Happy Blogiversary

Drum Roll, please. Light the fireworks. Sound the trumpet. Cut the cake.

Five years ago August 19, 2010, I launched my blog Welcome to Ann's Garden Spot. I had always considered myself tech savvy because I had to keep up with the Internet use and growth if I wanted to keep up with my students. I had them producing their own web sites one year in a research class. That was very exciting to see the students hard work displayed on the web. Those were the good old days before Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat. iPhones, iPods, and iPads.

I decided that I wanted to provide a website for my classes, so I took a class on web building at the local community college back in the day when it all had to be done in html code.

I discovered blogging quite by accident when my grandson was asking about toads. We googled "toad" and discovered a lovely blog Robin's Nesting Place. If she could do it, so could I.  And I was hooked.

It took me a long time get even a few followers. I joined Blotanical and gained few friends then I joined a garden party where I met more of my earlier followers. Now I am participating in Mosaic Monday, as most of you do, which has helped me to build my following.

I also keep Ann's Dollhouse Dreams where I publish maybe once a month when I have something to report. House building and making minis take a lot of time. I don't have may followers mostly because I have not worked very hard to promote that blog. So if you stop over there, many thanks. It's a niche audience.

 Because I lost my space on the university server, I have started another blog on Blogger for my students, so that makes three that I have to keep up with.

Daughter Heather one day talked about her "people"--she had found her people, those with whom she works are her people. So you are my people. As my real world friends, I treasure your friendships, too.

And now to present (recreate) Monday's post that mysteriously disappeared without a trace. Like a puff of smoke, it just disappeared as I was trying to link it to Mosaic Monday. A couple of you had already read it and left comments.

I updated you on the chicks that we bought last spring and brooded in the house until they were old enough to go out to the chicken coop. They are a handsome group of young hens who will keep us and few friends supplied eggs for some time.

The young hens have begun to produce an impressive amount of eggs, about 4 a day. The egg supply adds up quickly at that rate. Since I don't do a lot of baking any more except at the holidays and we don't really eat much breakfast during the week, the eggs tend to collect rather quickly. You may be asking what I do with all of them? I take them to my friends at school. One friend loves my eggs and claims that they are better than the organic eggs that she buys at her favorite organic grocery. I let folks decide what they want to pay me for a dozen, but my friend set the price @ $5.00 a dozen. She first offered what she paid at the store for organic eggs, $8 a  a dozen. I protested. So we agreed on $5, which is plenty for a dozen eggs.

I do not claim that the eggs are organic because because they aren't; the chicken feed is not organically grown and produced. A lot goes into certifying organically grown foods. Nor do we claim that they are free range because they aren't. Just today we saw a Cooper's hawk fly over the chicken pens while we were working in the garden. Along with fox, coyotes, raccoons, and our own cat and dog, the hens are not safe outside the pen. They are cage free, but still safely penned.  None the less, the eggs are fresh. Did you know that sometimes super market eggs may be as much as 3 months old?

They do look pretty in bowl, don't they? They even look impressive in the carton. My favorite is the green egg. I enjoy seeing the different eggs in the carton. Do you see the really dark eggs? Those are Black Copper Maran's eggs. We bought her just for that egg, a chocolate egg.

I thought that you might like to meet the flock now that they are all grown up. 

This is the main pen, the first that we built. The bucket is rather cool. It is the water bucket with nipples on the bottom that the chickens drink from.

 Partridge Rock: Brown egg. 

 Barred Rock: Brown egg

 Brown Leghorn: white egg

 Black Copper Maran: Chocolate egg

Cuckoo (CuCu) Maran Rooster. Not a very nice fellow.

 Americana: Green egg

Brown Americana: Green Egg. She is one of the original hens, now 4 1/2 years old and still laying. Because she id aggressive toward the other hens, she has to live with Chanticleer.

You remember this handsome fellow, Chanticleer. He is a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte. He and the old hen have a new pen on the other side of the chicken coop. 

He begins crowing about 4:30 AM before dawn and continues yelling until the Head Gardener goes out feed. We have noticed this week that he is quiet when the HG works out in the garden or in the yard someplace where he can see him.

This is Pertilote, Chanticleer's brood mate, a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte. She lays brown eggs, but was so badly traumatized by the rooster and the other hens that she quit laying. We are not sure if she lays now. These two are 2 years old. There two Blue hens. The other one lives in the dog crate because she doesn't like the other hens. She does get to free range because she the HG's little buddy when he is working in the garden.

CuCu Maran was supposed to be a Black Maran hen. I wanted black hens. They are so elegant looking, but we ended up with Copper Black Maran hen and this fellow.

Many cities now have ordinances that allow for small backyard flocks of poultry. When we decided to get hens, the Head Gardener did go to the town hall to find out what the ordinances in Ault were. There weren't any, so they asked him if he would write up a plan, which he did. The town council did pass a rather strict ordinance for poultry keeping, so there are a few flocks in town. Of course the ordinance bans roosters mostly because they are just plain noisy. The Cucu is on the board at the feed store: Free to a good home. And we get away with having rooters because the neighbors have not complained yet (though I do), and even though we are in the city limits we are zoned agricultural which means that we can keep livestock and poultry outside the city ordinances.

Chickens often end up in dog pounds and humane societies because people find out that they poop on patios and then they aren't so much fun any more.

Some of my favorite moments are spent out in the garden listening the hens talk to each other. I find their conversations soothing and interesting. I like the soft clucking and squawking as they pick and peck around in the pen. It is very relaxing to watch them just be chickens. Then I take their eggs and make an egg salad sandwich.

Thanks so much visiting with me each week. I would miss you terribly if blogging went away. This has become my favorite little community. We have so much fun reading about each other's daily goings-on, family, friends, hobbies, challenges, and celebrations. I would love to meet each one of you, and I know that we would have a lot to talk about. I enjoy your comments, but enjoy more reading about your latest adventure and then being able say something in return. I am glad that you joined me today in celebrating my 5th blogiversary. It means so much.

Fondly, Ann