Say hello to Speedy. Speedy is staying at the farm for a little while until his new family can come and pick him up.
Speedy is a young silver lace Wyandotte rooster. He was hatched here at the farm early this spring and we thought he was a she, but she’s a he and so my friends that bought him for their urban coop could not keep him. So I had said we would take back any roosters for sure, since, well, we’re not perfect at this whole sexing chicken thing!
But you know, my friends grow SPLENDID roosters! In fact, we’ve now got three roos out of the batch! A beautiful guy named Sheldon, who is now partners in our poultry barn flock… a beautiful barred rock boy. And we also just picked up Martha… who is now, Martin! Haha..
Now Martin is a lovely wheaten Marans boy, that was also hatched and grown here at Windhaven. But that’s another story, and this is Speedy’s tale.
Speedy, like Sheldon and Martin, is just a sweet boy! Very nice bird, friendly and well behaved. We let him out of the rooster coop to see how he would do a couple evenings ago and he was so happy to get out and dig around, explore.
The funny thing is that he followed Maggie and I all the way back to the poultry barn and just hopped up on the open ledge and came in to check out what we were doing! Since we were checking on all our little chicks, he hopped right up on the brooders and peeked in, just surprised and enjoying his freedom.
Well, Maggie didn’t want him to get hurt or lost outside, so she put him up on top of the big coop in there and he settled down to roost for the night.
In the morning, we came out and we were surprised to find Speedy, up on the coop, pacing back and forth! I don’t think he knew how to get down. His home coop before was lower to the ground and he came right over to Maggie and took her up on the offer to get down. He was so funny. He followed us around as we did our barn chores and then followed us out like he knew just what his day was up for.
That was until he met the boss man. Bucka Roo… king of Windhaven. At least King of the Poultry. Gideon and Cody are still trying to debate WHOM is the real head honcho. (My bets are on Cody, since Gideon doesn’t get free ranging privileges… )
Now, Bucka’s welcome to the neighborhood for all young roosters involved a great deal of posturing and a lot of fuss. Being a French Marans… he’s not into a lot of fighting. But he will if the youngster doesn’t back down immediately.
As you can see, Speedy was not backing down.
They danced around for a little while, back and forth, each eyeing up the other and seeing who could puff up their mantles more. I think Bucka does have a little advantage in this game, he’s definitely a mature and hefty boy.
However, Speedy is the first young roo I’ve ever seen that actually didn’t just rush off to hide in the bushes! He stood his ground.
Handsome, sweet temperment towards humans and a good brave heart? Speedy is going to make a fantastic flock roo for our friends little group.
Now, they did finally get into it and Speedy got a whooping. Bucka is a tough bird and treachery and age always beats youth and inexperience. And Speedy got a little bloody gash on his head that got him a lot of attention and a room back at the roo coop. We don’t like fighting roos here and this little battle lasted about 30 seconds. Maggie is good at breaking up fights and thankfully, we don’t have very many at all. In fact, it’s rare. Most of the younger roos know better than to challenge Bucka. And Maggie is good at getting in, grabbing one and shooing off the other. Safely.
Speedy got an afternoon in the screen porch after a little medical attention to his boo boo. It wasn’t bad at all, and it’s fine now, a day or two after the situation. He’s rooming with Martin and they are fine together. Speedy’s new family will be out in a few weeks to pick him up, so until then, we get to enjoy him and fuss over him. Just no more free ranging!
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Boy, what a weekend! The 127 garage sales were so much fun. Tiring, but fun! It’s hard work getting in and out of a car over and over and over all day long! haha… I never thought about it until this weekend. The garage sales were close together, almost close enough to walk to each but then you have your treasures and such, and well, out here in rural land, it just meant to had to bring your car to each one. I saw some folks with golf carts! Wonderful! I think that would have been a super way to get around!
So, I went on Thursday with Miss Julia, and that is where I scored the biggest haul for sure… first up with a quad of 2 drawer filing cabinets for $10. Total. Pretty darn cool!
Being the master dealer I am… I offered them $10 for the group instead of the $12 and the lady was eager to be done and she said… SOLD! I was so happy! You see, I have a lot of crafts that I like to do. And storing them all, well, it was getting a little out of hand. Plus I just wanted something that would be easy to retrieve and sort and also, would have a “set” place for it’s belonging.
I was going to invest in a set of Ikea shelves and use baskets and stuff to store it all but when I started to price it all out, I was already up to $200 and that was just toooooo much for me. And then I began to think, those baskets and such will not keep things tidy and dust free and then the cats get in them and all that. Being so close to a fairly busy road means a lot of dust. We dust weekly! Honest! And still stuff gets dusty. So I got the idea that I wanted short filing cabinets. And each hobby would get ONE drawer. When it is full, then there is NO MORE acquiring stuff until there is room in the drawer. I love that idea!
Doesn’t that look nice? Now I happened to score the big black lateral file cabinet at another sale on Friday and it was only… $10! Yahoo! So for $20, instead of $200, I got tons of storage AND a sort of shelf for a few other things. (I’m still thinking it’s a little too cluttered and will be working to get it less cluttery… but hey, you must start somewhere. Remarkably, all my crafts except two fit into ONE drawer only. My wool working/spinning stuff is in the two lovely picnic baskets. And my scrapbooking stuff is in 4 Ikea boxes in my office. I ran out of filing cabinet drawers! I think I really need two more, 2-drawers and then I will be complete. The white shelf at the end is Maggie’s sign company stuff, and it could be moved to make a whole bank of drawers. A future goal.
Now… my plan is to get some metal paint, in a nice color, perhaps a neutral brown, and paint all the fronts of the cabinets the same. And then have Maggie cut me some cute vinyl letters that call out the contents in each drawer! Wouldn’t that be cool? Definitely a winter project but one in the old card stack of to-dos!
Right now, I’m just digging that fact that my stuff is not all scattered about and in one place. Well, almost. Darn scrapbooking stuff.
I really like the new rule… One drawer and that’s it. A lot of these crafts, I haven’t done for years but I just can’t seem to part with the supplies. But now, having one drawer for it, well, that’s okay. It’s not that much room. It’s a limiting rule that will keep me from going nuts and bulking up on supplies. I have one drawer of sewing stuff. One of beads and jewelry making supplies. One for yarn, one for needlework, one for weaving, and one for art supplies. One of them is all my CDS. And another is all my recorded materials; personal video camera tapes and mini disk recordings and such.
I go around and around with my ‘style’ and what suits me in decorating and such. So often I am leaning towards less, less, less. I like a simple clean uncluttered look. Yet the minah bird in me loves things. Pretty things, sentimental things. It’s like having two personalities! I keep thinking there has to be a happy medium. I’m getting there. I think the cabinets will really work out nicely. I think I could probaby use about 2 or 3 more and then be a super happy camper! I already have cleaned out a bunch of clutter in my teeny room and office and it’s so much nicer. Easier to work in there, great to see what is up and what has to be done. To go from 800 square feet to 2,000 square feet is a challenge not to bulk up with the clutter. It is for us! I can’t wait until next week when we are getting a dumpster for a week. We have a bunch of junk in a shed and our garage and in our junk room that WILL BE sorted and trashed. Some stuff is going to the free store in town, but so much is just not really good for anyone and needs to be done. Gone. To make room for chickens! hahaha…. Ahem.
All this stuff was in a feed bag for $5!!! Yes! FIVE DOLLARS. The leather stuff alone is worth way more than that. There were three bridles and bits, reins, a breast collar, halters, and another set of tugs. All in need of some cleaning, but hey, that’s what Netflix and DVDS are for! I’ll be polishing and rubbing clean this stuff for a week! One of the bridles is for a horse, but the other two are pony sized! Good stuff. Exciting stuff! And when you add in the complete harness that I got for $25, I was a happy camper for sure.
Can’t wait for next year!!!! We ended up going on Friday and Saturday as well, but after Thursdays fantastic finds I think I spent like $10 on Friday (lateral filing cabinet) and then $3 on Saturday ( a book, a little candle tart warmer and something else that I have forgotten… hmmm…. oh a cute little wood sign with sheep, goats, chickens and a cow on! Obviously very very important to me! Hey, it was cute. I am going to hang it up outside somewhere…) The girls had a good time as well, and scored a few things here and there. Maggie got a movie screen for her tv projector thingy that they like to hook up to video games and make HUGE. Jessy got a older memory card that let her know the Nikon camera she bought a few months ago works! (She got the camera for free with a lens… the people thought it was broken, but it’s not! The card must have been bad that they had!!! It’s a Nikon D70 DSLR… nice camera!!!)
We’ll have to save up for next year, no doubt. I wish I would have gotten the pony cart for $30, even in rough shape… I’m finding now that it was a DEAL and a half… even ratty ones on Craigslist are $100 or more. And we saw farm equipment like tube gates and feeders as well as things like trailers and other good things for like next to nothing! It was a fun weekend for sure!!!!
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