Miscellaneous

Some happenings around the Vriends' homestead over the past months:

I found this painted turtle in our back field.  Nowhere near a body of water.  We drove him to the wetlands at the end of the road to make a new home

Look at those claws!

 

His belly pattern and colouring was beautiful!

With all the rain we've had this year, we have ponds where there is usually dried ground

The kids really enjoyed them!

Morel mushroom!  Yummy!

I gave our hen Rainbow several guinea eggs to hatch!  They are notoriously difficult to hatch under a bird.  Most are hatched in an incubator.  Only one of Rainbows eggs hatched

So I brought home a few others that were hatched in a friend's incubator a week before.  2 more guineas, and 2 banty chicks

Rainbow adopted them without hesitation!

Unfortunately, like the roosters of last winter, the keets (baby guineas!) and chicks decided the coop was too good for them and started perching in the trees.  The first few nights I sent Zander up the tree to fetch them down.  But they kept going higher until they were roosting 30 feet up!  I had to make the decision to let them.  I don't know what got them, but one morning we were down one keet and one banty chick.  The good news is that the following night the remaining chick and keets went into the coop!

Weed salad!  All ingredients from the garden.  Lettuce, peas, beans, and cucumber that were planted on purpose.  Purslane, lambs quarters, pig weed, red clover, and sorrel that most people call weeds.  We call them delicious and nutritious!