Tour de Coops, Henside the Beltline

So last Saturday- which feels like about a month ago- I went to Raleigh with my friend Susie to check out the Parade of Combs. For the third year running, Urban Ministries has sponsored a tour of inner city hen houses and chicken coops to raise money for their programs.

We were surprised how many people have chickens in their suburban backyards and saw more than 20 different breeds along the way. We visited 8 different coops; they ranged from simple chicken wire and recycled wood enclosures, to a mobile house that got moved around a shady backyard, to what I termed the Taj Majal of coops. This last one was built to match the 50's bungalow of the home where two gentlemen were keeping their 4 hens.

My favorite quote of the day was from our first stop, a little sunshine yellow house with chicken art on the fence posts. A mid-forties mom who, when asked why she got the chickens said, "It was a mid-life thing, first I started the vegetable beds, then the compost, got a rain barrel and I was reading this book called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and around about Chapter 5 they got chickens and that was it, I just had to have some."

She went on to say her husband was a CPA and thought it was a crazy idea but finally agreed. They screened in the area under their high back deck for the birds, I wonder if she'll think better of that location when the weather starts to heat up?

It was a fun time and we also learned a lot about keeping chickens including the spiritual benefits. One owner, the professor of a workshop called Chickens 101, said it's really about watching the birds, he claims that chickens are grounded like nothing else.

All the chickens had names and the owners were quite attached. It felt like the new "in thing" for yuppies to have a coop in their backyards. I was pretty inspired but not enough to run out and get a little flock, something that I imagine I would like to do. With vacations coming up- I don't want to tie myself down to a hen house that needs daily attention, and luckily, we get all the excellent fresh eggs we can really eat from the farm next door so their isn't major incentive to start my own flock, other than I think it would be a cool adventure. Eventually it will probably happen, but not quite yet.

Strawberries for Gertrude

Meet Gertrude. She's our resident turtle. We've been seeing her around the place for at least five years.


We know its Gertie by the light areas on the back edge of her shell. We've watched her lay eggs in our garden three different times and Mr. D once saw the hatchlings. It's a long slow process as she digs the hole, getting it just right, feeling with her hind legs to determine if the hole is the proper depth and size. Then in a turtle labor trance she jerks her head a few times and slowly pops a long white rubbery egg out into the hole and feels again with her hind legs that it is properly positioned before squeezing another one out.

It's hard to believe she could have more than one in her little body, they are about an inch and a half long and half an inch wide. We've gotten tired of watching as its so slow, so we aren't sure how many she actually lays. When we've witnessed the egg laying, we mark the spot so as not to disturb it until the eggs have hatched. Supposedly the incubation lasts about 3 months, so we mark the calendar, but we've only seen the babies one time.


We feel a little guilty since we put up our groundhog/rabbit fence because now Gertrude can't get into the vegetable garden to snack on some of her favorite foods. So we've been feeding her strawberries whenever we've seen her around in the last few weeks. She turned up her nose at some out of season cantaloupe that D tried to feed her from the fridge the other day. Discerning locavore that she is, she would have none of it.



The strawberries are about done so we'll have to find something else for her until the tomatoes start coming in, her other favorite food.

Isn't the skin on her neck amazing as she reaches out for another juicy bite?

Check out my May Chapel Hill News Column which sports a super photo taken by Mr. D. of a male Rose- Breasted Grosbeak at our feeder.

Migration Time

Fairbanks peonies in full bloom

I'm just in from a morning walk. Yesterday the trees were filled with migrating warblers, stopped in their tracks on their journey north by the cold and rain. Magnolia, Chestnut-Sided and Canada Warblers flittered through the branches in droves snapping up every bug and worm they could get their beaks on.

Today was almost quiet in comparison, yesterdays travelers having ventured on to points north. I could still hear the buzzy "beer, beer, bee" call of the Black-Throated Blues, they tend to linger for a couple of weeks here on their way to the breeding grounds. I heard the squeeky wheel call of the Black and White Warbler too but could never spot it. A few American Redstarts flashed me with their reddish orange, black and white feathers.

The Little Green Heron showed himself to me, back to spend the summer on our pond. He's not green at all, but sports a back of slatey gray and a cream colored throat that streaks down across his velvet purple breast. Indigo Buntings, and Common Yellow Throats skulk in the low shrubs at the marsh end of the pond while Scarlet and Summer Tanagers jump through the high canopy calling for mates.

A female Rose-Breasted Grosbeak has been at the feeder for several days, following a male that was here briefly last week. Red-Shouldered Hawks, Black and Turkey Vultures circle in the sky. Nesting flycatchers squeak from all sides; the Acadian with his two-noted "pizza', the PeeWee sings "pee wee, pee you" and the Phoebe calls its scratchy name out loud.

On the home front, the leeks need to be dug as they are bolting to flower, the asparagus are slowing down and the snap peas are speeding up. All the seeds I planted last week are up, okra, beans, cukes and squash, reaching for the sun after the two inches of rain that fell last weekend.

The rose trellis is finally completed. The rose, which had been lying on the ground, carefully tied across the posts, still looks a little awkward but we have faith it will fill in and naturalize with time. I'm planning to put three Jackmanii clematis one on each main post to help fill the monster up. Hopefully it will eventually shade the West side of the house a bit and break up that giant wall.

Postscript/postmortem:

The little Chickadee that we returned to the nest last week was spotted the next day, being eaten by a snake. I had said to D when he put it back, though I heartily approved of his actions, that we were changing evolution, that bird perhaps was not meant to live. Well- our intervention was clearly unsuccessful, the harsher side of the natural world at work.

I'm Back

I've taken a much needed break from the blogging after the April marathon! And its been an amazing week. I've worked a ton in the veggie garden, planted peppers, okra, beans, squash, melons and cukes. Weeded, watered and generally tidied the place right up- its looking pretty fantastic out there if I do say so myself.

We are still picking and eating lots of asparagus and now the sugar snaps are starting to come on, yumm. The greens are going to town as well and we've been eating spinach, chard, kale, and tatsoi. We've been harvesting leeks to go along with everything else. It's stir fry season.

Speaking of stir-fry- a major project this week- mostly done by good sir D- was to plug about 20 logs with 1000 plugs of shitake mushroom spore. We've done it once before and it was really worthwhile, as we have had a semi-steady stream of shitakes for about 4 years. The old logs had played out though so it was time to start some fresh.

It's work getting this done, gathering the logs, which should be oak and about 6 inches across and freshly cut before the tree leafs out so they aren't too sappy inside. Then you have to drill holes in a diamond pattern all around the log, pound in the wooden plugs that are inoculated with the spore and cover each hole with wax. It took probably 10 hours or more from start to finish over several sessions- but- in about 6-8 months they should start to produce and continue on for 4-5 years. It's kind of like planting the asparagus bed, lots of work up front for lots of bounty later.

D also finished building the monster rose arbor he'd been working on for awhile on the west side of the house and the two of us with ladders managed to arrange the "New Dawn" rose, whose seriously thorny vines were trailing along the ground for 15 feet, up onto the trellis and make it look halfway decent. It will be a while, but I think it will fill in and I want to add some clematis to the mix. The rose is covered with buds so we got it up there just in time.

Tonight while on our garden tour, D spotted a baby chickadee that had fallen out of the nest pot hanging in the Japanese maple. He picked it up and tried to put it back in and it squealed and jumped back out. After a bit of a scramble through the flower bed he caught it again and managed to get it back inside where this time it stayed. In a minute the mom was at the house, squawking. They'll be fledging soon but this one was just a little bit too tiny yet, and incredibly cute.

Also in the birding world we had a Rose-breasted Grosbeak at the feeder Monday night and Tuesday morning, chowing down and letting us take long looks, D took a bunch of pictures, I'll try to post one this week. Also had the first scarlet tanager in the yard this week, the summer tanager has been seen and heard regularly and black-throated blue warblers are in the woods. Otherwise it seems it's been a very slow migration this year with out many sightings of the more exciting passerines. Not sure if its the weather or some greater cosmic or environmental shift, hopefully not the latter.

In other news, the strawberries have been excellent, picking about a pint a day for the last 10 days, last night we guilded the lily when D ran out to Maple View for some vanilla ice cream- MMMM Good.

31 posts in 30 days!

Well here it is, May 30th and except for one day, I actually managed to post daily all month. I posted twice on two days during the month for a total of 31 posts in 30 days. It's been a test to post daily and while its been fun, I don't think I'll keep it up in May! I'll try to post often, but can't promise daily. Thanks for reading.

I was going to give you a picture of the first peony to open but didn't get that together, though it would have been a fitting segue way into May as peonies are definitely THE flower of May. Maybe tomorrow. Instead I'll leave you with a picture of one of our azaleas, this one is called "Hot Shot" and you can see why. Good night for now.

Native Dwarf Iris

I'm in the home stretch of this blog-a-day month. Phew. My belief that there would be something new everyday to share has been fulfilled, but its been a challenge to blog daily!

Here I present to you the two native dwarf iris that grow in our area and that Mr. D has brought to live in our yard.

Above is the Iris Verna Linnaeus*. It is distinguished by the patch of orange on its sepal and the fact that it has no crest. Below is the crested dwarf iris Iris Cristata Aiton*. Its hard to see the crest in this picture, but isn't it lovely nestled in with the Japanese silver fern ?

April into May is definitely the month for iris and the Siberians are about to put on a show along with the taller crested purple iris that we moved from our house in town. Below, if you look close, you can see the frilly patch that is the crest.

*Wild Flowers of North Carolina by William S. Justice and C. Ritchie Bell, UNC Press 1987

Lilac

We've been having the most incredible rain- its been raining for 24 hours! Mostly slow and steady but there have been a few downpours. When I checked the rain gauge this afternoon it was at 1.4 inches, but then it started up again, so might have gotten another 1/4 inch or more. Yippee.

I'm so glad I took this picture of my lilac yesterday morning before the rains came, it's now completely weighted down from the water to the point I was afraid the branches might break. It is decadently fragrant and just luscious in the number of blooms it bears- I hope it bounces back tomorrow when the sun comes out.

Up close. I wish you could smell it.