Pouring rain and pigeon problems

We've had 4 days of fairly relentless rain and strong winds here in California. Luckily there was very little snow in the mountains, so there has been no flooding in Sloughhouse. Our river, the Cosumnes, is usually only a threat when we get warm rain on a snow pack. So far, so good.

It's soggy and nasty outside, though.

I went out to check the animals this morning after the wind died down. Just as I got halfway across the lawn, one of those dark red bands you see on TV weather radar must have passed overhead. What a downpour! I wish my shower worked that well. I hurried the best I could with my poor balance and shambling gait, but I got totally soaked before I got back to the house. There was even an inch of water sloshing in my shoes. My new shoes.

That passed quickly, so I changed clothes and went back outside. I found the chickens all dry and fine. Our years of dealing with bad weather, predators, and other emergencies has finally paid off. Bob's pen design and his carpentry skills are proving to be superior. The new pens he built for me are great even in the worst weather. (Knock on plywood.)

In the pigeon pen, however, I found a mess. There was no water, but there were 2 dead babies. I found their siblings hiding on the ground. One was pecked on the head.

It seems there is a rogue pigeon in the pen that throws babies out of their nests, and I haven't been able to determine which one it is. Maybe it's because there are too many pigeons in the pen? Maybe it's because I had them locked up while it was raining? I had found the big speckled baby on the floor out there a couple of weeks ago Let's call her Rita. That's easier to type than big speckled baby.

These are the two bigger babies I found this morning. They aren't happy being in a nest together. The gray is spunky and gives me karate chops with its wing. The black and white one has been terrorized and isn't sure life is worth living.

I put some medicine on the B/W baby's head, fed them both, and put them in with Rita until I could get another cage ready for them.

As I passed the pigeon pen to find that cage, I heard more squeaking squabs. There were two younger ones hidden in a nest near the roof, out of my sight. Their parents were with them and they seemed to be okay, but their nest was damp and I was worried the murderer would pick on them, too. So I brought them inside.

These are the two younger babies.

Note to Katherine: their mother is one of the Old Owl's kids.

So now I'm handfeeding four baby pigeons. But it's okay because I have help. Rita is a great nanny.

She was pretty excited to see the feeding tube. When I set it down, she picked it up and walked off with it. She knocked over the small bowl of little, round pigeon peas twice. It will probably take a week to find them all on the kitchen floor. Quicker if I have bare feet. The bigger babies didn't appreciate her tweaking their tail feathers and poking her beak in their business. The little ones like her, though.

I need to go online and investigate pigeon murders to see if I can solve this mystery. Has anyone had a problem like this before?

Traveling Through England

I don't own a TV. You know that by now, because I mention it all the time. I'm not looking down my nose at you folks who DO watch TV, it's just not for me.

I do, however, watch shows on Hulu and Netflix when I'm not cuddled near the fire with my Kindle (last book I read was yesterday, Janet Evanovich's book 19 of the Plum series).

There is a good selection of programs I can watch on my computer, including some current ones. I recently tried to watch a new show called Revolution. Mostly I was curious because it sounded a lot like Jeremiah, the post-apocalyptic series that starred Luke Perry from 2002 to 2004. In Revolution civilization came to a screeching halt when electricity ceased to function. Slightly different premise, but with similar after effects. The first year of Jeremiah had been interesting, seeing what issues the writers imagined.

I only managed to watch Revolution a couple of times. I also tried Grimm and Once Upon a Time. All of these programs have some interesting aspects, but I have the same problem with all of them. Danger lurks everywhere, there is torture and murder, constant stress and danger, too much violence for my delicate nature. Grimm is especially... well ... grim. The producers pride themselves on grossly brutal murders. Yuck.

For a while I settled for old shows. Mary Tyler Moore, for example. And I watched all of the Dog Whisperer.

A couple of months ago my former boss, Linda, told me I should watch Doc Martin on Netflix. It's a series about a grumpy doctor in a small English village. At first it was hard to follow the dialogue, but that became easier once I was familiar with the characters and my ear became attuned. I loved Doc Martin. It only took 2 weeks to watch all 5 seasons of it. The plots are simple, but fun. The characters seem like real people, at least they look like real people. On American shows half the characters are 20 year old starlets with big lips and no talent.

My favorite part of Doc Martin was the scenes of the Cornish countryside.

The fictitious village of Port Wenn

The people on the show lived in real houses, mostly old houses, that have the same sort of problems I have with my old house. People in the countryside had chickens and pigs and sheep. I loved the little town and the farms and farm houses.

Here is something I was surprised to see. People who were born or raised near Sloughhouse might recognize the plants growing up a trellis in the background in this scene. Do the rest of you know what they are?

When I'd finished Doc Martin, I discovered another British series, Rosemary & Thyme. It's about two middle aged ladies who are skilled gardeners and also solve murder mysteries. One of them reminds me of Martha Stewart. Unlike Grimm, there are no gory scenes. If I ever get shot in the head or fall from a cliff, I want my corpse to look like the ones on Rosemary & Thyme, very peaceful and lovely, with just a tasteful smudge of blood on one temple.

Rosemary & Thyme is not very well written, nor is it well acted. By the time they figure out who the murderer is in each episode, I don't really care because I've so enjoyed the scenes of English countryside and the beautiful gardens.

I've watched these shows, and also enjoyed the many photos that my English blog buddies have posted when they're out and about. I have gained a real appreciation for England. Perhaps it has places that aren't so photogenic and quaint. I don't need to know about that. I prefer the scenes of the peaceful, beautiful place that are planted in my mind.

Accessorizing

I like to put leg bands on the baby pigeons I raise so I can keep track of them once I turn them out with the other 40 pigeons. I had put a yellow band on the most recent baby when she (I think it's a she) was small, thinking she would grow into it. She didn't, this little one is quite petite. She's old enough now to pick her own accessories. So I brought out the leg band box this morning.

First she chose a basic brown band. A tasteful choice, perhaps, because it matches the brown in some of her feathers. Not my choice, though. I can't see a brown band very well in a pen with 80 pigeon legs.

After trying out all the colors, throwing a few bands onto the floor and carrying a few more around in her beak, little pigeon finally tossed this one on the counter.

"I want this one," she said. So we took off the large one and replaced it with the smaller version.

I think she would have preferred rhinestones to plastic, but I haven't been able to find fancy legbands.

Life is also unfair for cats

"What?"

"Go away, I'm busy."

Velcro wasn't always a chub. Her first 7 years she was fluffy, but fit. Nowdays she has trouble getting around. The problem is not that she eats a lot, though. This is the scene at dinner time.

Gollie eats while Velcro watches.

Velcro weighs 13 pounds. Gollie weighs 5 pounds. Gollie eats 85% of the food. Velcro does lay around a lot, but so does Gollie.

I don't think the problem is the type of food. The dry food I buy is very expensive, with no grains added. The canned food is the same. A small bowl of dry food, less than a cup, lasts at least a week. Velcro doesn't eat much of it because her teeth are rickety.

In this house the fat cat stays that way eating scarcely any food. The scrawny cat eats 4 times as much and never gains an ounce.

Many of us can sympathize.

Peageon

Fancy-tailed pigeon

Learning to Fly

I have been putting the baby pigeon outside in an old parrot cage for a while every day so it can watch the other pigeons and maybe figure out how to be one. This morning I let it out inside the house for a while to stretch its wings. All it wants to do is sit on my shoulder. Once in a while it gives me little kisses, or nibbles on my ear. Pigeons are very affectionate birds. That's not anthropomorphism, if you watch them in the wild you will see pairs of pigeons grooming each other, feeding each other, and nuzzling a lot.

My chickens don't do that. If the hens are nuzzling around on a rooster's neck it's because they're pecking his feathers out and eating them. They do that when they need more protein, a handful of cat food every day for a while will stop them.

Pigeons are very easy to have in the house. They are precision flyers. When they're babies they will flap their wings and just go up and down a few feet. They don't just take off and crash land in the bushes like fledgling songbirds. A baby pigeon will not actually fly horizontally until it's quite sure it can get back to its nest. This is undoubtedly a good thing, considering pigeons are cliff-nesters.

A cat vet in Sacramento used to keep a pigeon in his office. It would fly around from perch to perch and entertain the cats who were penned as boarders or patients.

This one won't be going out in the big pigeon pen until it's better at flying. For one thing, the other pigeons will hassle it for a while. Each pigeon has a preferred roosting spot in the pen and each will defend it. If I put in a new roost and stick the baby on it, they'll leave it alone. But the baby needs to fly well enough to get down to the food and water and then back up to its roost.

I'm also concerned about the hawks. We seem to have more of them all the time. Yesterday there was a very small, dark hawk that had a bird on the ground right outside the kitchen window. I thought it was a pigeon and stumbled for the door. The prey was screeching and fighting back. John was outside and got to the birds before I did. He booted the hawk with his toe and it tried to fly off with its prey, but dropped it. It was a scrub jay and it managed to fly away.

I think it's interesting that the jay was fighting back. Pigeons don't do that. They just give up. They'll take advantage of an opportunity to escape if the hawk isn't diligent, but otherwise they just seem to be resigned to their fate. They do the same when I catch them and always seem relieved when they don't get eaten.

My flock is getting smarter about hawks. They listen to the chickens. They always have a sentinel posted on the highest pole. I just wish the danged hawks would stay out in the fields, where there is an abundance of mice, voles, and jackrabbits. I used to keep a bird feeder in the yard and enjoyed watching the wild birds that gathered there. The Cooper's hawk used it as a fast food restaurant.

Giving Thanks for the Babies

I drove a couple of hundred miles for Thanksgiving so I could see the babies in the family.

On my dad's side of the family there have never been a lot of children. The original family that came here from Massachusetts in the 1860s had several of them, but only two ever married. My grandmother and her brother were the only Sloughhouse descendants. My grandmother married and had 3 boys, her brother did not marry.

My father and his two brothers each had two children, a girl and a boy. That's my generation. The six of us had three girls and one boy (Bob). From Bob's generation there are only two children at this point. We all adore them.

This is Tessa. She's three years old now.

Tessa and her dad, Cort

This is the newest addition, Charlie.

Charlie meets Sarah

Tessa is a careful observer. She's not convinced that anyone outside of mom, dad, and grandparents are actually safe to visit. Okay, so some of us ARE wacky.

"These people are weird, mom, what are we doing here?"

Charlie is very sociable, though. And he does silly kid tricks to amuse the adults.

"You can all applaud now."

Why is cousin Nancy smiling all the time these days?

Smiling Nancy

Because she's Charlie's grandma!

The cousins are all dog lovers. These are two of the family's new dog members.

Em and Rick

Emily rescued Rick when his family moved out of their house and abandoned him. If you were a pup, you'd want to be rescued by Em, she has a heart of gold.

Sarah and June

Sarah, Cort and Tessa adopted lab mix Juno and discovered the day before Thanksgiving that she had problems with both front legs, so she's wearing casts. It didn't slow her down.

I left the Chico Thanksgiving early to drive 2 hours back home, where Bob had been cooking all day. My timing was perfect, everyone was just about to sit and eat. There were two more babies at home.

Cousin Joe's wife Anne and baby Kina, Bob's girlfriend Anna

Kina is two. Everyone is her new best friend, and she's very good at convincing anyone to see her point of view. She does this using positive methods..."Hi, I'm Kina and you like me because I laugh at your jokes. Could you PLEASE reach over there and hand me some of those purple pretzels? What? My mom says no? I think if you reconsider that you'll find I'm the one who's right, and I'll give you another big smile for your effort."

The other baby is not an official cousin, he belongs to a good neighborhood friend, Nick.

Nick, Aiden and Oma

It was well worth all the driving to get to spend some time with all the grandbabies.

This is my favorite picture, though. It appears Auntie Mo is performing a proctological procedure on a bear that sings "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."

Changing batteries. Really.