Hot Enough For Ya Day

I noticed when I sent out today’s humor emailing that today is “Hot Enough For Ya Day”.  Considering it’ might hit triple digits today, I’d say that’s a pretty appropriate holiday.

So how hot is it?

It’s so hot the squirrels are coming down to the bird bath for a drink of water.

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And it’s so hot, every time I go out to fill water buckets, the llama comes over to get sprayed down. . .

And it’s so hot, tempers flare, and these young roosters are fighting.

Never mind there is a fence between them, they still want to fuss at each other.  I took a video, which ended up being very short.  You’ll see why at the end…
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Toby doesn’t like any fussing on the farm, and tries to put a stop to it whenever he can.

And it’s so hot you can hear our air conditioning unit running in the background of that movie, because it’s pretty much running all the time!

It’s so hot I think I’ll go get a tall, cold glass of iced tea.

Guinea Fowl Family

The three guinea hens are running around now with 8 little keets.  I can see them far off in the field, running through the grass.

The baby guinea keets have to really struggle to run through the grass on their short legs and keep up with the adults.

You can see how hard the little ones work in this video…. but ignore all the wind sound please!

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The little pale gray one is still hanging in there with the rest.

They have gotten brave enough these days to bring the babies in when we throw out feed.

It certainly doesn’t take long for the baby guinea keets to learn to eat corn and bugs and everything else they see the hens eat!

Which is, of course, a good thing or the babies would soon starve!

As far as I’m corn-cerned. . .

Our male llama can be somewhat of a pig.

He loves to reach as far as his neck will allow over fences and chow down on the tender leaves of my trumpet vine and honeysuckle vines, not to mention my lilac bush and rose bushes.  And he also loves to munch up on my sedum plant in the rosebed.

This morning I threw out some corn husks and old ears of corn for the chickens.  So who did I see scarfing down a whole husk?

Yep, Mr. “I can eat anything” was determined to chow down on the entire corn husk all at once.

And he managed it too.  What a pig!

And our little goat decided to nibble on some of the corn husks. . .

At least she didn’t try to eat the whole thing at one go like Samson did!

And then there were two. . .

Yesterday evening The Farmer and I saw a little white “chick-or-keet” when we threw out some feed.  The Farmer commented it “looked different.”  And it did.  The legs didn’t look as long.  I thought maybe it was getting more fuzz and/or feathers that just covered up some of the legs.

But then this morning I was looking out the window and saw TWO white heads bobbing through the grass in the main pasture.  Well duh!  That little keet looked different because it WAS different…. there are at least two of them running around out there!

We still have the original “chick-or-keet” that I took another picture of this morning when I went out to feed . . .

Got to say, it still looks like a baby chick, not a keet.  But the mama guinea hen is very protective of this little one, and chases away anyone that gets near.

But what about the other little head bobbing out in the pasture?  I could see the original elsewhere, and there were some little brown keets with another set of guinea hens.  And one pale one. . .

I couldn’t go out right then to get a closer look, because I was waiting for the Mediacom guys (AGAIN!) to come check on our intermittent service.  When they had come and gone, I finally got to go out and do morning chores.  The hens with the new keets didn’t come in to get some grain.  I finally found them out in the llamas pen. 

At first I didn’t see the pale one.  There were some little brown ones running after the trio of hens, but no white one.  However, I could hear the “peep, peep” of little keets left behind, and homed in on the sound until I found some more in the tall grass, including the white one.

Now this one, I have NO doubt is a guinea keet.  I’ve seen that coloration before.  And even though the colors are different, you can see the same pattern on the head and neck as the brown keets.

Toby thought it was fun looking for hidden keets, and spotted one of the brown ones for me.

You can see the same stripe pattern on the “regular” looking keet’s head as is on the light gray one.

So while the jury is still out on our original “Chick-or-Keet”, this latest pale one is definitely a guinea baby.

Stay tuned… there are still more guineas like the one above sitting on nests!

A Fowl Morning. . .

I usually take my camera out when I do chores.  This morning seemed to be one for fowl creatures.  First off, the little fluffball is still running around, hooray, hoorah!

It’s like trick or treat… is it a baby chicken or a baby guinea fowl… so it’s CHICK OR KEET!

One of the roosters was up on the gate getting ready for a morning crow.

A cardinal was sitting in the tree above the rooster.  He seemed to be watching the rooster.  Maybe he thought he was a noisy show-off.

And on the fence beside the gate, hiding in the honeysuckle foliage, was little half-grown bird.

I’m not sure what sort of bird it is since it’s so newly feathered, but it looks like it might be a Tufted Titmouse with all those gray feathers.

With so many kinds of fowl, they may not be birds of a feather around here, but there sure are a lot hanging around!