roost in the trees (mostly the bantams, which are lighter and can fly higher). Of course the old rooster didn't like me bothering his hens one bit, kicking me and stabbing at my legs with his sharp spur. I grabbed him and tossed him outside so I could attend to my chore.

He regained his dignity and began circling the aviary in concern, trying to get back in to rescue his fair ladies, as I grabbed them one at a time, and clipped their wings. You only need to clip the primary feathers on one wing; the resulting imbalance makes them incapable of effective flight (not that a chicken's flight is all that effective in the first place, but some of mine can clearly fly pretty well). They can still use their unbalanced wings to augment a jump of a few feet into the roosting tree in the aviary, but the tip top of the apple tree is now out of their range. A bird's wing is almost all feather. I wasn't worried about cutting flesh, but you do have to take care not to cut too low on the feather itself. First, check the underside of the wing to make sure the quill is white, not dark, almost black. A feather is living tissue and when it's growing, the quill is full of blood. The cutting, itself, is no problem if you can catch a chicken and stabilize the wing. I used my old hair cutting scissors. It was a windy day, and as I clipped a line of feathers from each bird, the wind swirled them around in the coop. It was like being inside a snow globe, multicolored feather tips swirling around me, then getting blown up against the chicken wire. It made a pretty picture against the brown, fall day. I finished my task and then opened the door to release them into the yard. The rooster checked them carefully and I watched them run toward their station under the lilac bush, to begin their job of scratching, picking, grooming, and carefully turning over mulch. 

I stood for a few minutes, enjoying the wind and the day and the now calm murmur of contented chickens scratching in the yard. Then I went inside to get ready for work.

Walk in Beauty, Work in Peace, Blessed Be.

RAIDING THE NEIGHBORS' TOMATO PATCH

Birdland is full of Fall.

BIRDLAND IS DAMP AND CHILLY AND FULL OF FALL. Leaves fall, walnuts fall, rain falls, temperatures fall. Night falls early and the day comes late. Last Monday I lay in bed and convinced myself that it was so dark when my alarm went off that surely it was time to set the clocks back again. It was nearing 7, and the sky was just lightening. But when I got up to check, instead of finding I had another hour to get ready for work, I discovered we still had a few weeks left of daylight savings time, and this morning I had to pay with my hopeful thinking by rushing to get ready for the day.

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but this year I just didn't have it in me to garden. Instead, I've been keeping my eye on the tomatoes at Barb and Dave's house. They have the best tomato patch with assorted varieties. Big, chunky salad tomatoes, summery grape tomatoes, sugary cherry tomatoes. I've invited myself over to help keep them picked, and they are very generous with their bounty. The vines always seem to be full of fruit in all stages of ripeness. We've been keeping an eye on the weather, too, hoping to strip the vines just before the first frost. This afternoon I received a frantic text from Barb, asking me to come by and pick. We're supposed to get our first frost tonight. I had told her about my method of ensuring a winter's crop: just before the frost, cut the vines and hang them upside-down in the basement. The vines die, but the green tomatoes slowly ripen, and we have red tomatoes into January. They tend to get a little wrinkled on the outer skin, but they taste at least as good, or better than, grocery store tomatoes. Barb told me she wasn't going to have time to harvest, so I should go and cut all I want. I picked up Ellis and his friends and drove to Barb and Dave's. Their oldest son was home with a cozy fire, and I popped my head in to tell him I was raiding the garden. “That's what it's there for,” he said. I raided the kitchen, too, for a salad bowl and some plastic bags, and first set about picking the red tomatoes, and there were plenty. I left a big bowl of all varieties on their counter, and we filled several bags to take home. Tomorrow we'll have fresh tomato soup.

The sun was setting and the air was crisp. The fruit was cold, too, and the chill was beginning to seep into our hands. The boys thought we had plenty of tomatoes, but the hard work was ahead of us. Barb and Dave's tomato patch has lovely wooden cages, pointed at the top, like tall pyramids, and painted green. The bushes grow tall into these cages, sometimes two plants together, so that big beefy tomatoes are intertwined with the cherry or grape tomatoes. Pulling out whole plants was impossible, so we began cutting off branches and piling them into the back of my car. The boys were glad when the car was finally full to the top, but the work was still not finished.

At home I drilled hooks under the basement stairs and bundled the branches together with string to hang from the hooks. I used to hang whole plants, roots and all, from ancient nails in the joists. It worked well, but the roots brought in a lot of dust, and the plants were so big that picking the ripe ones was sometimes difficult. I hope that hanging bundles of branches will make picking easier.

Yellow Pear Tomatoes

When I finally finished it was dark, but I still wanted to gather the walnuts I've been stumbling over on the front walk. I did it mostly by feel and gathered about a bushel. I thought about how much I love the Autumn when we can reap what we sowed in the spring. And if we didn't have time to do our spring sowing? Our world is pretty fertile. We need only look around to see what is provided for us by the trees and by the generosity of neighbors.

Collect Beauty; Garner Peace; Blessed Be.

CHICKEN ON THE LOOSE!

 AUTUMN SEEMS TO BE BLOWING THROUGH BIRDLAND, and I haven't quite got the hang of a cool weather closet. I pull out a sweater but find myself at the soccer game wishing I'd chosen a jacket and maybe gloves. It's suddenly damp, too, and the grass is greening up, and growing after its long weeks of stagnancy. I think I'll mow once more if I can remember how, and then put the mower away until Spring.

 The chickens have outgrown the aviary, and I need to transfer them to the garden coop before long. The garden coop needs a new door, which I bought several weeks ago, but is still sitting in the basement waiting for a coat of varnish. I also need to build new nesting boxes for the inside of the coop. The idea is to slowly transition them back to a free range lifestyle. I've been letting them out in the late afternoon with Ursula on the leash. She tries to be good, but she is a bird dog at heart. On the leash she seems curious and friendly, but still tries to tangle with the big rooster, who baits her constantly, though more than once she has grabbed him by his hackles and run around the yard with him. I believe she is only playing, but her play is pretty rough. He can still manage to get away from her, but I'd rather she learn that chickens are not toys.

 This morning as I was carrying food to the chickens, a little Barred Rock pullet dashed out the door as I stepped inside. Ursula was out, but occupied. I always spill a little food for her midway between the house and the chickens, to distract her from racing around the aviary, upsetting the flock. I scatter the pellets on the path, and she is quite occupied with snuffling up every last one of them, so when I realized catching the chicken would be a two person effort, I shut the door and snuck up on Ursa instead. Luck was on my side and I was able to grab her and walked her into the house before she realized the little chicken was out. “Walking” her into the house is harder than it looks. She wasn't wearing a collar, and she's too big for me to carry, so it was an awkward dance. We made it to the kitchen door, and then I called for reinforcements to retrieve my little stripped chicken.

The trick to catching a chicken is not to panic. Ursula and Ellis can outrun a chicken, but even that takes some doing. I don't stand a chance of winning that footrace. Chasing is no good. It's much better to use psychology: what does a chicken want? The chicken feed I just brought out to the coop. All of her sisters and the two roos are gathered around the feeder, clucking contentedly and greedily pecking. She wants in on the fun, but now the door is shut and she doesn't see how to get back home. If one person holds open the door and discourages the others from escaping, it's an easy matter to walk slowly counter-clockwise around the aviary, herding her toward the open door. Sometimes it takes a couple of tries, but eventually the chicken walks in, the door swings shut, we go back to the kitchen to finish our coffee and start our day. Maybe some long sleeves, a sweater. Do I need a jacket? I look up at the overcast sky. An umbrella, just in case.

Coax Beauty; Pursue Peace: Blessed Be.