All posts by ruthsoaper

An Explosion of Color

Flowers, Prayer Garrden, Reflections

Suddenly our prayer garden is busting with color.

I suspect the hot days we are having have something to do with it.

Pink and red rose bushes. Sorry I can’t give their formal names. My husband rescued these from a nursery he was working at a few years back. They had been left to die.

Evening primrose. Again, I’m not sure of the variety because a lady who my husband worked for when he was doing landscaping dug some up and gave them to him. I do know that they are a variety that blossom during the day and now that the deer are no longer eating them they are very prolific.

Roses in the foreground backed by lavender, and Asiatic Lilies in the distant background.

These Asiatic Lilies were planted 8 or 10 years ago. Each year they would send up green shoots, then form a bud, but before they even got a chance to open a deer would come along and bite the top off, so we had never seen them flower until this year.

The fence that my husband put up last year, which encloses our entire property, is a deer deterrent. The deer can certainly jump the 4-foot fence but mostly they don’t. We don’t have nearly as much deer damage as we used to.

Another Asiatic Lily that we have never seen flower before.

I had to add at least one new plant this year. This Foxglove was my choice.

My husband came home yesterday and told me that we need to add a white flowering perennial to the prayer garden.

He says we need to go shop for it today. Who am I to argue? 🙂

Thanks for visiting.

Giving Credit

Reflections

I mentioned in my most recent Monthly Inspiration post that I like to give credit where credit is due so when I came across this article identifying the author of the Rainbow Bridge poem, that I have shared on my blog several times over the past few years, I knew I needed to share this as well.

I do hope you take the time to read the above, well written article/interview but for those who don’t I will tell you that the poem was originally written in 1959 by 19-year-old Edna Clyne of Inverness, Scotland, the day after her Labrador Retriever, Major, died.

I also wanted to share with you this paragraph where Edna, now in her 80’s, answers the question ‘what advice she would give to those grieving the loss of a pet’. “nothing took her aback as when I asked if she has any advice to share for people suffering from the loss of a pet—because she, is after all, the world’s greatest expert on animal mourning. She asked if I really thought that was true, to which I could only respond, “Well you wrote the Rainbow Bridge, didn’t you?” Her response was then immediate—get another pet. We discussed it, how the relationship with a new pet will never be the same as the relationship with the old one, but it can be equally special and loving in different ways. There’s no reason to deny yourself or another animal that love, your previous pet certainly wouldn’t have wanted you to live without it.” I wholeheartedly agree with Edna’s advice. It has certainly helped us 🙂

Thanks for visiting.

Chick Update

Chickens, Chicks, Reflections

Right on Time

May 31st was the day we expected our next batch of chicks to hatch and when my husband returned from opening up the coop that morning, before 6:30, he said “congratulations Grandma!”. I knew we had chicks. He wasn’t sure how many had hatched at that time because it was a chilly morning, and he didn’t want to lift momma and expose the hatchlings to the cold.

When we returned to the farm just before 10:00 a.m. she had three fluffy yellow chicks under her. Another, that it appeared had tried to hatch, didn’t make it. By the end of the day they were wandering around the coop, and she was showing them how to eat and drink.

By the following day they had found their way out of the coop and my husband had to help momma get them back in at night. On day three he kept the big door closed so they stayed inside coop but on day four momma had them out and about all day and they even found their way back into the coop that evening.

I didn’t realize how much the first peep (a group of chicks is called a peep) had grown in three weeks until I saw the new ones. This week the Jersey momma took over full time parenting duties while the buff co-momma apparently decided she was no longer needed and left the group. Hopefully she has started laying eggs again.

Thanks for visiting.

Monthly Inspiration

Inspiration, Reflections

Hello and Welcome. Here is our quote to get the month started right.

Happy June, My Friends.

EDIT: After being asked by a reader (Thanks Cathy) who this quote was attributed to, I realized that this post was incomplete. I always like to give credit where credit is due. While most of the sources I found attribute this post to Harvey Mackay, I also saw one source that credited Dr Suess. According to research done by Snopes.com they could not confirm that Dr Suess was the original author of this quote and while Harvey Mackay may have used the quote, he was not the original author. Thus, the answer remains unknown.

Thanks for reading.

Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch

Buff Orpingtons, Chickens, Chicks, Jersey Giant, Reflections

Here in the U.S. Sunday, May 12, was Mother’s Day. It is also the day our two broody hens became mothers.

On Sunday we had four out of ten eggs hatch. We found three under the Jersey Giant and one under the Buff Orpington.

Oddly enough the three Buff Orpington chicks were under the Jersey Giant and the Jersey chick was under the Buff hen.

We waited until Tuesday morning but when none of the other eggs hatched my husband disposed of them. I will admit that we were a bit disappointed that we only had four chicks hatch.

The two hens are raising the chicks together, but it does seem like the Jersey hen is taking on more of the mothering role, teaching the chicks how to peck and scratch. The Buff stays nearby and definitely helps protect the chicks.

Today, Thursday, was their first day out of the coop.

Sometimes it seems like other hens are helping with the chicks as well.

At one point when Ranger decided the check out the babies. Both momma’s, several other hens and the rooster let him know that he was not welcome. They squawked and flew at him to chase him away. After being chased off again today Ranger has decided it’s best to avoid the group.

On Saturday we gave one of the other hens 5 eggs to sit on. This hen is so determined to brood. She has been sitting on a nest for about three weeks and each day my husband takes one or two eggs out from underneath her, trying to break her broodiness. It hasn’t worked. She just sits on her nest in the corner all day and hisses or squawks when he takes the eggs from her. After my husband gave her the 5 eggs she made some very happy clucking noises. So, in a few weeks we might have more babies (and more cute pictures). But we won’t count our chickens before they hatch.

Thanks for visiting.