August has been a busy month – the chickens are growing – the garden is drying out – the peaches are dropping off of the trees…
I’ve been out of town a lot this month – leaving Rob at home to care for the dogs and cats and chickens and house… Spent the first week of August at Camp Star Trail with a bunch of UUs from the Prairie Star District, then I went up to Sitches Midwest with The Yarn Barn folks, to help in their booth from August 19th-23rd – it was a lot of work, but a lot of fun.
Personally I’m ready for some down time.
The chickens are now pretty “free-range” while we’re at home.
The dogs mostly leave them alone. Henrietta will sneak up to the dogs and cats and start scrutinizing a tail, or bugs or dander … and begin to peck. She’s quite adventurous, and her beak is quite pointy and painful. Let’s hope to not walk outside and find her headless after one of her over-zealous pecking sessions.
There was a heat wave in the Midwest during the first half of August – and it was miserably hot. The dogs and cats and persons were able to take refuge in the cooled house; however, the chickens were outside huffing and puffing away. I never knew that chickens panted – their exposed skin turns red from heat (or excitement), and they open their beaks and pant. We tried to keep their water cool with frozen bottles of water. They would often nestle into their sand box, trying to cool off.
It’s cooled down since then and has been gorgeous. We’re rising back up into the 90s for a few days, but it should be all down hill from there… I’m going to try to not turn the A/C back on – it seems pointless, but we’ll see how strong I am. Pretty soon we’ll be experiencing the frigid, fruitless temperatures of January and February, and we’ll be longing for the 90 degree temperatures. Let’s just hope for a nice fall before the winter comes.
