June 2nd

Posting within a week... whoa! 

I'm telling you once I figured out the pictures, I am just going to take them with the Canon and upload them and go from there, like the old days. 

It makes me much pickier with photos, I don't upload them all anymore automatically. 

Here is my boy Chico in his yard earlier... remember, he cannot run loose. 

Chico and I take several walks a day, and he has several times he is out in his big yard.   He is safe there and can't get out.  I mowed it with the push mower today, since the boy who weed eats for me has not been over in several weeks.  

I did a lot of push mowing, in fact. 

If I find I can do what he was doing with the weed eater, I'll be doing it the rest of the summer and save the money. 

Last summer, I had at least twenty containers on the patio with wildflower combinations in them.  I had them all dumped at the end of the summer, they took so much water and I vowed to refill them and plant different combinations.  The fact of the matter is that I have been so busy with the chicks and spending so much money on them, that I have not planted anything.  It was good to see some escapees come up. 

These are all escapees.  I am ashamed to tell you I have not even planted the raised big planters. 

Maybe next week. 

Something had to give, and a close friend told me it is my body telling me it is time. 

The seven Wyandotte chicks have integrated into the big hen house. 

I have to wait until 8 every evening for them to all go in. 

It's hard, but... it's happening. 

This is one of the year old cochins, I raised three last summer as a fun project.  They lay abysmally, but I knew that. 

There are actually four... one is an eight year old hen, the last one from the Ag Hall flock. 

Shuler is also one of the oldest hens now, she was the sole survivor of a dog attack at my friend Wilma and Wayne Shuler's four or five years ago.  (hence the name).  

Also a non-layer. 

Sunbathing in the compost heap.  

All non-layers except the red one whose head is missing, Flopsy.  I know she laid today, but I have not gotten the egg yet. 

The lavender Orpingtons are displaying frizzle feathers, I love it. 

Do you see the white feathers all over the ground?  I went out there an hour ago and found them... I caught a raccoon coming out of the garage earlier, and I suspect it was a nursing mother, being out in daylight like that.  I wonder if she tried the fencing. 

There were an awful lot of feathers. 

You can see the "horns" growing on this LaFleche easily today. 

The Lavender Orps are the next to move... they will go to the little hen house, where there are only two hens and Doug, the silkie rooster.  I am SURE one of these is a cockerel, so I can't wait to see what happens.  I bought a dog pen to put in front of it, and my son will come this week to help put it up.  Then they will learn how to stay in their pen until I think they are ready to come out and free range, but know where they are going back to.  Doug and the two hens will be perplexted but that is life.  I think the Cuckoo Marans (on the left) are coming with them, too. That leaves only the LaFleche, the Putih Ayam Cemanis, and the two Bielefelders in the brooder house. 

Putihs. 

The Bielefelders. 

This knothead got out of the pasture last night. 

I had been at the Ag Hall, and came home and he did not run to my call, as he has been. 

After a couple of hours, I really worried...and went into the pasture to check the fenceline.  Once I had to cut a lamb out of it. 

There he was, in the Spehars pasture on the north side.  

I called my neighbor Troy who was home, thank God. 

We got a piece of short fencing... the big cutters... some feed... 

some zip ties. 

In horrible humidity, we got him back over. 

We had to lock the sheep up first and instead of throwing the feed into the corral, I held onto the bucket and they stampeded me and tore my leg up.  

I was not feeling kindly. 

The fence has a big piece of fencing that came from a garden trellis years ago (I don't throw stuff away) and Troy and I were dripping when the little stinker was back in. 

He is not going to do that to me again, if he gets out, he will have to get himself back in or hit the road again.  I guess if the sheep were not here, I could lock him in the corral with a friend, but... I don't know. 

We will see what happens. 

Here are some of my big babies, the Rhode Island Reds and Gigantes, enjoying their yard this afternoon.  

I am losing my beautiful hollyhocks to mosaic fungus, and it's breaking my heart.  They are all infected. 

They were beautiful. 

Let me stop here and go out and start pushing hens in.  I like to have everyone in before eight, if possible. 

Everyone have a good week!