On my morning forest walk I encountered a protective hen with her chicks, also called "poults"
The forest path where I walk in the morning
So, I'm ambling happily along seeing what's in bloom, what's ready to gather, and simply enjoying a late Spring morn in the forest close to home.
I'm looking at the ground and when I look up, there in the middle of the trail is a wild turkey nestled down in front of me. My first thought was that she was hurt. She made no attempt to move so I thought I'd just skirt around her.
When I got to about two feet away she jumped to her feet. Beneath her were about eight wee, fluffy chicks running in tight circles, startled by the sudden removal of their shelter and warmth.
Mama turkey faced off with me and I backed up and turned around and headed back the way I'd come.
Thankfully, she wasn't as aggressive as a goose or swan would likely have been and I was able to escape at the pace of a fast walk with her right behind me. She "chased" me for nearly a quarter of a mile. I kept thinking that she'd turn back to her chicks but she wanted me far, far away from them. Finally she ran up the bank and back toward them. I had to take a longer way home instead of the shortcut I'd intended but it was worth the extra distance to have seen something so precious as those fluffy babies and to experience the maternal instincts of a wild creature smaller than me. Thankfully, that wild creature was not a bear!
My condo is so close to the edge of the forest that deer, wild turkeys, and quail are often seen passing through our garden areas. I treasure their presence with a sense of wonder and delight. Although the deer do munch on our landscaping, I've discovered that pinning a scented dryer sheet beneath something they like to snack on keeps them away from it.
Last Spring on the same trail I awakened this young buck from his early morning nap as I walked by.
Want to know why this chicken is crossing the road? It's not to get to the other side. That's a bunch of hooey! Chickens don't care what side of the road they're on. But there is something a chicken will cross the road for!
Having had chickens, I've discovered that they're ruled by certain basic impulses one of which is food. Bugs in particular. They'll do anything for a juicy, tasty bug.
Anyone who has raised chickens knows the answer to this age-old question!
So, why does the chicken cross the road? To get a bug, of course!
Chickens make great pets! The Little Red Hen perches on my lap while I pet her.
I love chickens! Ever since I brought home some day old chicks from the local feed store I've been smitten with all things "chicken". My Girls were hand raised pets who just happened to lay delicious eggs, and perform weed and bug control. I never ate any of my hardworking Girls, all of whom had names and personalities.
Hand-raised from babies, chickens become very tame and make good pets.
I nurtured my wee fluff balls in a wash tub using a heat lamp to keep them warm. I wiped their tiny fannies daily for about a week with a damp Q-tip until they could poop without "pasting up". I watched them chase each other around the inner circumference of the wash tub playing "whose got the ribbon" - the coveted red ribbon passing from one eager little beak to another as they snatched, grabbed, and ran. They all grew up to became beloved pets that followed me around the gardens on my daily round of chores.
These Girls want to follow me into the veggie garden but cannot until after everything is harvested. They'd have way too much fun pecking tomatoes, poking holes in pumpkins, and feasting on lettuce.
Chickens, like many birds, love bright and shiny things. I've been pecked in the ears, wrists and fingers by chickens enchanted by a shiny bit of jewelry. Also, toenails have proven very interesting especially if painted with bright red polish.
Even this unpolished toe sporting Spring's first wearing of flip flops attracts Sugar Baby's curiosity!
Sugar Baby enjoys a hand fed treat of ripe black currants.
Curious and comical these Girls have untied my shoe to inspect the laces.
Chickens are truly the clowns of the garden. I've wiled away hours contentedly watching them scratch and peck, chase grasshoppers, pluck low-hanging fruit then dart away to enjoy their prize unchallenged by flock mates. They've followed me into the house when I wasn't looking, peered in doors and windows to see where I'd gone, and just generally enjoyed hanging around keeping me company.
Peek-a-boo!
The Little Red Hen squeezes under the side gate so she can hang out with me while I do chores.
I never kept a rooster so don't have first hand experience with "the boys". But hens I delight in having around for their clownish ways, delicious eggs, and companionship.
All my Girls enjoyed being hand fed treats. Sugar Baby enjoys a treat of black currants.
Even if chickens didn't lay lovely eggs, I'd still want them around. They enliven a garden, are good for a giggle or more per day, greet the day and their owner with good-natured cluckings, and are just so nice to have around.
However, if you desire a perfectly manicured garden chickens could be a problem. They'll dig holes in their search for tasty bugs and make dust bath depressions. On the other hand chickens are great pest control. They eat all kinds of bugs...although they don't seem to like squash bugs much but will scarf up earwigs.
Chickens will eat some domestic plants but few herbs or natives. A nightly roam on the lawn (unsprayed and organic) didn't harm the grass. Yet, if they're permanently ensconced on a small lawn they will eventually create a patch of bare dirt.
Chickens eat most types of grassy weeds - fox tails, cheat grass, and more. They'll consume with delight kosha and dandelions but all of these must be in the young stages as chickens cannot negotiate a large amount of fully mature weeds to any great degree. Many weed seedlings are simply dug up when they scratch and peck.
My chickens were a valued commodity for pest and weed control as well as cultivating-by-scratching and fertilizing as they wandered and deposited nitrogen-rich feces on the lawns and in the gardens. When I cleaned out the chicken coop I'd toss the poop-rich straw onto the compost pile. The following Spring I'd add this nicely composted mix to my Spring garden. Sometimes I'd just spread Winter's coop-poop gleanings onto the raised beds to be leached by snowfall into the soil.
Before I moved from the Cottage I found a good home for my flock of seven Girls. I miss having chickens but I've lots to do and discover settling into my new home hundreds of miles away from my rural Cottage. Still, I've discovered that local regulations will allow for a small flock of chickens. Perhaps next Spring I'll visit the local feed store and procure a few, wee fluffs for fun and eggs.
Many municipalities will allow small flocks of chickens although there may be restrictions regarding noisy roosters. If having a few chickens around appeals check with your local planning and zoning committee to see if you can have a few chickens to share your garden with.
For now, I have fond memories of Poopsie, Ms. Magoo, Broody Girl, Charlotte, Peek-a-boo, Sugar Bean and Sugar Baby, The Little Red Hen, Jessamine, Opaline and many more...
Rather than a material concern, Simple Grace is a state of being and perception.
Living at the Cottage for the past 15 years I've distilled my experiences into four lessons... Natural Abundance, Elective Frugality, Easy Elegance, and Simple Grace.
The first three lessons are about lifestyle and personal style. The last lesson, Simple Grace, is about one's mental/spiritual state of being and perception.
Simple Grace is harder to define than something of a tangible nature. Nonetheless, it is available to all regardless of income, lifestyle, or physical circumstances.
Thankfully there are some methods to help achieve it. Grace is about being in harmony with both the inner and outer energies of being and existence.
The concept of Grace is often connected with religion. However, while it can be connected with in religious and spiritual contexts, we can also connect with Grace as we expand our awareness and perception by consciously changing our thoughts from negative, critical, fearful, and judgmental outlooks to perceptions that are grateful, charitable, inclusive, and expansive. As we do so we will attune to something greater than ourselves.
The simple act of daily gratitude is another way to en-train the beatitude of Grace. Being grateful resonates with the frequencies of Grace. When we are grateful we open ourselves to the power of Simple Grace.
Being grateful for what you have and where you are right now in life is key. If there is trouble in your life (and who doesn't have some of this) focus more on what is right than wrong. Doing so causes perceptions to flow into more positive, life-affirming channels. We create our present and future by our thoughts. If we expect trouble it's likely we will find it or it will find us. Worry is a negative visualization.
Altering our perceptions from a negative to a more positive vibe places us in harmony with the forces of prosperity, joy, and love. Being in harmony with these positive polarities opens our life experience to good fortune and beneficence. Goals are easier to achieve as opportunities and helpful people naturally arise in our lives. If we are helpful to others we naturally attract people who will, in turn, aid us.
A pretty plaque reminds me daily of my intention to cultivate Plenty and Grace.
Having a grateful and charitable feeling towards others helps them warm to you. People will want to be in your presence and will feel safe in your sphere of influence. A positive outlook attracts positive people, things, and events into your life.
Journaling your "gratitudes" takes gratitude from the realm of the mental and into concrete reality via pen and paper or computer.
A beautiful handmade or purchased notebook makes "gratituding" pleasurable. Set time aside each day to relax with your journal (or computer). A few minutes is enough to make a life-changing, life-affirming difference in your experiences and outlook.
Each of us contains within our innermost being a part, or particle, of mystical consciousness that interacts with creation beyond the mundane, material existence we all experience on a daily basis.
Life's realities and circumstances are our reality. Our actuality is above and beyond the physical "facts" of our daily existence. We have a "quantum" life and that is where we connect with Simple Grace. So simple. So sublime. The music of the spheres. The whispers of angels. Communion with something greater than our day-to-day selves and concerns. It is within this mysterious quantum realm that through the power of our thought we can literally change our outer, material, and emotional circumstances. This is the power of Simple Grace!
Engage with Simple Grace by harmonizing with the natural world, as well. Abide for awhile in a park, garden, or by taking a walk . Interaction with nature opens one to the flow of energy that is in constant availability. Harmony with the world around us opens the gateway to Simple Grace.
A rustic bench in the garden invites one to sit and commune for a spell, with nature.
Rest your awareness on a flower, the trickle of water, the wind in the trees. Allow your awareness to engage all of your senses with that which you are observing, feeling all of the varied sensations it provides for your enjoyment...your awareness.
There is grace in acknowledging something on every blessed level of awareness. Know that what you are encountering exists on greater levels than your sense of it.
One of the gifts of Simple Grace is happiness. Happy people display several attributes. They are slow to anger, charitable, forgiving, kind, helpful, generous, and grateful. They also draw to them people with similar attributes.
Unhappy people anger easily, tend to be demanding, self-centered, judgmental, stingy, abrasive and miserable...and they will draw to themselves similar people and experiences.
We have a choice as to the thoughts we cultivate. Both negative and positive thinking are habits that we nurture and manifest. Habits that negatively influence our lives can be broken with some worthwhile, well-spent effort.
Whom do each of us choose to be?
What "grace" will each of us manifest into our lives?
The farmer's field across the road seemed a visual extension of my own front gardens.
Front Garden in Spring.
South Front Garden in Summer.
My goal - one of them - when living and growing myself at the Cottage was to experiment with raising most of my own food and herbal medicines.
The food I grew consisted of fruits, vegetables, and eggs from my own Chicken Girls. Herbs were both flavoring and pharmacy.
A typical late Summer/Autumn afternoon's harvest. Freezing, dehydrating, cold-storage, and canning were the means used to preserve foods for Winter use.
Canning is an enjoyable pastime that results in good things to eat all year long.
Un-waxed and organic, my homegrown apples were crisp and delicious and made the best canned juice ever!.
The Kitchen Garden was the main food production area. A large raised bed, asparagus bed, strawberry bed, herb garden, and two moderate soil plots were all I needed to grow 80 percent of my food needs.
Best for juice, jam, syrup, and cordial, Nanking cherries taste just like canned pie cherries.
Berry plants thrived around the Cottage.. I harvested elderberries, raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, currants, Nanking cherries, and strawberries.
Four apple trees - three old enough to produce - plums, pear, mulberry, and a peach tree are also planted on the property.
Grape vines - both red and white types - provided juice for wine, juice, and jelly.
These girls are curious about the grape harvest.
Ahhh....the chickens! I came to love the sight and sound of the Girls as they pecked and scratched for bugs, and ate kitchen scraps and weeds. Their eggs, so fresh and tasty, were a welcome addition to meals.
Chickens can be quite tame! The Little Red Hen liked to sit on my lap.
One Spring I raised my chickens from wee, fluffy "peeps"!
These girls have untied my shoes and are very curious about the shoelaces.
The Girls cluster behind the gate hoping I'll let them into the Kitchen Garden for a snack.
The Back Garden was a lovely place to sit, think, journal, read, and watch the chickens.
The Orchard Garden is a nice spot to sit, gather apples, plums, rhubarb and dill. A small peach tree awaits maturity and fruit-bearing.
Welcome to the Kitchen Garden!
This raised bed in the Kitchen Garden has since been replaced by a sturdy cinder block raised bed.
All the raised beds in the Kitchen garden have been replaced with cinder blocks.
A basket of lavender and lemon balm, just a few of the herbs growing in the Cottage's gardens.
A Summer morning's harvest of herbs for food and medicine.
Purple dame's rocket in bloom in the Kitchen Garden.
The Cottage's gardens provided well for me. Beauty, scent, food, flowers, herbs.
I'm often asked, "Is it hard for you to leave your lovely Cottage and its gardens?"
To this I say that life is lived in phases and cycles. A wise person knows when it's time to move on...to close one cycle and step into another. For me, that time has come as I begin new adventures.
We never lose what we've learned. We carry our knowledge, memories, and loves in our hearts forever.
Each new cycle brings new learning, adventures, and passions. Nothing is lost. We are the containers of all we've done and there's room yet for all that we will do.
If, as part of your Useful Garden, you have these...
...doing this...
...then, you'll want to feed your Chicken Girls supplemental calcium so the shells of their eggs aren't thin and easily crushed.
One way to do this is to supply oyster shell sold at feed stores just for this purpose.
Trouble is my Girls won't eat it even when I mix it into their food. I have friends whose chickens won't touch it either.
There are several ways to get chickens to consume extra calcium - free range chickens need less - such as giving them a bit of dairy once in a while. Yogurt and cottage cheese are favorites with my Girls.
Dairy products aren't something chickens should have a lot of...however, a bit now and then can give them a little extra calcium.
Sometimes I'll make a nettle or horsetail tea, cool it, and pour this into their water. Or, I'll dissolve homeopathic silica into their drinking water. Mostly, I let them free range eating bugs, worms, and grass.
This, and high-protein, laying pellets keeps them healthy and happy. Oh, and they get vegetable scraps from the kitchen and garden along with the occasional handful of collard greens.
Another way to get a little extra calcium into their diets is to recycle the Girl's egg shells.
The shells must be cleaned and crushed otherwise a chicken might realize that some pretty tasty stuff comes in her own eggs.
Once a hen makes this connection she's likely to peck and eat the contents of her eggs and those of the other hens.
When I crack eggs to make omelets, etc., I wash out any remaining liquid white, rubbing the inside of the shell clean with my thumb, then set the shells aside to dry.
Once the shells are thoroughly dry, I lay a piece of waxed paper on a cookie sheet and place the egg shells on top.
I use a rolling pin to crush the eggs, then roll over them, back and forth, until they're moderately crushed so the chickens can easily swallow them.
The waxed paper makes it easier to transfer the crushed shells into a jar or tin until you're ready to use them.
Of course, you can pulse the shells in your processor.
Crushing the shells makes them unrecognizable to the chicken. And, it recycles the calcium from the shells back into your chickens for making more eggs!
Some of my Girls will eat the crushed shells as a treat. Generally, I mix the shells in with their food for better results.
Of course, if you don't have chickens, you can recycle crushed eggs shells from the supermarket by tossing them onto your compost pile which is another feature of the Useful Garden.
Egg shells will compost more readily if broken into bits.
Recycling chicken waste (egg shells and manure) is way one way to insure that what is useful won't go to waste.
Chickens can be part of the Useful Garden and they're fun to have around! They're the clowns of the garden and I love to watch them scratch at the ground then scoot backward to see what they've uncovered.
When one Girl finds something the rest pursue her to take it away.
Chickens use their beaks to explore their environment and they love shiny things - a ring, bracelet, buckle, a button. A painted toenail! Beware the hard peck of a curious hen!
Even my "unvarnished" toenail is an object of interest!
And they lay incredible, edible eggs. A chicken will lay an egg every day or every other day. I don't eat my Girls. They're pets and provide a sufficient amount of service by remaining alive.
My Girls eat many weeds. They don't eat all types but they do love dandelions, cheat grass, fox tails, and elm seedlings when these first sprout in the Springtime. They also do a lot of weeding by scratching out newly sprouted seedlings.
Chickens are great for pest control. Their scratching disturbs the soil and exposes eggs and small larvae to dehydration or consumption.
Chickens also eat lots of worms and bugs. They love earwigs, box elder bugs, crickets, flies, and more. Sadly, they don't like squash bugs.
I've heard that chicken manure makes very good fertilizer. I think it does. My gardens thrive on this free fertilizer...just don't add it in until it's decomposed a bit or it could burn tender plants.
During Winter when I clean out the coop I dump the poo and straw from the coop onto the soil of my raised veggie bed where it can break down and seep into the soil. In Spring I till it in, then plant.
I also toss the coop gleanings under roses and other plants while they're Winter-dormant. It's a good addition to a compost pile, too.
Chickens are companionable with each other and whoever feeds them. They love treats! The quickest way to make friends with a hen is to hand-feed her tasty tidbits.
The way to win a chicken's heart is via its stomach! This Girl loves the ripe currants I'm feeding her.
I am their rooster! Well, not really. However, from a chicken's world view I perform some (not all) of a rooster's role in the flock.
A rooster will protect his hens. He'll uncover tasty treats for them then stand back and watch the hens eat. He stands guard watching out for attacks from above - hawks or other large birds of prey - and sounds the alarm at which all the hens scurry to hide beneath shrubs.
When I dig in the garden my hens are usually nearby watching to see if I unearth a plump, juicy worm. If I do, I'll call the Girls and whoever gets to me first gets the prize!
Yes, I love chickens!
This Girl likes to sit on my lap.
In the late afternoon I'll let them out of the back garden where they roam during the day into the front gardens which are more manicured. They love to nibble on my organic lawn which - with bugs and worms and good feed - gives their egg yolks a rich orange color and adds to the omega-3 content.
Chickens are diggers and will excavate sizable holes to get at tasty critters to eat. They'll also create holes for dust bathing. They'll make hills and dales of your bark or gravel mulch. And they'll poop on your porches and walk ways (let it dry then sweep it into the garden). These are reasons why I only let them into the front gardens in the late afternoon - less time for destruction, mischief, and pooping on stuff!
In early Spring and late Autumn (after the harvest) I let them into the kitchen garden to eliminate pests. I don't let them in while things are growing and ripening lest they peck at ripe tomatoes and squashes, eat my lettuce, and flatten the arugula!
Fencing assures that chickens can be kept out of sensitive areas.
You can have chickens as part of your Useful Garden. Fences make good controls if there's areas of your gardens you'd like to keep chicken-free.
A three to four-foot fence is usually adequate for fencing chickens out. Some of the smaller, fleeter breeds can fly over low fencing. However, the larger heavier breeds tend not to have much flying capability.
I love chickens! Judicious management of the time allowed in sensitive garden areas and decorative fencing will enable you to have the benefits of chickens in the garden without the drawbacks.
If you have chickens, prepare to be entertained by these "clowns of the garden".
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