Life to dead, dead to life...

One day an Indian rooster flew shouting in my garden. Here his story:

A neighbor gave the rooster to another neighbor for dinner present.
But the rooster didn't walk the dead road,
He preferred to fly to my garden.
He was clever and lucky,
Chickens made a circle around him,
And I refused to give him back.
By the way, Silky roosters felt sad,
They don't have any partners,
But the handsome rooster has them all.
Who can stand to the men fighting!
Pigeon post flew to sky and said:
There I see Silky chickens waiting for you,
They will be better with you,
Anyway, nice to meet you!

Spring brings life and dead...

With the coming of spring some animals moved to somewhere else.

Ducks are now living with my neighbor Selim. They are alright.

The cat, Bulut, is living at the streets. I hope it is alright.  

Some animals passed away.

White village chicken and disabled silk rooster got sick and died.

A mule came to our neighborhood

Last week a mule came to our neighborhood. It was running around. Neighbors put some foods and water in front of their doors. It was not wild. So one of our neighbor put a rob on its neck. Now it is living with him. He is searching for its owner. Strangely, everybody says that it was its owner. Until now, nobody could prove.  

A few days later...

A neighbor made a complaint and officers of municipality took the mule. 

"What will they do with the mule" I asked someone. 

"It will be food for lions, like all stray animals" he answers back to me. 

The neighbor complaint could eat meal in peace anymore?

Probably yes, people who have no conscience care nothing except themselves.       

Tosuncuk also awaked!

Tosuncuk also awaked

Now they live together again...

Asil broke her front legs

Our neighbour's dog Asil felt down from the wall and broke its front legs.

 Its owner is a nurse, so she made the first aid.  

Puppies of Asil

Tepegöz awaked

When our turtle Tepegöz came out of the ground Hakan said “Inasmuch as turtles awake, we can go to pick wild garlic. It is the sign of spring.” 

            

Here is wild garlic that we found in woods. 

When I search in Google noticed that what Hakan called “wild garlic” actually was “wild leek”. It is written on this blog and there are pictures of wild garlic and wild leek. 

Wild strawberry

There are lots of wild strawberry trees in our woods. Wild strawberries are very delicious and good for health. It is full of with vitamins. It is an anti-aging fruit. It kills some viruses. It exterminates acnes. It has positive effects on embolism. But when you ate a lot and a lot like us, it causes diarrhea.     

Wild strawberry

                                       

                               

                                                           The flowers of wild strawberries

Chinese chickens

Hakan’s father presented Chinese ducklings and chicks for his birthday (15^th of June). 5 ducks and 2 chickens. Hakan prepared a hut for them. He put a small pool inside the hut especially for the ducks. But unfortunately we were unaware of that the chickens cannot swim in the pool. 

  

Me and the second chick

Çağdaş and the first chick

One day we found a chick drowned in the pool. We felt so stupid because we could not think that chicks cannot swim. I took care for the last chick. It was always nearby me. I was always watching it. But one day, I was inside the house just for a few hours, I found its dead body outside. I don’t know how it is happened. Maybe dogs or cats killed it. It is so sad, it was so clever and sweet chick but we could not able to alive it.   One day we found a chick drowned in the pool. We felt so stupid because we could not think that chicks cannot swim. I took care for the last chick. It was always nearby me. I was always watching it. But one day, I was inside the house just for a few hours, I found its dead body outside. I don’t know how it is happened. Maybe dogs or cats killed it. It is so sad, it was so clever and sweet chick but we could not able to alive it.   

We could not able to alive them. 

Turtles

Çağdaş has a turtle for two years. Its name is “Tosuncuk” (Fatty). He thought it was male but later we realized it is female. He found it in İstanbul and brought it to İzmir. At that time he was living in an apartment and Tosuncuk was living in balcony. When the grocer saw it he said “oh it is a turtle from the area of Edirne, its Latin name is …”. He learned that time his grocer graduated from biologyJ. Last summer (2012) I found another turtle. It was as same size as Tosuncuk. Children were playing and try to driving it like a car. I took it and told them “I will take away to his mother”. I took it and run away. We bring two turtles together. We thought they can be friends. A few days later we realized Tosuncuk is not male. You can see from the picture that they get closer.

back 'Tepegöz", front "Tosuncuk"

They are getting closer

Atak, my dog dug out Tepegöz from the ground

They buried themselves in the autumn. They are cold blood animals. In the winter time they sleep under the ground. But we have a very naughty dog “Atak” and probably she smelt and dug out “Tepegöz” from the ground. We gave the name “Tepegöz” (Cyclops) because he has a dot like an eye on the head. When we found it he was like in a shocked. Not moving not eating. Later then he buried himself again.     

Fungi

There are different kinds of fungi in the woods our backyard. Here is the location of our home:

https://maps.google.com/?ll=38.383105,26.940998&spn=0.00492,0.006899&t=h&z=17
Next to our home we have woods and hills which are seperated by a highway.  These pictures are taken in these areas in November/December 2012. I tried to find the species of mushrooms but it is really hard to say from the pictures on internet. We did not eat any of them.

"mold mushroom" spread out pollen

It looks like "Oyster mushroom" selling in the markets, but I think it is not, we found it in the woods. 

A friend told us if a mushroom's bottom has accordion shape, it is eatable.  

Truffle mushroom (Türüf, Domalan or Yermantarı in Turkish) is very hard to see and find

Truffle mushroom is very exclusive and expensive

               A white mushroom from our garden and a weird black mushroom from the woods. 

Silkie Chickens

In the spring of 2012 (that means it was time for the birds hatch out) we went a local named Ömer Amca. He was a bird specialist who also raise and sells them. We bought 7 Silkie kind hatchling. He gave us another kind of a black hatchling for free, as a gift. He mentioned us “don’t feel sorry, if you lose some of them. Because they are genetically altered kind therefore they are more fragile.” We spent 100 Turkish Lira for them. Frankly, there were more different kind of chickens, but each one of them was 150 TL, so we bought hatchlings. Addition to prices, Ömer amca told us that different kinds can’t get along together. We also get informed about how to raise chickens by him before we leave. They were just few weeks old, so we start to feed them in a box which heated by a light bulb.

Silkie hatchlings

Characteristics of kind

Silkie chicken is also known as “Ethiopian chicken” in Turkey. But the origin is China, not Ethiopian. It is smaller than the village chicken. They have smooth and white plumage over their head and legs. Ömer amca told us that Silkie’s were the most docile and friendly kind. They were actually friendly especially when they grew. They are following us and eating from our hands.

Silkie’s skin color is grey and its meat not edible. We want to profit from their eggs, not meat. 

Silkie Chicken and Rooster

The first egg

We saw the first egg. It is smaller than the market egg. I prepared a box with litter and put a marble egg-nest in it. But chickens did not use it, I think because it aroused our cats and dogs interest. We found the eggs nearby their coop. We have four chickens, two of them lay eggs every day.  

left market egg, right Silkie egg

Rooster fighting

We realized that we have four chickens and three roosters when the combs are appeared. One of the roosters has handicap from his bill. We discriminate it especially feeding times. Except handicapped one, two roosters are not acceptable because of the competition between them. They are fighting crowing all the time. They are also jealous of chickens from us. When I hold a chicken, roosters are running to me for bite me. Even so it is so admirable gesture to protect your female from others. J   

The sick chicken

One morning Hakan sow that one of the chickens were lied on the ground on its back. He thought it was dead for sure, but when he touched he realized it was still alive. He told me that the chicken was sick which makes him paralyses. We called a few veterinarians but non could help because their expertise was not on fowls. We searched on internet but we couldn’t find a clear result for healing this illness. By the way it looks like, “sallabaş” -afflicted with an involuntary shaking of the head- an illness seen generally on pigeons. Our neighbor’s gardener, (who is also a pigeon breeder) mentioned about this illness. The result of hemiplegia, pigeons loose ability of standing. There could be a few solutions. One of them is to make some scars with a blade to its back neck. When it bleeds, blood flow can be normalize and pigeon can be survive. This illness was so deathly that in the internet forums it was even written “Kill your birds and burn the hutch, so you can save other birds”. The gardener offered us to buy an antibacterial medicine which name is “Gentavet”. But when Çağdaş search on internet, he learned this medicine uses only for bovines. Therefore I went to the shop which I always buy medicine in general. They gave me “Tetramezatin antibacterial” and “Evit-Se vitamin”. About two months our chicken starts getting better. It starts to stand up and control its neck. By the way, we were kept the chicken in the house to protect from other animals. One day when we thought that it was cured, we put it to the vegetable garden. In the morning, we found it paralyzed again and wet, because it rained too much in the middle of the night. Poor chicken was worse than before. We restarted to medication and massage. It has been about two months and now while I am writing these words our chicken is getting better now. It can eat and drink by itself. After all, we decide to keep it in the house until spring. 

By the way, when we made massage to its legs, we realized that it has four fingers at the right foot, five fingers at the left foot. We wonder if a predator attacked it on that rainy night. Our neighbor told there were hogs around. We examined the foot carefully but we couldn’t see any scar. Then we search on Google and read that it might be genetically disorder. Normally Silkie chicken has five fingers; our chicken was born handicapped. To be sure we checked one of the roosters and it has five fingers in both feet.

 

An incident!

A sad incident happened. There was a 5-6 month old dog tied in front of a pigeon hut in the woods on this neighborhood. Owner of the hut was not coming often so, because of insufficient feeding the dog was weak. Sometimes we were going there to feed the dog. One night we saw that the dog was set free and waiting in front of our house. Probably it get rid of its lead and escaped from there. We took it to our garden and gave food. When we woke up we shocked with a terrible scene. The ground was covered with white feather. Our three chickens were 

slaughtered by the new dog. Street cats were eating their internal organs. Eggs were seen from dissever body. Roosters were still shaking at the far corner. 

We tied the dog to the garden of our neighbor. I was angry but I also felt pity to the dog. It was a hound dog. Hunting was its natural instinct. And I guess that it was hungry for a long time. We had to take it away, because if we leave it could also attack to the others. So we decided to take the dog with us to university where we worked. There are lots of cats and dogs in the garden and mostly they live in peace. It was running around joyfully. Students patted, fed and loved the dog. Couple days later, the dog has been disappeared. It is possible that someone takes it to home or it could be on its way back to home. By the way, we wanted to take a look to pigeon hut to meet with the ex-owner of the dog. The pigeon hut was empty. The leash of the dog was still there but it was not seems to sever, seems like untied.  We came back to home. Next time when we had new animal to home we ought to be more careful. Now we just have one chicken. It was at home because of illness, but illness saved its life.    

The dog keep watching our garden