First Tomato

We planted the plants on Mother's Day and our first fruit came today:

Summer's really here now!

Need more good news? That's Petunia in the background - she's finally out of her box by herself! Not laying yet, but having much more fun hanging with her peeps.

Kaboom!

We had a fabulous time on the fourth, just hanging out at home as a family.

Of course, there were required items:

Big, honking box of fireworks:

Check!

Patriotic decorations:

Check!

Good seats to watch the fireworks show:

Check!

Chickens?

Check and check!

Pyromaniac 10-year old:

Check!

Kaboom!!

Broody Business

Petunia is persisting in her quest to become a mama chicken and won't get out of the nesting box without force. We're gathering eggs more often and taking her out a couple times a day to help. She will wander about with the other ladies for a bit, only to return to her box. Yesterday, I found her sitting sadly in the coop run (in the rain) and was happy she was out, but when I checked the nesting box I saw Chick Pea doing her thing and realized that Petunia was just pushed aside momentarily. She's got it so bad that we're calling her Looney Tunie. She's not a happy chicken.

Another distressing effect of her broodiness is that she isn't laying. I wasn't sure how to confirm this, but informal egg polls seem to indicate that we are getting fewer of the bigger eggs that Marigold and Petunia are known for. She even looks different - not only is she even bigger (all that snacking and no exercise - as if I needed another visual reminder!) - but her comb has changed color. That confirms it - she's no longer laying.

Here is Petunia on the 4th of July:

And here is Marigold:

Can you see how Marigold's comb is a much brighter red? My very smart father-in-law pointed out that trait to me.

I was trying to get a picture of them together to illustrate the difference and I thought that the feeder was a good focal point. Just look at Marigold's comb shoved up in the feeder:

Petunia is on the right, but it's not so easy to tell the difference in the comb colors.

And here's another attempt:

It just looks like they are posing for the chicken equivalent of Town & Country. Petunia is in the front and Marigold is the rear. Chick Pea is just butting in to be a ham. Beats being BBQ!

And this concludes comb class...

Long Overdue

A long overdue THANKS is in order to a dear friend who has been looking out for me. Arriving from England were:

the cutest linen towel, chicken serviettes (paper napkins) and a henkeeping book, along with a great big, long catch-up letter and a cup of tea with which to enjoy it all. Fun! What an indulgent afternoon all that turned into.

THANKS again! Girlfriends are the best, aren't they?

Who's a Bad Chicken?

The chickens are getting a bit bold as of late.

While they remain awfully fun to hang with:



We have discovered that they have a little secret. Actually several of them. As my daughter and I were clearing downed trees this weekend, we thought it was sweet that Dandelion wanted to hang out with us. Then my daughter discovered why Dandelion was hanging so close - seems that there was a little stash of eggs under one of the hemlocks. Turned out there were SEVEN eggs under there - and we never noticed.

And then my husband discovered this:



An egg - ON THE TRAMPOLINE. Technically it's on the surround, but still.

And then they had the nerve to do this:



I hear a knocking noise and go to the front door to investigate. The girls were all on the porch pecking away at the wood. Petunia even managed to knock over the pot of dead pansies you see in the background.

I think it's time to look into some fencing...

Dirty Birds

The chickens never cease to amuse me. I've been painting our porch trim this week, so have been outside more watching them do their thing. They often come up to check on the progress, but mostly stay down in their field. I actually heard one warn the others of a hawk flying by for closer look and saw them take cover under a small tree.


Another fun thing that they do is run (hilarious!) to the car whenever we come home. Often, my daughter, the chickherd, gets out to pick one or another up or give them a treat. It is almost impossible to drive home and escape their notice.


So when drove home last week and saw this:




I was alarmed. What was wrong with my ladies? Were they injured or sick?


Then I saw this:




A dust bath! Chickens do this to clean themselves and rid themselves of any scritchy bugs. They are supposed to really like it, but I had never seen them so it. So funny to see the dirt flying. They were giving Tubby a run for his money.


Now if I could just get them to bring up the daily paper...

Chilly Morning

You know it's a chilly morning when you see this in the egg box:

This must have been one of yesterday's uncollected eggs, caught by Old Man Winter, frozen solid and busting out of the shell. Tubby will enjoy it for dinner once it thaws out.

I'm sure people with tons of snow will find this post funny, but a hard freeze really isn't a common occurrence around here in central Virginia. The frost made for beautiful pictures, though.

Here are the chickens' stockings, hung with some care, dusted with frost, in hopes of that Santa will bring popcorn:

Dandelion didn't appreciate the beauty of the frost:

In fact, the ladies were alternating which leg to stand on to keep warm. They looked very pretty with their feathers all fluffed up for warmth. Luckily, the sun was just clearing the trees and streaming into their field as I was taking stock of the morning, so warmth is on the way.

Another pretty shot of frost, on a landscape timber beam, with Tubby's little toes in the background:

When I was little, I thought that frozen grass looked just like frozen pizza cheese:

only much prettier.

Hope you have a hand-knit wrapped kind of day!

Chicken Morning

Now that the ladies are getting so big, we've been letting them free range in our front field. This morning I stopped to snap a few pictures on a chilly morning.

Here Dandelion is enjoying a little hug:



While the other chickens think (once again) that my shoes are something tasty:






Not so much.



Here is a good shot of Petunia (on the left) and Marigold (on the right). Marigold's beak is darker (as befits her temperament). Petunia is also known by her prodigious appetite and willingness to ignore all else in favor of food.





And here are all the girls together (Dandelion can just be seen behind Chick Pea on the right):




It has been so nice to know that Tubby the dog couldn't really care less about the chickens. He never chases or bothers them. They don't even fight over the pears that drop from our trees, favorites of all our animals. Tubby really does like their chicken feed, so I need to be careful to buy the crumbles rather than the pellets so that he is less likely to think it is dog food.


And speaking of chicken chow, the girls love when the roof of their house is open because it is the best of both worlds: free ranging, but all the chicken chow you can muster. Here Dandelion takes her favorite face-down position (Petunia would try this is she weren't so, well, plump):





Petunia and Marigold notice the "Open" sign flashing on the feeder:




And before I know it, all four are stuffing their little feathery faces:




(Love those feathery ruffled bloomers!) I had to pull Dandelion off (twice) and rescue Marigold before closing the roof. Sure enough, Chick Pea and Petunia chose to come out and join the Fearsome Feathered Four for their morning walk about.


Hope no one thinks they are turkeys for tomorrow!


Happy Thanksgiving!

Chicken Salad Recipe

By popular demand, here's the latest on the chick(ens).

The girls are enjoying their new waterer - don't they remind you of co-workers visiting around the water cooler?



I haven't suspended it yet because I can never sneak up on them while they are upstairs. They love the run so much they always seem to be down below.

Dandelion looks longingly at the nearly by field:



Marigold is making a perimeter check:



We introduced the chickens to grapes this afternoon. The chickens introduced us to their new game - steal the grape. See the grape in Petunia's mouth?



So funny to watch. They look like little clowns with bulb noses. I am so not telling them how good grapes are in chicken salad!

Chickens Grow FAST

Just a little trip down memory lane.



We brought home Petunia and Marigold on April 10th:





Here they are 8 days later with their new sisters Dandelion and Chick Pea:



And here they were this weekend (28 days after arriving home):




That's some potent chick feed they're eating!

Welcome Home

We have been spending. every. single. minute. for the past week getting the chicken coop built. I would never have imagined the sweat and the toil for a "chook shack". But we finished today and moved the girls into their new digs.

Here the kids are performing their forced labor for the day - coop transport. The idea was that this coop would be mobile, but it is SO heavy that mobile will mean moving only a few feet to fresh grass. Americans call it a chicken tractor, but I like the British name of chicken ark.



We ran into a bit of a speed bump coming across the bridge:



The kids added the bedding to the roost area (my daughter even patted in all out as if making a bed):



And tended to the laying boxes (which I tied to explain wouldn't get much traffic 'til later):



The did SO much of the work and thinking about the project. They found sticks for the roosts, helped figure out how to make the doors and latches work, and did a great job with painting. SO their last decision was how to get the chickens into their new home. They wound up with two going below and two up top.

Here are Petunia and Marigold enjoying the grass:



and Dandelion and Chick Pea wondering what the nesting box is all about:



I'm a little worried about releasing my little girls into the big bad world, but I've tried everything I could to create a home that's safe and comfortable for them. Not having any idea about what I am doing is probably not helping. Rain is forecast tomorrow, so that will be the real test of the ark. And did you notice how Tubby is in most of the pictures? He is very interested in these little fluffs that keep changing and growing and getting more and more animated. He's slowly creeping over to the predator list at this point. I'm sure that the hawks and foxes are already into what's been in the works. Let's hope they stay safe long enough to enjoy their new home!

Chicken Reload

It's been a week ago already, but we went back to Ashland Feed and Seed for more chickens.

The Rhode Island Reds weren't in yet on our last visit.

The sign out front has a BIG cute factor:



Here are a box of little ladies that they used to restock the pens out in the store. They were quick to assure me that they don't keep them like this in the back, they just use the box for moving purposes. I was tickled by the sight of wall-to-wall fuzz:



Tubby's adjusting very well to having chickens around. I don't think that he wants to eat them, but he REALLY wants to play with them. We had them out in the yard (before the monsoons set it) and he almost rolled over on one.



He's almost the same color as one of the new girls.



So cute!

The Eagles Have Landed

Our new babies have arrived! This time with much less fuss than the two unfeathered ones.

Here the kids are holding our two new Plymouth Barred Rocks:



We picked them up at the Ashland Feed and Seed. We wanted to get Rhode Island Reds also, but they won't be in until next week. By then we'll be professionals!

They had so many little chicks out in holding pens, and lots of folks just stopping in to ogle them. The 90-year-old gentleman helping us deftly cut air holes in a box with his pen knife and scooped up some shavings and two little layers and off we went. So cute and fuzzy:




Here they are warming up under a heat lamp in their box full of shavings:



One of their cuter features is that they have little pale yellow bottoms:



And their own little mama:



My daughter is going to wear those little ladies out! But she and Tubby are trying to be gentle. We'll see if it works.

Next up - the quest for the perfect coop.