Category Archives: house home and critters

Spring Cleaning

Copyright 2013 David Belt

It’s that time of year ago, time to go through junk collected in ritually ignored corners of our respective abodes. For some of us those corners consume entire rooms, yet even the tidiest of us have those disregarded areas of closets and drawers, wistfully forgotten.

Spring cleaning carries with it ancient traditions. In Persian cultures, the new year starts in the spring, and the week prior to the new year is spent in preparation to include a thorough cleaning of the house. In Hebrew cultures, the week prior to Passover is spent in preparation, again including a thorough cleaning of the house. In other cultures, prior to the invention of the vacuum cleaner, households were encouraged to dust in the month of March, because it was warm enough to open the house to sweep out the dirt, but not so warm as to let bugs in the house while doing so. Whatever the reason, it is a tradition best kept.

Aside from the obvious results of a cleaner home, there are deeper, personal reasons for engaging in this thorough cleansing of the home. As we deep clean in put off areas, we rediscover ourselves. We find lost treasures, vaccinate our present from closed events of the past, and re-remember our history. Every folded paper, every broken article has a story, our story. We put them in their proper place and somehow order ourselves in the process.

I am still battling myself, as I continue to clean for a new spring. If you haven’t started, yet, it’s not too late to discover where your battle will lead you. And all it will cost you is a cleaner home.

Our Farm – The Chickens

- nrlymrtl, 02/26/2011

I need a cool little name for our little farm. We hope to sell at the local farmer’s market starting this summer. Any ideas? We live on 6.5 acres, and only about 3.5 are used for animals and the quarter acre garden. We have perhaps 17 chickens, 20 goats (2 of which are pregnant), 4 donkeys, 10 cats, and an old, fat, 80-pound, lapdog of a pitbull.

Last winter, a little over a year ago, our neighbors gave us six elderly hens, Auracanas, that were destined for the coyotes. We already had a coop on the edge of the property, with a small yard. Why not try out our chicken skills on the elderly in the middle of winter? Then another neighbor gave us a young, large rooster, a silver-laced Wyandotte. A very handsome fellow I named Lord Kluck Kluck. Apparently, he was chasing the neighbor’s wife and daughter. Of course we need a dangerous 18-inch, feathered, untrainable pet. He has attacked us humans numerous times, and I have some interesting scars on my lower legs to prove it. However, a simple stick is enough to keep him in line. He sees it and then sulks; but no attacking.

Silver Laced Wyandotte, The Lord Kluck Kluck
Week-old Damage From Kluck Kluck

So last summer we decided to expand our harem for The Lord Kluck Kluck. We got several chicks during the heat of summer, so they could live outside instead of in a heated box in the kitchen. I also picked up two hens that the owner was going to axe. I picked out some Ostrolorps, because they get to the same size as the Auracanas, about 8 pounds. Lord Kluck Kluck is between 10-12 pounds. I rarely pick him up, and when I do it is not to quietly and calmly assess his weight.

On a whim I also picked out some Cornish game hens. The teenager at the local feed store gamely put them in a cardboard box and lugged my chicks up to the check-out counter. I asked them to tape the lid down, to which I got a lopsided grin and the old clerk folded the flaps in. I had this image of me half-way home (about a 40-minute trip) and some inadvertent chicken cooperation leading to the lid popping open and chicks all over the inside of the car, including under the brake pedal.

Safely home, I turned them loose under the bush in their expanded yard. Over the months, we had a few problems – hawks, drowning – but most lived. And it turns out that two of my Cornish hens were Cornish game cocks. They are incredibly cute, being a max of 2 pounds, with gorgeous plumage and a crow that sounds like a really good kazoo. They have claimed the red Ostrolorp hens as theirs and readily mount them. The hens usually continue to do whatever they are doing, carrying this little cock around on their backs, while he is fully engaged in procreating. I’ll leave that visual up to you.

Young Red Hens With Cornish Game Cock

It is still February and already we get 4-9 eggs a day. Auracanas are green, Ostrolorps are brown, and the single little Cornish game hen gives me perfectly white diminutive eggs.

February Eggs – From All The Chickens

A Jedi Comes to the Rescue

Ok, a little Jedi.

I took this photo from the second floor.

Getting more painting done, and we’ve started work in earnest on the outside of the house now that I’ve hired the right crew (with Jedi).

To correct the age-inflicted troubles with the porch, we'll have to excavate under the posts and re-set them correctly. It has to be "tore up" to be put right. This is the same concept put into use at overpacked conventions--you have to ride the elevator up in order to go down.

Demolition! This little deck was for the pool that we took out a few years back. We've acquired a nice picnic table to put back there behind the fence.

Gawd. This is going to take a hundred coats. No, I didn't pick this color. This was the previous owners' choice.

 

Just so's you know what a big job it is going to be to take care of the back of the house. UP! Small repairs to the slats, evacuating the birds, washing and staining. It won't be any trouble though, with that little Jedi to help out.

 

 

 

Kittenosity!

About once a year, the pest control guy on plant calls me up and says, “I’m so glad you helped me out last time…”

This time was two very young kittens in a box.

Mr Pest guy is expected to, uh, dispose of any wild cats or kittens he finds on plant, and without the ingeniousical idea of bringing Angels of Assisi on plant for a three-day trap and spay, he finds a lot of said feral cats.

When he finds them very young like this, not feral, and adoptable, he finds homes for them. This is all hush-hush, you understand, so these are black market kittens, I suppose?

The calico is looking for a home, the Siamese looking one is going to my bro, where she will endure a well-fed life of derision and ridicule, having been named Michael Jackson. (tell him no!)

They’ve been to the vet once, are too young for vaccinations, but have been de-wormed.