Photographic studies. There is a panel in the East side of the barn that has dropped creating a perfect cat door. When the big doors are closed this is where all the cats enter and exit the barn. I once knew a guy whose thesis was the entrances and exits of Shakespeare. Now THAT was a long time ago.
Impossibly sweet. (Now remember miss c’s rule, if you like a photograph just steal it, with the appropriate references of course) And if you want a file in higher res, let me know asap. 
This is Lick. The chick who landed on the floor and was licked by Boo until I found him. He looks like a He but I rather hope he is a hen. Such pretty black and white markings already. All six are happy as larks in their brooder. Their heating table is so good. Without the bright heating lamps they have a normal day and night so there is very little of that hysterical chirping you hear when chicks are under bright lights. Everything is calm. I like everyone to be calm. if they get a fright they just run straight back under the heater and feel safe. The tote is covered with a glass window so they have normal light but it is kept very warm. We have to look after our premmies. They are eating and drinking and doing all the normal things. The last egg is sitting in the incubator still. I will give it a couple more days but I think it is dead. 
John made boiled eggs for the salad last night (all the greens picked from his glass-room) and I had to point out that after all the precision surgery we went through to extricate these poor wee fellas out of their wrecked shells I felt a little odd shelling boiled eggs for dinner. But I got over it!
As soon as it warms up enough for the delivery. I hope to incubate Narragansett turkeys. Another old American heritage breed. Naturally John and Jake want some for Thanksgiving. If you want one for your Thanksgiving let me know! Also I am now taking the orders for pasture raised chickens. You buy the chicks – I raise them.
But I will hide a few to keep over the winter – and hopefully they will breed too. They can just wander about with the guineas and the peacocks and those ratbag barn chickens. See what happens next.
I love this farm life.
I cleared enough of the deep bedding in the North pen so I could close the gate and keep everyone out of it while I clean it out and prepare it for any surprise calves. The cows were very interested – in a lazy kind of way. This (below) is my favourite shot from yesterday. The icicles on her ears and the swell of her belly. Lovely Elsie. 
I wonder if the Breeder can guess how long she has to go. Hard to tell being an older cow. She is so small I think her calf will be about the size of a big cat.
As you can see it was snowing yesterday. All up we only got about three inches of lovely fluffy snow.
The angel. Godot.
These have become some of my favourite shots.
The movement of him through the air. The lack of focus is its essence really. 
Timatanga Moana. Such a nice little pig.
I hope you have a lovely day! I do!
Your friend on the farmy
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
71 responses to “Studies”
Thank you for the photos of Godot. Now my day is complete. I’m bringing home baby chicks on Friday. I’ve always used the EcoGlow for our chicks and love it. So much more natural that way, with the brooder strategically place under a window. Babies are up with the sunrise, and to bed when it sets, just like it should be.
The icicles on Elsie’s ears made me think of Punkin squirrel this weekend. She had two clumps of ice on her tail, and each time I attempted to remove them gently she turned around whisking her tail away from me. Apparently she didn’t mind the frosty clumps. Have a lovely day my friend! 🙂
I have the heating table too. Pure GENIUS! Best money I’ve ever spent on an animal product. I really am astounded your chicks are doing so well, considering the ‘car wreck’ they were in. I so want turkeys, but DH has put his foot down. No more livestock. 🙂
yes, being hurled out and onto the floor is a rough start..and they are a bright fluffy bunch.. c
I love the images of the cats. Happy National Pig Day to you, Sheila, and the kune kunes!
Thank you Sweetie. c
Oops, and I just had an egg salad sandwich before sitting down to blog! (PS, really lovely photos! Ah, the farm life!)
That photo of the cows ear…speaks volumes!!! Spring needs to start showing up.
Linda ♪♫❤
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
https://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/sherlock-boomer
Hi Celie, love the cat pictures, very cute . My mom once told me that turkeys were difficult to raise because they are stupid animals . I have no idea if this is true . She also told me that pigs are very smart. She raised geese and chickens.
Oh these photos are beautiful today C. I love the snow flakes against the black in the last photo of Tima To To! .. I love all the photos today…Turkeys? I’m so excited to see baby turkeys… That second photo of Godot looks almost ghostly…beautiful.
I think you should print and sell the kitties in the barn photos!
By glass house do you mean a green house or the glassed in portion of the Coupe? The little peeps look so happy and healthy… 🙂
yes, it is that glassed in room attached to the Cloak Room. I will take a photo for you today. Small but very warm and light when the sun shines.. c
Beautiful – all seems to be well for today, I feel a great sense of peace!
Just a lovely visit. (Thanks for giving the darling chicks real day and night – those horrid endless lights are a type of cruelty.)
We have Narraganset turkeys here. Breeding hasn’t always been very successful, though they don’t always require artificial insemination like other domestic breeds. Turns out, that big breast we all want at Thanksgiving is what keeps domestic turkeys from reproducing naturally. We have a male that was hand-raised here. He was used as a program animal for a couple of years because he like for people to pet him. Now he’s a big, grumpy tom.
I posted some pics of reptile egg-candling today. It’s very different from chicken candling in that we get to do it several times during incubation. It takes so much longer to hatch many reptiles because mom doesn’t waste resources sitting on the eggs, so they have the luxury of waiting until the next appropriate season to hatch.
If I have a breeding pair that would not necessarily keep us going? I thought these were an old heritage breed and so were more likely to breed than the big commercial birds. I had thought to buy eggs this time around. How can I be sure they are fertile? Hmm. is there a better heritage breed that would suit me? c
Try it and see what happens. We’ve had a lot of trouble with fertility. Eggs are produced (we chill them in our egg chiller), but they haven’t had hatchlings very often. It could have something to do with our setup. They are definitely more likely to breed than commercial birds. Those animals need all kinds of help!
I will get in touch with the breeder and ask him what he thinks..It would be nice to have them breed though.. c
Definitely! It’s a question worth asking.
we have decided the Spanish Black will be better.. older too! so have ordered them! see what happens.. what do you think?
Godot’s tail looks like it’s growing back in. Are the kittens finally leaving it alone?
Nancy
I thought it looked thicker too.. he is getting ready for spring.. fingers crossed!
I had the same thoughts as you at the mention of boiled eggs but there’s no way I could have gotten past it so close to the event. Wonderful photos… those icicles! But oh, the kitties are so cute. Could you I wonder sell photos to a photo-stock agency? Have you read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver ? Her account of breeding heritage Bourbon Red turkeys is too funny 🙂 Turkey breeding could give you a whole new skill set…
Brilliant book all round, in my opinion. Not just funny, also sad and horrifying and enlightening.
I agree, and the Barbara Kingsolver also writes about the turkey experience here http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/essay-bourbon-for-dinner-raising-heirloom-turkeys 🙂
I love Barbara Kingsolver and have read a few of hers.. this essay is a good one!
When I saw the icicles on Elsie’s ears, I immediately pulled a hood over my head, I could feel the cold. Great photos and a warm cheerful mood to warm my heart.
I’ve been told turkeys are a lot more disease-prone than chickens but they can pass the diseases on to chickens as well, so you have to keep the two apart. That doesn’t sound like what you’d planned – I hope you find some healthy, lively and breedable ones, Miss C…
I am getting a very old heritage breed, they are much hardier than the modern big breasted bunch. When fattening them they will be in a large new chicken tractor for a while and the pair that I pull out and keep will be trained to live in the open barn with the peacocks. I won’t keep them in with the layers, they are too big. And so far the big barn is safer. But nothing free range is safe really. I have not heard that they cannot be mixed together – that might be in an enclosure? Still it might be fun to see if we can breed them. c
Well, whatever the ins and outs of disease and breeding, they’re going to taste a million times better than great big porky birds with huge breasts and dry, boring meat, who can hardly waddle around their enclosure because of their exaggerated endowments. Old breeds are more hardy but still naturally more susceptible than chooks. It was your chooks I was mainly worried about, because decimating your flock through disease would not be fun…
That would be nasty, I will take care. They won’t be with my layers though, they are still in a mink free zone.