Return Of Laya (best hen ever)

Where to begin?



First a confession ... I hid what I thought was a sad event from you.

About six months ago, the best hen ever, Princess Laya, went missing from my free ranging banty band of birds.



There were 3 roosters and Laya.

They all seemed to have mastered the art of surviving free, where many others had not.

Every night they roosted at the very tops of my very high oaks to avoid coons and other predators ... like the neighbors' cats.



Then, early last fall, Laya failed to show up in the yard.

Not to worry, because she would disappear for long periods when she was nesting.



But then, months went by without any sign of her. There had been some midnight squawking and twice the roosters had been on the ground near the house at night, so I figured something was hunting them and it seemed Laya had fallen victim to the predator.



A stray cat went to the pound, a raccoon went down the road, but in my heart, it was all to late for Laya.



I was aggravated, because she had been such a chick producing trooper.

I hid this news by not sharing it here on PF.



(I knew Dani would take it hard)



In the meantime, the 3 roosters disappeared just recently. I heard one of them crowing from the woods beyond my property a few weeks ago and I figured that the boys were ranging farther for food or had shacked up with the neighbors.



I can't see my neighbors, but I had heard Guineas and ducks through the trees, so it made sense that maybe my boys were freeloading there.


Last weekend, Mrs. FC said she had seen a strange chicken in the yard, that was not one of the boys.

Hmmm.

Neither of us considered that it might be Laya, since in our minds, she was dead.





BUT SHE WASN'T!!!!!


The rascal!
She's not talking about where she's been or what she's been doing for the last 6 months.
She is definitely back though.
How neatly wonderful is that?



Speaking of wonderful things ... these are baby datil peppers and yowza! ... the germination rate is spectacular!

Thank you to all who have ordered seeds so far. I feel pretty confident you will have similar germination success.

I still have plenty of seeds if you have a hankering for the delightful, delicious, devilishly hot Datil.

Chick Magnet ... It's A Curse

It's not easy being a chick magnet.

It may sound exciting to have hordes of chicks following you around, but a guy needs some peace and quiet once in a while.

It is still true that the way to a chick's heart is through her stomach.
Just watch the video below if you don't believe that.


These are Laya's chicks that I introduced you to months ago when they were tiny, fluffy, biddies.
I kept them caged until they were feathered out enough to fly away from danger. About two weeks ago, I opened the cage door and stepped back.

Nobody did anything for about ten minutes, and then a few cautiously explored the open doorway. The cage was perched atop two very tall sawhorses and after a little door exploring, two chicks stepped out on to the sawhorse.

The four foot drop must have looked pretty scary, because they spent a lot of time looking down.

Finally, one brave soul, we'll call him "Orville", made the leap with much frightened squawking and flapping.
After that, one by one, each chick leaped screaming from the precipice. It had not occurred to them yet that they were birds and capable of flight.

My big concern that first day was actually the night. That is when predators emerge from the surrounding woods to patrol closer to PFHQ. Raccoons, cats, and opossums have picked off unlucky or foolish chickens here in the past, so I was a little concerned.



After dark, I went out to see where the chicks had roosted.
The older chickens roost high up in the live oak behind the house. They have learned over time to do this and those who did not "get it" have long been eaten by night prowlers.

Would the new chicks follow their lead?

Nope.

They were all nestled on the ground beneath the live oak.

So, I hunted them down, gathered them up, and put them in the cage for the night.

The next day I let them out.

That night, when I went out, they were again nestled on the ground. So, again, I hunted them down with the flashlight and caged them.

On the third night, they were all nestled together about midway up the oak tree on a fat limb.
They have made great progress since then and have the roosting thing down.

Since that night, they have been free ranging all over the place under the watchful eye of "SON OF HOOT" who is obviously their father ... he's also their brother, but who are we to judge chicken morals?

What's interesting to me is how the original flock of 12 banties, purchased several years ago, has evolved. The 12 original birds were "mixed" banty chicks. As they matured, it became obvious that we had some fancy pudgy fluffy feather footed banties, a single well muscled rock bird (HOOT), a snow white basic chicken shaped chicken, and a handful of game birdy, pheasanty birds.

Over several years and generations of chicks, the flock has been honed by predation. Those who were weak flyers or slow, were picked off.
Left to breed were the gamebird style chickens and the muscular, in your face rooster, HOOT.

Today, All the birds are lean, flying machines that look much like a wild jungle fowl ... and they ALL have coloration that smacks of HOOT Sr's genes and Laya (the best hen ever).

Laya, (the best hen ever,... did I mention that?) is currently missing. She is the mother of every chicken at PFHQ ... that would be 3 older roosters and the current chick flock of 8.

Every time she has gone missing in the past, it's been due to her brooding a clutch of eggs somewhere on the property.

Being an optimist, and a great admirer of Laya, I believe that is what she is doing now.

I will keep you posted on her walkabout status.

Final Fair Post

The Suwannee River Fair showroom at lunch break.



One hour later ...




Here, Junior's pig attacks the Porcine Photographer Person.

After lunch, the livestock auction took place in front of packed, hard, ... really hard, concrete bench seats.

I told him that when it was his turn to stand in front of the bidders with his pig, he needed to smile at the buyers.

Instead he chose the "direct, unblinking, stare" method.
Oh well.

He was smiling after his pig was bought for $3.50 per pound by these good hearted folks.

His pig weighed 280 pounds.

He was doing the math as we walked back to the now empty pen to gather up the waterer and food bowl, and was pretty pleased.

He plunks his pig profits in the bank and rarely pilfers it.

I'm pretty sure his cash on hand after years of fair pigs is much higher than mine.

After about 7 years of fair pigs, it's liberating to know that next year is a pig free year.

The live ones that is.

We're still munching on BBQ spare ribs every chance we get.

Pastoral Ponies Post

Monday, as I was racing to St. Augustine on a tight deadline, early morning light bathed both a bald eagle in a dead pine and the pasture below in that perfect golden hue that makes us get up early for morning shots.

Unfortunately, I had to be in St. Augustine on time for a change. Dad was having a wee bit of surgery and I was the driver.

So, cursing myself for not budgeting some stop and shoot time, I blew past both photo ops.

On the way home yesterday afternoon, the sky had gone from crystal clear to scudding clouds and I figured I would not get a second chance on this trip.

As I approached Hatchet Creek Farm, the clouds made stopping seem like a waste of time, so I drove past.
A mile down the road, the clouds parted and the sky gap seemed big enough to give me a few moments of decent light, so I pulled over and swung the JEEP back around the way I had come.


I pulled into the farm driveway and parked to the side so I would not block anyone coming or going. Then I hopped out with my monopod and camera and shot a bazillion pics over the fence for as long as the cloud hole gave me some sunshine.

I was so glad I didn't talk myself out of turning around and going back for photos.

How many great photos do we miss when we rush or talk ourselves out of a ten minute stop?

The lilies in the field look like Atamasco lilies to me. They are blooming along roadsides right now and I even have a little patch of the here at PFHQ, but I have never seen them massed like this pasture at Hatchet Creek Farm.

It's nothing short of spectacular.

Toss in a handful of pretty miniature horses and ... well, pastures just don't get any prettier.

Thank you Hatchet Creek, for allowing a pasture of wildflowers to thrive and bloom each spring.

... and GO GATORS!

Subtle, Baby, Subtle

The shame of foot flatulence!


Early spring was rainy here and the "pond" has responded ... or should I say ... "reponded".
The two-lifers have taken advantage of that and the pond has massive swarms of tadpoles cruising through it.

(I guess my symbolic Easter post was a bit TOO symbolic yesterday, since no one seems to have commented to that effect)

That's the problem with subtlety, it's often so damn subtle, ya miss it.

My plan to introduce azolla , the floating water fern to the pond in a bid to shut down some of the photosynthesis below is proceeding as planned.
A nasty alga known as Chara (aka Muskweed) tends to fill the clear waters of my pond as summer progresses. Being a cleverly simple alga, it only takes a single dormant cell that toughs it out through the dry periods for a reinfestation to occur.

The azolla and I are working together to make at least parts of the pond less inviting to Chara.

"I cast thee into darkness Chara!!"

It's fern vs. alga in the battle of the pond!

Here's some wonderful news.
If you've been hanging with me at PF for any time, you know that we came into some rare, free, massive timber bamboo last year.
And you might remember that we busted our cute little butts digging it up from the donor's place and then replanting it here at PFHQ.

Of course, you also remember this winter and the roundhouse kick it gave to Florida with freeze after freeze after freeze.

My bamboo acted like they were hurt by this change in Florida's usually sunny attitude and their leaves browned ... things looked iffy.

I am happy to announce that my grass on steroids has decided to burst forth with new canes so we can all take a collective sigh of relief.





Princess Laya (best hen ever!) always disappears when she starts laying. When she disappeared several weeks ago, I was afraid that her free range luck had run out and a predator had taken her.

Then, about 2 weeks ago, Emma (best middle daughter ever!) was home for college spring break and she spotted Laya foraging in the yard.

That's when I knew she had not been eaten (duh) and was instead, working on a project.

We looked in all the usual places, but could not find her nest.

On the day of the chicks discovery, I noted that she was hanging around with them in one particular area ... an area with a canoe stored upside down.

There was just enough of a gap between canoe gunwale and soil to allow a girlishly petite chick like Laya to slip under.


When I lifted the canoe, there they were.

Judging from the egg shells left behind, she had a pretty good success rate ... which is what you would expect from the best hen ever.

Laya (Best Hen Ever) And Her New Brood!!

The Queen Mother.

Thursday was a teacher workday for us and the first day of spring break for the students. I was in my classroom finishing up some grading when the phone rang.

"Hey Dad, I just got home and Laya is walking around the yard with chicks!"

"Great!" I responded, " How many?"

"Not sure, I'll get closer and let you know."

"Okay, remember to keep Bear under control when you let him out ... he's never REALLY over his chicken addiction."

"Gotcha!"

A few minutes later I got a short text message, "8!".

When I arrived home and parked the JEEP, a rustling sound in the oaks proved to be this ...

As pastoral as that looks, we have given up on allowing Laya to handle chick raising on her own, not due to any fault of hers, she's AMAZING!

(Best Hen Ever! ... have I mentioned that yet?)

It's just that we live in a small hole in a big woods, and there are just too many native predators like opossums, coons, and ratsnakes. When you add the neighbor's %#$!#%$&!# cats to that list, her chicks just don't stand a chance if left with her to forage.

So, Junior and I rounded them up, which would have made a good video in itself since she took them into a scrubby oak section as soon as we approached and he was barefoot as usual.

Let's just say, round up was challenging ...

After a while we did manage to corral them and place them in an old rabbit hutch with Laya.

Last year we did the same and my pal the ratsnake slipped in through a loose door gap and ate all 4 chicks. I did not see that happen, but there were no shredded remains, not even a feather. Just a single drop of blood to mark their passing.

I'm sure it was my favorite giant grey ratsnake and I hold her innocent. She's an instinctive hunter ... and belongs here.

Even if I like having the grey ratsnake around, I don't have to make it easy for her, so Junior and I ziptied the flappy wire door completely shut. We can drop water and food through the wire mesh from above,

We also moved the cage up on to the porch near old, deaf, blind Flounder's bed so he can protect them.

Stop laughing at my dog.

His nose works a thousand times better than yours even if he can't see or hear.

Actually, I'm counting on the very intense doggy scent of him to be a deterrent for the mammalian predators who might venture close to the house.

It seems to work with human visitors.

Some Final Things

With the baby winding up his senior year, there have been a lot of final moments this year.

Final football game.
Final basketball game.
Final homecoming dance.
Final prom ... coming up.

Final track meet ... just a few weeks away.


Here's Junior passing the baton to his pal Enrique in the 4 X 100 relay.


It's the last Suwannee River Livestock Show for us too ... which means, we have raised our last show pig!!

WHOOP! WHOOP!

You know ... there was a time in my life where if someone had said, " I predict someday, you will spend a perfectly good Friday evening shaving a pig." ... I would have responded, " Waitress, GIVE ME WHATEVER HE'S DRINKING!"

That was before I had kids.

Listen ... if you haven't had them yet, think about it!! They will change you and force you to do things you never thought you would do.

(Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!")

If you already have kids ... well, there's always adoption.

I'm just kidding.
Chill.


Okay, I know I look insane, I had just set the self-timer for the 5th time and jumped over the fence for a "shaving the pig shot".
The other photos were even worse.

You don't really shave the pig of course. The idea is to trim her fur down to show off her buffness. The swine judge at the fair will be looking for solid muscle tone, muscle size, good joints as shown by her gait, and bone structure.

The hair cut accents all of that.

It's just like when human body builders shave their chests.

The swine show is Monday and the sale is Wednesday so I'll have a few fair posts this week to keep you updated.

So, I have loaded my final fair pig on to a trailer. It's been a long ride with daughter Katie starting the whole thing years ago as the first FFA DNAling of mine.

Each pig has had it's challenges, most had at least one episode of sickness that required either antibiotic injections or spending all night nursing it with baby electrolyte solution ... or both.

This pig was the healthiest of all ... almost too healthy. She weighed 260 pounds two weeks ago and we were afraid she would be over the weight limit (290) for the fair.

She had been on reduced rations for the last week or so and it paid off. She checked into the fair at a very buff 280 pounds today.

Sweet!

Pigs are fascinating animals, but I'm glad to be done with the fair experience now.

Well, almost done ... just a few more days.


The most amazing news today is that my baby girl, Emma is 21 years old today ... a fact that makes me a bit misty, until I think about what a funny, bright, beautiful woman she has become and then the mist clears a bit.

Just a bit.

Stupid mist.

Okay, I gotta switch subjects, when my contacts get this moist, the screen blurs.


It's a gorgeous day out there and I have an ex-pig pen to convert into a garden so let me go busy myself with the next chapter.

Pig Shower

Scattered showers here in Pure Florida today.

Fair To Partly Swinish

Here's an update on the fair show pig ... the final pig in a series of fair swine.
Can you feel me smiling?



She has proven more skittish than previous pigs, but has finally tamed down. Her skittishness was probably due more to our hectic schedule than any fault of her own.

We weren't able to spend as much time together as with previous pigs due to soccer and basketball schedules that kept us away far too much.

Soccer is done of course, and basket ball ends with a tournament this weekend and the last regular game tonight.

Here's what your Mom was talking about when she told you to "STOP EATING LIKE A PIG!"

What?

Oh.

I was the only one to hear that, huh.

Wat U Si Is What You Get

heehee ... okay, admit it, that was a pretty clever title wordplay.


Every time I drive home to see Mom and Dad, I pass these Watusi cattle in a field near Hastings, Florida.
Every time I do, I think, "Dang, I should stop and photograph those bodacious bovines for Pure Florida ... Three Collie would get a kick out of these."
I tell myself I'll get the shot on the way back through Hastings, but it's always dark, rainy, or I just plain forget about it.

Hastings bills itself as "The Potato Capital Of The World", although at this time of the year, it is more of a cabbage capital. The fields surrounding the tiny, but growing, farm community are brimming with almost ready, future cole slaws.

Open fields are freshly plowed and neatly rowed, awaiting the seed potatoes to come. The dark rich soil, so rare in most of sandy Florida, awaits another chance to prove itself ... as it has been doing since at least the late 1800's when Mr. Flagler's railroad and the tourists it brought created a demand for fresh veggies in St. Augustine.

A few years ago, they "improved" SR-207, the road that runs through Hastings on it's way from St. Augustine to Palatka. A formerly nondescript, farm to market road is now a wide 4-lane highway with fancy palm tree medians in the middle of potato fields.

If the developers weren't greasing the wheels of that road project, well, then FC is really a recent transplant to Florida from Iowa who lives in a beachfront condo.
No doubt, the same "pave it and move on" crowd that created the hideous"World Golf Village" and all the 1/8th acre subdivisions in NW St. Johns county were salivating at the cleared, level, farm fields surrounding Hastings.

No matter that those fields are some of the richest food producing soil in the sunshine state. Already a large "U-Store It" facility has been built on a field that will never produce potatoes or cabbage again.
I can hear future generations, shaking their heads in disbelief ... the way we do when we read about earlier generations stripping virgin forests, slaughtering buffalo, or exterminating Carolina Parakeets.

" You took food producing farmland out of production ... to STORE YOUR EXTRA JUNK?!!!"

How will we answer them?

Whatever we say, we probably won't say it with our mouths full ...


This was supposed to be just a short Sunday, photo post about some pretty cool cows.
I'm back on track now.

I did make the U-turn yesterday, right after I passed the Watusi herd. The light wasn't optimum, and the brown bull is a little soft, but aren't they the neatest (excluding Florida Cracker Cattle of course) thing?

I obeyed the sign on the fence, partly out of a desire to live, and partly out of respect for the livestock owner.
I can't share any other details on this tiny herd, because ... I don't know them. It's only a few animals, so it may be simply a hobby herd, or it could be a gene pool for cross breeding ... UF does a lot of agricultural work in the area.

Whatever the reason for the Watusi herd, one thing is sure ... they look a lot better on that agricultural land than another mini-mart, church, or gas station.

Nipple Replacement, New Pigs, and Bear's Project

Junior and the new show pig getting acquainted.

Yesterday went smooth, even when one of his girl FFA buddies called and asked us to pick up her pig for her ... ahem, that's an extra $190.

"Tell your Dad I'll pay him back on Monday."



She spent today getting familiar with her surroundings. It's probably her first time on dirt and she did a lot of rooting about. I'm sure her powerful nose can read that soil like a book and it's telling her of other pigs that lived here too.

Unlike a book, she can not flip to the back and read the ending, which is a good thing of course.


We have a nipple waterer of course, but she has to find it first.
I take it off in the nonpig season so I can use the waterline for irrigation, but I replaced it yesterday.
They usually find it pretty quick.
In the meantime, we set a bowl of water in the pen so we could be sure she had a drink.

She wowed us by blowing bubbles in it. I did get a little of that on video and will try to load that later this week.




This is a view through her pig shelter. She has a fine rear end and the long body that show pig judges desire ... when I say desire, I just mean it's the kind they like to score ... no, wait, what I am trying to say is this body type is what wins fairs.

Shhhhhhhh.
She had a big day yesterday and today has been grey and cold, so the pine shavings and heat lamp of her piggy penthouse felt pretty good.

She's eating well and is still wary of us, but with apples and back scratches, we will soon win her over.

Since you are wondering, Bear has expressed only passing interest in her. Last year was his first pig and this one is soooooo, you know ... last year and all.

Bear is too busy to live in the past. He's got a big project going online.

What? Your dog doesn't surf the web?

Weird ...

Bear is working on a 2010 photo calendar called "A Year Of Bear".

You know you want one.

Eggscape! Princess Laya Does It Again

Pretty isn't it?


That's our beloved Escape. As pretty as she looks on the outside, she has a transmission issue ... needs a new one. Her transmission quit after one of Junior's football games back in September. We towed her back across the state and took her to two different car doctors, but got the same diagnosis each time.





"Needs a new transmission."


Nooooo!





Dang ... where is that government controlled car health care system when you need it?


... and why hadn't I been responsible by routinely funding a car health management account in the free market system?





It was tough decision time. The Escape was running great (minus the transmissue), she looked great, and she was sporting brand new tires and was paid off ... the same month the tranny went out.





Still, she had 175,000 thousand miles on her ... should we fix or buy?


Well, we bought, months ago ... an almost new Nissan Frontier that we love.





Which gets me finally to the chicken story ...





Unsure how to offload a good car with a bad tranny, we parked the Escape in the yard. I started it up routinely to keep things working and changed it's location once in a great while.





Recently, I had a buyer coming out to look at it, so I moved the Escape in order to wash the dust from it.





When I did, there was Princess Laya and a clutch of eggs. She had been nesting beneath the Escape!




With the Escape moved, I arranged a bunch of yard stuff around her exposed nest to shelter it fromt he weather and hide it from prying eyes, noses, teeth, and claws.
Laya seemed to accept the new situation and loyally sat on her eggs.


Yesterday, when I checked on her, she was not on the nest ... and the nest contained broken eggshells.


Nearby, in the shrubbery and tall grass, I could hear cheeping.





Chicks!


Four chicks!

I think they probably were born about two days ago. Which would make their birthday the same as a certain 8 year old.

Pretty cool.

Here's mother Laya practicing her stern look.

I was relieved to see that none of the chicks had 3 wings or 2 heads as all the roosters around here are Laya's children too.

Fairly Busy Weekend

Resting at the fair after a busy morning.


Parents and kids swarm in to set up watering pipes and feed their pigs.


Junior filling a watering pipe. It's a section of pvc pipe with a 90 degree angle at the bottom and a watering nipple installed. These are strapped to the pens and kept full of clean water for the piggles.


It was a bit hectic around here this weekend ...


Saturday morning, Junior and I were out before dawn, loading up the show pig for the Suwannee River Livestock Show and Fair. The loading went extremely smoothly since I had attached the pig transport contraption to the pig pen chute a week ahead of time and allowed her to wander to it for treats.


At loading time, a few well placed bananas was all it required to coax her into the trailer. Once she was loaded, she received a quick bath and then off we went to the always stressful weigh-in.

At the fair grounds, a long line of trucks and trailers bearing pigs stretched out of the grounds and onto the highway.



Apparently everybody else planned to get there early too.


It wasn't that bad however and before we knew it, the pigboys were offloading our pig into the chute that would channel her to the scales.


At that point, Junior got out of the JEEP, but I had to go find a parking place, so I did not get to see the weigh-in.


A few minutes later, as I parked the JEEP along the highway, a text message arrived, "250 pounds". That meant we had qualified to be in the fair, and one big chunk of stress slid off my plate with a loud "kerplunk".








We spent another hour at the fair waiting to be allowed in the row of pens where our pig was sharing a pen with good buddy Tyler's pig. Once all the pens were filled, the fair folks allowed us in so we could rig waterers and feed our charges.

At the same time all of this was going on, the rest of the PF family were driving down to New Port Richey for the Chasco Boat Parade, Festival, and Concert ... AND my wife's annual family reunion. We do this every year, only this year the festival and the fair coincided, plus Junior's first soccer game in over a year was scheduled for later that day.

Hence the familial division ... Junior and I stayed for pigs and soccer while the rest went to the reunion.

After an early lunch at BubbaQue's in Chiefland, Junior and I dashed home to play with Bear and clean up from pig handling.

Then it was off to Alachua for the soccer game. On the 40 minute drive to Alachua, the weather which had been pretty benign, began to ramp up. By the time we arrived at the soccer fields, the wind was blowing steady and extremely powerful gusts were turning the dirt parking area into a whirling sandstorm of dust, twigs, and oak leaves. No rain or ominous clouds, just roaring winds.


While waiting for the game to start, I received a phone call from Mrs. FC down at the reunion. Emma had gone out onto her uncle's dock to watch the boat parade and driven a huge splinter into her foot.


They were on the way to the emergency room. This apparently was no ordinary splinter. She was busy, so I didn't get many details at that moment.


Later I would learn that the splinter was a shard of wood several inches long that went in, out, and back in to her foot.


(She's supposed to take a picture of the wound and the 2 inch long HALF of the splinter that the doc let her keep.)


I'll blog that as soon as she gets it to me ... in the grand tradition of my cut off finger stitch pics from way back in this blog ... search if you dare newbies ... it's under "stupid things I have done".

So ... with my hurting Emma on my mind, I sat down on a bench to watch Junior play soccer in a gathering storm.
Our team was just barely big enough to play and the opposing team had about 20 players ... good players, so it did not look good.
For a while, it was 3-0 their favor, and then Junior scored and we rallied.
Then they scored.
Then Junior scored again ... 2- 4 now.
Then they scored.
Then Junior scored again ... 3- 5.
Then Junior executed a beautiful cross field pass and a teammate kicked it in ... 4-5 now.
Then they scored ... 4-6.
Dang it!
Then Junior scored again (got it on video ... later this week) and the score was 5-6.
Then the game ended.

We lost, but he was magnificent.



Later in the day, I called Emma to see how she was doing. She told me she was in the emergency room, with her foot numbed and the doctor was just about to cut out the shard.
She sounded pretty chipper for one who had just impaled her foot ... but I got off the phone quick as I did not want to hear my baby girl in pain ... just in case the numbnicity was not fully in place.

Much later in the day, she was sore, but managed to go (on crutches) to the festival concert with her girlfriends.
Then she and the girls went back to college ... so I haven't seen her or her injury. No hand holding or Dad hugs ... I've never had one get hurt at a distance before and frankly I do not like it one bit!
At least her Mom, sis, buddy Corinne, and kin were there ... added together, they almost equal a Dad hug.

Even later Saturday, after dark, the powerful thunderstorms that the high winds had hinted at arrived with heavy rains, limb snapping winds, and much lightning.

A fitting end to a full day.

Broad Shoulders, Sweet Cheeks, Full Lips

Broad shoulders.


Sweet Cheeks.

Full Lips.

"Porki" has a fair to go to at the end of March and she must weigh between 230 and 280 pounds ... or she will be disqualified.

I weighed her Monday and she was approximately 200 pounds after adjusting for the error in the scales.

I weigh myself in it first and then I know what error the scale is carrying.

(175 pounds ... since you were wondering)

Porki was about the easiest pig weighing experience I've ever had. I barely had time to bait the scale chute with apples and bananas before she had strolled in.

Curiosity killed the cat, but it weighed the pig.

Nautical Chickens

Bear was walking us around the yard yesterday, just before sundown, when I noticed that Laya (best chicken ever) was not up in the live oak branches.

The live oak between the house and the garden was festooned with cackling chickens, beginning from just out of Bear's leap zone to thirty feet up. I peered up through the branches looking for Laya, but she was nowhere to be seen. Everybody was bedding down for the night ... so where was she?


Foxes, oppossums, raccoons, coyotes, and the neighbor's cat Nemesis, are all threats to my free rangers and so I was a little concerned over the missing Laya. The Havahart trap had caught a fat oppossum the day before and I had some fun with it as I released it and chased it into the woods. The trap wasn't even baited, but it was an oppossum after all. (Sorry, no video, for once I didn't have my camera with me).
Hopefully no oppossum had munched on Laya.

She has vanished before and I have worried before, but she always turned up later, hidden somewhere atop a clutch of eggs.
Some of these nests were successful ... most of the other chickens here at PFHQ owe their existence to her actually.

Longtime readers know about the living room chicks (aka the LOTR chicks) which Laya produced for us. She's also produced the most recent crop of three chicks that I have not bothered to name as they've "gone native".

Laya is special.

I looked in all the usual places, but no Laya.
Then, I thought about the boat. A while back, I had noticed a chicken or two hanging out in the boat. At the time, I thought it was just a refuge from Bear.


Sure enough, there she was. Nestled in under the bow. This is a pretty good spot actually. The boat sits up high and is above most ground predators. The fiberglass boat hull is slick enough to keep most ratsnakes befuddled too.
Good choice, Laya.


She had that "all fluffed up over eggs, don't mess with me" look, ... so I didn't.
I was just glad to see her.

I'll keep you posted on the progress of her voyage.

Why I Love This Little Restaurant And ... FC's Favorite Chick Flick

Theo's Restaurant sits along King Street and next to the San Sebastion River in St. Augustine. Each morning, the owner and his wonderful staff show up early to bake fresh bread and prepare wonderful food for their loyal customers and the lucky tourist who finds Theo's.

My parent's found Theo's decades ago when it was a few miles away on San Marco Avenue and they made it their EVERY Saturday breakfast spot.
My folks love Theo's.
They are so regular, that the Theo's crew starts cooking their order the minute they see them come in the door.
I love this place too ...

... not just because of the great breakfasts ...

... or the "cover your plate" sized delicious fresh cinnamon buns ...

... this is why I love Theo's ... these people.

When Dad fell and broke his leg a month ago, the good folks at Theo's called to check on them and offered to deliver their traditional breakfast. Theo's doesn't deliver take out by the way ... they were just taking care of my folks out of the goodness of their hearts. They knew Mom doesn't drive and with Dad down, getting to Theo's would be a problem.

Luckily, my brother stepped in for the delivery, so the busy Theo's crew only had to make the breakfast ... but wasn't that an amazing example of caring about your customers?

Like I said, I love this restaurant.

Alot of you have asked about Porki the Pneumonia Pig's progress.

She seems to be almost recovered and is grunting normally, eating with gusto, and breathing so much clearer.

Thanks for your concern.

She does seem to have developed a Gatorade habit though during her sick spell. In the picture above, Mrs. FC is administering a little Ade mixed with an antibiotic.

Just so we have a little nature on this nature blog today, I've included a heavily cropped distant shot of a pair of Hooded Mergansers rafting on the San Sebastion River. I took this just outside of Theo's as I waited to pick up Mom and Dad's breakfast last Saturday.

Oh, yeah ... and what is FC's favorite chick flick?

"Sliding Doors" with Gwyneth Paltrow and some guy with a great Scottish accent. Mrs. FC and I watched it yesterday again. She got weepy, I did not.

It ain't "The Yearling" or Old Yeller", after all, so no tears from me.

(and since you are going to ask ... no, I have not seen "Marley and Me"... when I do, it will be in the privacy of my own home)

Now you know.