Costumes, Public Embarrassment, and Blue-Green Poo

Our vet was strongly encouraging me to enter one of our geese, chickens or ducks into a costume contest at the local nursing home. "We have so many cats & dogs, but far too few 'exotic' animals... consider it, please? The patients would love it..." I did consider it, but honestly, I couldn't think of much other than putting a paper crown around Queen Moe's tuft on the top of her head. The other thought was how I was going to catch a duck, goose or chicken if it got out, and the bedlam that would ensue.

Oh, if only I had seen this Etsy listing! Partyfowl "Pumpkin Costume for Pet Ducks, Chickens & Geese. I can just see Tugboat Moe, short & stout, with a pumpkin cape on her back. The shop's "Flower Collar" and "Bumblebee" costumes are also a hoot. I'd still have to think of capture strategies in case of escape, but at least Moe would stand out. Next year, next year...

The weather turned chilly for a few days last week. Dug out a Winter work jacket one morning, and realized that I still hadn't fixed the broken zipper. No problem, just close with a couple of small spring clips - no one around to notice but the chickens, right? Then one morning Spouse & I were in a rush to get the animal chores done so I could drive him to the airport. Finish up, hop in the car, go-go-go... then we stopped at Buc-ee's for a quick coffee & gas fill-up. I get out of the car, smiling at all the folks who were looking at me, and then look down... yeah. Still had on that Winter jacket with the bright, day-glo spring clamps closing the front. Err, oops. Can't take me anywhere.

So now that the employment contract has ended, I've time to do more than just maintain the farm. I'm getting bags of free veggie trimmings from the in-town co-op again, and creating more compost. I usually take out and feed to the birds the known "likes": tomatoes, lettuce, fruit. This time, thought I'd try something different. After taking out all the known goodies, I put the remainder of the veggie trimmings into a kiddie pool (after taking out things like raw onions, which are bad for chickens) and let the birds have at it, watching carefully to see what they liked or ignored. Surprised to see that celery was a big hit with the geese, as well as purple cabbage. Didn't realize there'd be another surprise waiting for me a few hours later: blue-green goose poo, all over the front porch. No more purple cabbage for the girls, thankyouverymuch.

Me time?

Mom sent an email today, wishing me a restful "weekend" off, and reminding me to get some "me time" in the mix. Yesterday's day off was One Of Those Days, where everything electronic I touched went to h3ll. I retreated into a pile of junk food and junk television, grumbling for the rest of the evening. I won't go into details - the tale of woe is long and mind-numbingly boring if you're not into Hackintoshes, DVD burning snafus, and Linux installs. I was a walking technology plague. Spouse avoided me accordingly. It could have been contagious.

Today is a new day. Decided to get the last professional pedicure for the season, then it's bare toes until Spring. "Me time" indeed, as I only get pro service a few times a year. So much nicer when someone else wields the cheese grater on my gnarly feet:

Then I come home to break up the second duck fight of the day. Same two girls, Queen Moe and one of the others, both on the tail-end of a molt and extremely crabby. Despite getting on the other's nerves, they're never far from each other. "Frenemies?", I asked Twitter. First fight was this morning, each had a beak hold on the other's chest, and didn't care that I was coming near. I picked up Antagonist #1, and held her in my arms until her heart slowed down and she realized she was in That Stinky Hominid's arms, and there was no going anywhere for a bit. The next fight, I picked up Queen Moe with the same strategy: hold her until she calmed down. She gave her thanks in that special way ducks do:

And that's my restful "me time" for the weekend.

Project Research: New Porch Curtains, aka Tidying the Ragamuffin Encampment

Summer hit fast this year. We quickly put together canopy shade structures for the animals, and blocked sun from the west with whatever pieces of shade cloth were available. The shade cloths used (for the sides of the canopies, and for our own porch curtains) were from a big-box hardware store, plentiful and within our budget. Unfortunately, it can be expensive to buy cheap - the shade cloth is disintegrating after only two years, and brushing up against a panel sheds onto one's clothes & ground like a tsunami of dandruff. Yeccch.

Now that I've off-site paid employment again, we have the funds to start tidying up our ragamuffin-looking property. First thing on my list: new porch curtains and shade panels.

After much online searching, found Arizona Sun Supply (nope, this is not an ad for their company, this is just my own research). They've been great about answering questions over the phone, and sending samples (hooray, free samples!). They recommended the Textilene 80 or 90, which provides 80%-90% sun blocking, but still let's one see through the fabric. Nice.

The fabric itself is fairly thick, and kinda looks like screen fabric, but fatter threading. We could use big metal or nylon drapery grommets, which would make the curtains easy to hang and move on the curtain rod. But with as heavy as the samples feel, I'm thinking we may want to consider creating vertical flat panels instead. For the animal's shade canopies, the panels could have a couple of grommets at top and sides, and attached to the metal leg & horizontal roof poles via ball bungees. But for the porch? Whatever we do, it will need to be both easily removable (to allow Winter sun) AND goose resistant. The geese like to hang out on the shady porch, but sometimes get bored and decide to chew on things:

With as windy as it gets, the screen panels will need at least seven points of attachment: three at top, two on far middle sides, and two on far bottom sides. Or maybe we'll just make a channel "sleeve" at the top of each panel, "threading" the drapery rod through it, then add grommets at sides and at two points on the very bottom, so we can swing a panel across/back when we want sun.

Time to order!

Late Summer & Garden Update

Pic: Molly the Jersey Giant and me.
Pic taken with computer camera. I ♥ PhotoBooth.

It's August in South Central Texas. You can tell by watching all the two-leggeds running from air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned buildings. Rarely will you see open car windows on the roads these days, and the only time you'll find people walking recreationally outdoors is in the early morning or early evening hours.

Here on the farm, we have extra wading pools set up for the dogs & the waterfowl, and extra shade structures in place. We've also misting hoses set in strategic areas, where the breeze blows the cooling mist further into the shady areas. All the farm critters congregate and grudgingly tolerate each other in these cooling stations. No one wants to get shoved out into the heat.

August is also a tough time for vegetable gardens - the intensity of the sun & heat will put vegetables into a panic, where they do all they can to conserve resources and stay alive.  One clear winner in the Summer Tomato Sweepstakes this year has been the "wild" compost tomato we found and transplanted to a raised bed, just to see how it would do. It has consistently (and profusely!) fruited all Summer long. Seed will be saved and replanted next year. The plant itself is so humongous it completely took over a 4'x4' raised bed. The other tomatoes that were planted have been subsumed by this beast. Poor babies.

Other tomatoes: The yellow pear has done well. The paste San Marzano was slow to start, and is slowly but steadily fruiting. May try Romas instead next year, see if they're a bit more prolific, or if slow/steady is just the way of pastes. The Dona F1 and the Costoluto Genovese paste fruited little to not at all. Matt's Cherry has almost current-sized fruits, and are too much of a pain to harvest. The chickens get those. The "Dirty Girl" (Campari-like) tomatoes we grew from saved seed didn't turn out so well - that's a risk you take when trying to grow from saved hybrid seed. It was worth a shot. None of the slicing tomatoes have fruited, so I'll have to try another type next year.

The figs are doing well, and one of the new pear trees fruited this year. Ate one of the pears a few days ago... need a few more days yet before they're ready to harvest, probably by next week.

As for me, I've obtained outside employment doing contract work for a major telco. Strange as this may sound, it will afford me more time to blog, as there's always stretches of time (say, lunch hour) where I can do some writing. On the farm, my time isn't as structured, so it gets filled with other things that grab my attention. Like shooing geese away from chewing on the new pressure washer... ahh, too late: they've already chewed through the wiring, and now we gotta take it in for repairs. Good thing processing goose for consumption is such a pain, else Spouse may have started wringing necks and plucking feathers...

Homemade Goose Chew Toy & Video

People don't believe us when we talk about how the geese are avatars of destruction. Window screens, rubber car trim, canvas chairs, curtains: if you don't provide them something better, all will be left in tatters in their wake.

This chew toy is made from fabric strips, scraps of parrot toys that were previously destroyed by the geese, and discarded twine from hay bales. Watch as the goose attacks the twine like it owes her money:



Do you believe us now? ;-)