R.I.P. Harry

 

I am sad to announce that Gyunay's favorite animal in the world, our turkey Harry, died Friday night. 

He died in his sleep, tucked in the coop peacefully, with no prior signs of illness.  He was just over 2 years old.  Obviously, Gyunay was devasted.  I already miss the fun noises Harry would make every morning as I let him out of the coop.  Rest in peace, Harry.

 

Poultry and Strawberries

 

Here's a shot of Harry with his feathers down.  He's still incredibly large and impressive.

Our lavender orpington pullets are now the same size as our older lavender orpington, so you can't really tell them apart anymore.  At least, I can't.  (In front of them is a sapphire gem and a barred rock.)

And in gardening news, I bought myself a strawberrry ring and some strawberry plants.  This is after I transplanted the first batch.  I still have 14 to add:

Most of us love strawberries, so we are hoping to have a good crop.  I hope to transplant the rest tomorrow, and mulch with wood chips.  They have been in flats in the playroom, but they really need transplanted.  

Poultry Parade

 

In the last two days, we've let the poultry roam about the yard.  Notice that the white chicken in front of Harry the Turkey is a rooster.  What a size difference!

Harry tends to just walk slowly around the yard.  He looks regal and truly impressive.  The chickens are more interested in scratching for bugs and other goodies.

None of the poultry is fond of Maple, but they aren't too worried about her, either.  She doesn't bark or chase them.  She is more interested in finding out what they're eating.  She desperately wants to eat the chicken scraps that I feed them daily.  Acorn is perturbed when I let the chickens out, since she knows that they belong in their yard.  After looking at me questioningly, she just went into the house.  If she doesn't see it, she doesn't have to deal with it.  

Boys and Birds

 

Harry is always popular, so I got a few new pictures of him.  The boys were happy to pose with him, too.

We let the chickens and Harry into the yard for a while the other day.  They enjoy exploring.  Several hens let themselves out of their yard daily, but not all do, and of course, Harry can't fly out.  So we let them all have a turn.

Also, Lydia brought me this the other day:

She was so excited and called it the best caterpillar ever.  I naturally had to inform her that it's a tomato worm, and I generally feed them to the chickens.  She was horrified because "it's so pretty!"  We compromised, and she set him loose by the mailbox.  I didn't bother to let her know about the others I fed to the chickens.

Gyunay has been building with his magna tiles.  He makes some pretty cool buildings.

And we made a quick trip to my parents' house this weekend.  The boys wanted a picture.  The boys always want a picture!

Blooms

 

I finally have lots of flowers blooming, and it's so cheerful outside.  These are a mixture of zinnias and marigolds.  Thankfully, the weather is cooler now.  The days have been really nice since about Saturday.

The chicks are growing.  

The puppy is spoiled rotten.

And my Mexican sunflowers are finally blooming!  They are flanked by a regular sunflower, too.

Holes and Such

 Lydia got two more sets of earrings on Sunday.

Her ears are bruised and sore now, but she's happy to have them pierced.

The poultry enjoyed some watermelon rinds.

These two guys have been adjusting quite well to homeschool.  They keep me on my toes, and we have our challenges, but they are both learning.  On this day, they were working on school while I was harvesting seeds from dried radish pods:

Outside, my flowers are starting to really bloom:

And our baby chicks are still so cute.  Unfortunately, one of the lavender ones died yesterday, so we are down to four chicks.  As Malachi would say, "Big sad."

Here are about half of the pink oyster mushrooms I grew from a kit Malachi gave me.

They were very yummy.  

Lastly, here's another baby Emry picture, because he's just too cute.

Poultry

Yesterday, I let the poultry out into the third yard for some supervised exploration.

They are really pretty birds.

This is one of the Polish roosters (there are 2 like this one).

Here are two roosters (white ones), and one of the ISA browns is tucked behind our two Wyandottes.  

And, of course, Harry likes to walk slowly around looking majestic.  

Lastly, here is Lavender, Malachi's lavender orpington.  To the left of her is Belle, one of our home-grown barnyard mixes.  She is now at the bottom of the pecking order, after being quite bratty near the top for several years.  She's our only blue-egg layer left.

All together, we have Harry the turkey, 2 black Astrolop hens, 1 lavender orpington hen, 3 sapphire gem hens, 1 buff orpington hen, 1 barnyard special hen, 3 ISA brown pullets, 2 Wyandotte pullets, 3 mystery cockerels, and 3 Polish (2 cockerels, 1 pullet).  The pullets will probably start laying in August, and soon we will need to cull some roosters.

 

This and That

I never posted the obligatory stair photo.  It's obviously missing some people, but we, as usual, forgot until the last minute.

I asked Malachi if he'd prefer a cat or a dog if he were allowed to take a pet to college.  He said, "Acorn."  I said, "So a little dog like Acorn?"  "No.  Acorn."

The plants are growing.  Some of these are radishes gone to seed.  I harvested the cabbages from this bed.  Kale looks great.  Tomatoes and peppers are very, very small, but I'm hoping to see growth soon.

Harry and the chickens are doing well.

And this guy turned 18 recently!  Pilot has been enjoying his summer so far.  Hard to believe that three of my kids are legally adults now.