April 22, 2010 by
The weather has been rather frightful today.
We’ve had thunder and lightning, sheets of rain falling like the chandelier during the Phantom of the Opera, moments when the clouds were so dark and heavy that it looked like night inside our home.
Farley has been cooped up inside and bored nearly to the point of painful death.

I tried to get him to play with me.

I tried rubbing his belly and feeding him treats.

I resorted to putting chickens on his back.

But even Judith and Vesper couldn’t crack his boredom.

The girls even used him as a trampoline!

But he didn’t care.

Poor fellow.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2010/04/22/662/

Filed Under: chickens, farley and penelope, vesper and judith

Vesper, Judith & Butts

April 15, 2010 by



The girls are starting to grow feathers! Can you believe how much they have grown since last week? I’ve also noticed that they have formed a strong sisterly bond in the past few days. They do not like to be apart from each other which makes holding them a literal handful. If I take one chick out of the brooder the remaining chick will call and call for her sister and even leap up on top of the food and water jars where she’ll stomp around in great distress. When I return the missing chick to the brooder they snuggle up, as if to say, “Oh sister, I missed you…” It’s great. Their flocking instincts have kicked in!
Dog and chick friendship continues to impress and develop! I will be sure to film the experience for you sometime this week so you can witness, in person, Farley’s boredom with the girls.
I will confess, I think Judith has a cuter butt. Who gets your number one chicken butt vote? Judith (yellow) or Vesper (black)?
Filed Under: chickens, vesper and judith
April 10, 2010 by

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2010/04/10/652/

Filed Under: chickens

Baby Announcement:

April 8, 2010 by

Look what RW surprised me with yesterday! A beautiful pair of chickies (I’m only allowed two, within the confines of the city of Pocatello). The little yellow fluffer is a buff orpington. The wild looking chickie pie with the chipmunk cheeks is an ameraucana. The crazy looking, mustard yellow chickie is a vintage toy Q sent me for Easter. Ain’t it sweet? It’s not as high maintenance as the living breathing sort of baby chicken. Andddddddd.
It did not utilize my hand as one would a Vietnam latrine which was kind of nice (hot water soapy soapy).

I’m showing you lots and heaps and mondolicious amounts of photos of these sweet babies because soon, very soon, they will enter into their awkward adolescent stage of feather growing and then when I show photos of them you’ll groan and say:
GOOD LORD! WHEN WILL JILLIAN QUIT SHOWING US PHOTOS OF HER UGLY HENS. THEY ARE LIKE HORRENDOUS SCABS ON THE SURFACE OF THE TECTONIC PLATES OF PLANET EARTH. SIGH. GROAN. GNASHING OF TEETHIES. OUR EYES ARE BLEEDING.

Some of you are less melodramatic and you’ll just say:
THOSE ARE CHICKENS THAT ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE.

And then you’ll move on to internet shopping or you’ll feed your children chicken tenders whilst in a state of ugly chicken photo revenge. And then you’ll feel guilty for feeling so vengeful and actually acting on those emotions and you’ll eat chocolate.

It’s best I show you images of them when they are cute and sweet.
Oui oui? Oui oui.

They are tiny enough that they fit, rather perfectly and fluffaliciously in one hand. And they like to be snuggled. In fact, that’s the best thing about having only two chickies. You can handle them profusely and make friends with them very well and then they’ll turn out to be the friendliest chickens ever and you can teach them to fetch newspapers and the like. You can maybe even walk them on leashes, down the street. Or pop them in the panniers on your bicycle and pedal about town (because people already think you’re a bit of a kook and adding a chicken to the mix won’t really change their current opinion of you).

I confess. I am dreadfully fond of the amercauna chick. She reminds me of an actual game chick. RW and I used to hatch our own quail and pheasant with the help of an incubator and their initial markings and downy chick fluff looked similar to this little baby’s plumage. Plus. Just LOOK at those ridiculous cheeks! So goochie-goo!

Little baby buff orpington is darling and looks just like a classic Easter chick. I hope she lays chocolate eggs. Dark chocolate eggs. Preferably 70% cocoa.

I still haven’t decided on names for the girls. Perhaps you could help me with that? Do you have any name suggestions? I’ve collected the following names in my possibility pool, thus far:
Loretta, Belinda, Amelia, Esmerelda, Lucy, Beatrice, Gertrude, Ramona, Hafwen, Burda, Hermione

I’ve been calling them both Cutiebutt. They’re getting confused. The sooner we name them, the better.

We’ve introduced them both to the dogs! I’d like to be able to let them range in the yard for part of the day when they are mature ladies who sit on the grass with their legs crossed while they take their tea. So the dogs need to be friends to the chickens and I believe in working on pet relations right off the bat since I think a pet owner can teach existing pets to live peacefully with anything as long as the introduced pet is as young as possible during initial contact. It’s going to be interesting teaching Farley to coexist with chickens as he is a highly trained, strongly instinctual and wonderfully masterful bird hunting dog.

FARLEY. CHICKENS ARE FRIENDS NOT FOOD.

Penelope is quite interested in her new feathery friends and runs away smartly each time she gets pecked in the nose.

Just to prove and demonstrate the control we have over Farley as his masters I’ve included these snapshots of him actually face to face with one of the chicks. It’s quite rare to see a bird dog in a situation like this. In the above photo, a chick is actually sitting on his paw. My camera didn’t capture how Farley was quaking and shivering but trust me, it took an amazing amount of self control on his part to listen to my voice and not snap this baby up in his mouth.

The fact of the matter is that we really trust him under the control of our commands. And he trusts us and obeys us quite unconditionally. For this reason I know that we will have a bird dog existing with mature hens in our yard some day very soon but I’ll be very cautious, regardless, when I’m mixing canine with poultry on our property.

I love these new chickies so much. I told RW that I’d like to sleep with them. Right here. In the bird nest atop my head. He said I’d probably squish them while in twitchy REM state. He’s probably right. For now, they are located in a brooding box with a heat lamp in my studio. I get to listen to them peep and whistle while I work. And from time to time, I stroll over and pet them and hold them between soldering and sawing. It’s quite delightful and it seems perfectly springy.
1. Do you ever look down at the boxes of raspberries at the grocery store and feel the wild and crazy urge to open up five of them, snatch them by the fist full and greedily shove them in your mouth? Raspberries are the only food I cannot savor. I find I am downright rash and voracious when consuming them. I can’t control myself. I’m like a wolf on a bison carcass.
2. Don’t you feel like springtime is lifting you up and out of the boggy winter blues you were experiencing in February? I feel edified. I feel blooming. I’ve been feeling so wintery boggy and grubby in my heart and soul that I feel undone or like I need to be undone and crumbly and dilapidated so that I can feel the satisfaction of being put back together again, pushed into uprightness and the solidness of being glad minded once more. With the arrival of spring, I can’t help but feel bright and shiny. Constantly. It’s so good and holy to have a glad heart.
Perhaps it’s the joy of the Lord
strengthening me from the marrow of my bones all the way out to the surface of my skin.
Or maybe it’s my Aveda face wash.
Either way. I’m glad it’s spring. I’ve got tulips in my heart and daffodils in my soul.
3. I had a letter arrive from one of my best Saskatoon friends yesterday. It made me so glad. Letters from Canada make me feel connected to home. It’s like there’s a pinch of Canadian air wrapped around the hand writing of a dear friend. I could almost feel the wind coming off the Saskatchewan River and tousling my hair about my face. I could almost smell the wet, black earth of the wheat fields — could see the furrows rising up and dropping down like vast swatches of wide wale corduroy. Most of all, I’m certain that when I looked up from reading, I could see the living skies in three dimension, sinking low to anoint my temples and widen my gaze. I’m a bit homesick these days. Homesick for the Great Northern Plains and my sisters.
4. I’m quite excited and SOMEWHAT nervous about this but I would like to share with you the fact that I have secured for myself an antelope tag in Wyoming for 2010 and I will be, if I am brave enough in the moment to pull the trigger and involve myself further with my food and subsistence living, taking my own antelope this year. Every time I think about it I feel like I’m sitting on the edge of my seat. It’s so crazy. But it feels so right and responsible. If you haven’t read the personal essay I wrote on the topic of hunting, you should! You may read it HERE.
5. I’m so glad to be home. I missed you.
xxxx
The Noisy Plume
Filed Under: chickens, hunting

CUTENESS OVERLOAD with a pinch of the serious…

March 28, 2010 by

OH GOLLY.
RW and I have been making many trips to our local
ranching supply store so that I can hold all of the fluffy baby things.

At the moment, they have rabbits (yes, I know I look like a gleeful 12 year old in this photo).

They have baby ducks.

They have a million precious little waggling chicken butts.

I want to take everything home.
RW reminds me we can get two little chickies as soon as the coop is finished being built.
Then I say, “WAHHHH.”
And we leave with steer manure and a couple of bales of peat moss instead.
Life is unfair.
I must say, on the serious side of things, I feel like I’ve been HERE but mildly absent lately.
From the blogosphere.
From the interwebs.
Besides hosting company at The Gables and being generally, very busy, I realized last week that I’m losing RW very soon to the Northern Cascades and parachutes and airplanes and in a fit of pure panic I’ve been very conscious about taking a lot of time to hold him close, kiss him every time I walk past him in our house, dance with him, bake him treats, cook him delicious food and spend every spare moment I can muster with him before May hits and I find myself without my best friend. Again.

That’s just the way things are right now.
That’s just the way my priorities are lining up right now.
I’m zealously loving my man in the moment before I have to tell him good bye.
Before long, I’ll be wrapped up in a solo summer
wherein time will be full of other things:
*adventure
*personal growth
*sterling dreams
*gardening
*running and extending my mileage on the mountain
trails, foot after foot, long strides, wind in my hair
*traveling by truck in The West
*fishing, hiking, climbing
It’s a dreadfully fantastic thing, being the wife of a wildland firefighter.
I’m learning, year by year, to look at the summertime as an opportunity
instead of a sum of time to be passed as quickly as possible.
I know it’s only springtime
but I’m looking ahead and preparing myself.
It’s the only way I’m sure I’ll bounce, when the time comes.
In the meanwhile, I’m all heart-akimbo
for my manly-mano
and I thank you for your gracious-excuso
for my quiet-itessmo.
Happy Sunday to you all.
I hope your heart and soul are well rested and ready for a new week!
Grab the next seven days by the horns
and hold on tight.
Love to you,
Jillian
PS Awesomeness alert:
Filed Under: chickens, fire fighting, RW, spring
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