I'm back and I don't have chicks anymore

The title of this post says it all. When I left my happy little home in April I had three fluffy dependent little chicks who followed me around like lost puppies. They were tiny and sweet and had chick fluff all over.

I came home nine days later to discover that someone had absconded with my three chicks and replaced them with three big honkin' chickens. Yes, my girls grew up when I was gone and I'll admit to being a bit sad about it. When I got home I went racing out to their coop and as I rounded the corner I saw three heads peering up at me. I thought "Wow, they must be standing on their little cardboard nesting box." When I got closer - no box. Just long chicken legs. I am not sure how this happened. I feel like I missed their teen years somehow.

At least I know that I'll never be a proponent of boarding school after this experience. Even though it sounds appealing when you read old-fashioned English children's literature, it turns out that I can't even leave chickens for nine days without feeling sadness at the changes in them. You think I'm waxing poetic for no good reason? How about some before and after pictures to put it all in perspective.

Here's little Sookie a few days before we left. She's perched on my arm - her favorite place to be if she's not in my lap. Note the light-colored head and all the chick fluff sticking out.


Now look at this large fully-feathered chick-fluff-free chicken who's snarfeling down a watermelon today! That tank is Sookie and she has no interest in perching on my arm or coming anywhere near me right now. She's actually quite standoffish - a phase that I hope is short-lived.


Thank goodness we still have little Clementine who will knock over a bowl of oats just to greet me when I come out to see her. She's also not opposed to chicken kisses from my 5-year-old. Maggie is still a bit unsure and will come close, but has yet to perch on me like the good ole' days (meaning 2 weeks ago). I must become the chicken whisperer and become one with them in order to infiltrate their tight little chicken coven again.


Yesterday I started the infiltration process by bribing them with a quarter of a watermelon. It's already insanely hot around here with high temperatures in the 90s all week. The chickens are panting like hot dogs and I read that they can enjoy a watermelon to cool off. I cut up a watermelon that we had left-over from vacation and served it up a la carte today. They went hog-wild over it and I made sure I did my special chicken whisperer moves on them while they were eating the melon so they'd be tricked into liking me again.


When I went to move them into their coop last night the only thing left in the middle of the chicken run was a green watermelon rind. Clementine jumped into my arms to be transferred to the coop as soon as she saw me. Maggie didn't fight when I picked her up and Sookie only gave me one slight stink eye when I handled her…so things are moving in the right direction.

Wildlife Weekend :: Ding Darling

We returned home tonight after nine long days of vacation. We had a blast, but nine days is a long, long, long time to be away from reality. Once I get my head together and we get unpacked I'll be back with some tales of the trip and some updates on what happens when you leave 3 chickens, 2 cats and a garden for nine days. Things are definitely not as you left them - that's for sure.

But since it's Wildlife Weekend here I thought I'd post a pic of a little furry critter that the boys and I saw at Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island.


We were driving through the refuge hunting for alligators when we heard a rustling in a tree. We looked up and saw this little guy scampering up the branches. He had a couple of friends on the ground who took off and left him stranded when we walked up. He was obviously a young raccoon and seemed quite pleased to pose for this photo.

I'll post some more details and photos about our trip to Sanibel Island later, but I couldn't let the weekend slide by without a cute pic for Wildlife Weekend. It was a great trip, but it's so good to be home.

Finally a gardening-related vacation post

Do you know about the "Shaving Brush" tree? I hadn't heard of it, but I am quite impressed with the photos of it. These pictures were taken by my mom's husband on Captiva Island. I thought it was such a unique-looking flower that I had to share.



Apparently you'll only get them to grow well in zones 9 to 11, so you Northerners are out of luck. The shaving brush tree, a native to Mexico, is a small tree at around 30 feet in height. It is suitable for bonsai and has very interesting bark with stripes of green, yellow, brown and white. The pink, brush-like flowers actually pop open and are soon filled with bees, who love the flowers. The new leaves on this deciduous tree are bright red turning green as they mature.

So there's my tropical plant excitement for the moment. Pretty, don't you think?

My moment in the spotlight is about to end

There's only one more day left in the month, so my moment in the Road Trip Journal spotlight is about to end. As you probably read at the beginning of the month, I'm a featured travel writer on Road Trip Journal this month and I'm up for a Reader's Choice Award.

There's only one more day left if you want to vote for my article on Blue Spring State Park. The winning blogger gets a $100 gas card. The best part - you could win a $100 gas card too! Once you vote and enter your email address, your name gets put into the monthly drawing for a $100 gas card. So, here is my shameless request… read the articles that are up for the April Reader's Choice Award and if you like my piece on Blue Spring State Park… vote for me!! And if you like one of the other pieces better, well go ahead and vote for one of them. Regardless you'll still be in the running for that gas card. Plus if you write any travel pieces for your blog, go ahead and submit them - you might get paid for your hard work too!

Thanks!

Road Trip :: Sites from Sanibel Island

Just like snowbirds in the wintertime, my idea of blogging while on vacation has taken a serious dive south. The only place we have internet access here is by the pool and although it sounds quite romantic to work on your laptop next to a pool, you have to remember that I have two small boys who are drawn to water in a most insane way. So me staring at a laptop with a towel draped over me so that I can see the screen wouldn't win me any parenting awards as I wonder what those two large annoying splashing sounds were.

I realize there's nothing more painful than being forced to thumb through someone else's vacation pictures. You're interested at first, but then wonder how many more pictures there are as you nod politely and start mentally preparing your grocery list in your head as photo after photo of someone else's vacation flips by.

That being said, here are some photos from our trip so far. And as you're compiling your grocery list, remember to buy milk.

Brown pelicans - two adult, one juvenile.


Red hibiscus


Pink hibiscus


Marsh rabbit


The beach


Great Blue Heron


Egret


Sunset

Wildlife Weekend :: Salty Dog

We're here on sunny Sanibel Island and I'm doing my best not to call our house-sitters constantly for chicken and cat reports. I can't let them know the extent of my chicken neuroses, so I'm holding off on phone calls…for now. I will admit to waking up this morning to the sound of birds and I immediately thought it was the chickens. Then Jace wandered through and said "That sounds like our chickens!"

Instead we're having fun on the beautiful white, sandy beach overlooking the crystal clear aqua-colored waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It's funny how romantic it sounds, but when I grew up here I didn't think twice about it all. It was just the beach.

Since it's a wildlife weekend I thought you'd like to see a photo of Rommel catching some rays and watching the boys playing in the Gulf.


He's in dog nirvana - he's digging holes in the sand, watching birds skimming the water and coming home with salt in his fur and sand on his paws...

Road Trip

The family is headed south for a little vacation tonight. We're meeting family and friends for a wedding/family reunion and then relaxing with the relatives for a full week on a tropical island off Southwest Florida. So I'll be a bit M.I.A. on the blog until May when we return. I've got a couple of scheduled posts that might just pop up and I've been toying with the idea of mobile blogging, so you might see a thing or two from me over the next 10 days...or you might not. I'm playing it all by ear right now.

We have house-sitters who'll be taking care of the house, the cats and the chickens, so I haven't blogged much this week as I've been in a mad rush to get the house cleaned for them and pack up the family for our trip. We're taking the dog with us, but the cats and the chickens will be sadly left behind.

The chickens have been moved to the coop and will be living out there full-time while we're gone. I won't have our chicken-sitters worry about moving them out to the newly-built chicken tractor everyday like we do, so they'll be cooped up for a full week. I feel bad for them, but I know they're chickens and they'll adjust.

And it turns out that our chickens are afraid of the dark. When the sun sets, the chicks peep like mad and scramble around trying to get out of the coop. I read on the Backyard Chickens Forum that many young chicks are afraid of the dark, but will often adjust after a couple of days. Farmer B came up with a temporary fix, followed by a genius idea. The temporary fix was to hang a glo-stick sphere in the top of the coop to give off a faint light on the first night. It was like a chicken rave all night in the coop and it gave off enough light that the chickens finally calmed down.

Farmer B's genius idea has solved the nighttime lighting problem at the coop. We have some boxes of solar driveway lights that we keep in the garage as part of our emergency kit for hurricane season. When you lose power in a hurricane, you put the lights outside to charge all day, then bring them in the house at night and plant them in buckets filled with sand. You have free solar-powered lights all night that aren't a fire hazard - it's one of our most important hurricane kit items. Farmer B figured this would be perfect for the chicks so we've planted some driveway lights around the coop next and they'll charge all day and glow all night - problem solved. Safe solar chicken lighting.

So wish our chickens, our house, our garden, and our cats good luck while we're gone!