Nesting

We’ve had alternating warm/cold weather. Saturday morning it snowed quite hard but by the afternoon it warmed up enough that it melted all the snow and I didn’t button my coat when I went outside. This week the temperatures are in the 70s. It looks as if the temperature will fall into the 50s and 40s starting Sunday, but we get to enjoy the warm temperatures for a few days. The warm days are a solid promise that Spring is here.

Today for the first time this year, I wore only a T-shirt outside. EJ washed his wool socks and hung them out on the clothesline for the first time. Usually, I do the laundry but he washed and hung his socks while I fixed lunch. We each help each other out and do whatever we find that needs doing. He likes to cook and he knows how to do laundry. Sometimes I put up posts and fencing.

This morning, I moved the bird feeder post to the edge of the forest. I took down the bird feeders and replaced them with a little birdhouse. I saw a couple of chickadees checking out some of the other birdhouses this morning. We put up a few new birdhouses last autumn and I can’t wait to see who moves in.

While I was working on the post, I heard a familiar putt-putt-putt sound. I quickly and quietly went inside the house so I wouldn’t disturb the female turkey emerging from the forest not far from the post. She wandered right past the house and back into the forest again. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen her over the last week so I know she either has a nest nearby or is looking for a good site to build one.

A couple of days ago, I saw a crow fly overhead carrying a stick so I know it is building its nest. Spring is such an exciting time of year.

Over the weekend, EJ and I set up the patio table and chairs on the deck. We still could get cold weather and snow; typically there’s a small chance of frost into mid-June. However, nice Spring weather makes us feel like being outside. Yesterday I washed the windows and this morning EJ put the screens in. We are beginning to actively plan garden tasks.

The previous owners of our house left behind two wooden dog houses. Hannah Joy never used them because she is a pampered inside dog. About 6 years ago when we got the 10 x 12 shed we use as the coop, I put one of the dog houses in there along with a fancy coop we had bought at the farm store when we first got chickens. So there were two houses inside THE coop. The chickens like to roost on top of them and sometimes lay their eggs in them, although their favorite nesting areas are kitty litter boxes. A week or so ago, on a nice Spring day, I moved the second wooden dog house into the coop with the others. It was in the garden to provide shelter for the chickens, but they didn’t use it all that much–and there are still a couple other shelters available for them. The dog house is very sturdily built and very heavy. I removed the roof, which easily comes off, and pushed/pulled one side of the main part of the doghouse and then the other, moving it a couple inches at a time. After moving bales of straw out of the way, I positioned the doghouse in the coop. Then I went back to the garden and “walked” the heavy roof in and lifted it into place. I repositioned the straw bales and I was finished. Now the chickens have THREE little houses to roost on. I tried to take a photo showing the houses in the coop, but I couldn’t get a good angle. Oh, well.

Sometimes Hannah Joy gets “the zoomies.” That’s when she goes slightly wild and runs from the couch in the living room to the bed in the master bedroom and back again several times. We sometimes call it “going Taz”–wild like the Tasmanian devil in the old cartoons. She went Taz a week ago and slightly injured her back leg so that she walks with a limp. She’s done this before and eventually is ok. She’s limping less and less.