Frat house
Of course, I should have taken a pic or two while building it, and didn’t. I just got it in place in time for night and the rain I wasn’t expecting until tomorrow. Coop building is becoming a standardized activity. I’ve got my pattern down. I have not yet landed on a design for making a freakin’ heavy box of chickens readily portable, though. The Silkie box with the axle works, but it’s still heavy. Not something you look forward to.
It was urgent to get all the roosters out of Silkieland to give the hens a break. There’s been too much shrieking lately. The chicks that came late last year have just matured, and some of the roos are jerks. They’ll have to go. In the meantime, they are getting gender segregated, and the girls can get a restorative break for their nerves. Ohhh, those dudes’ll be grumpy tomorrow when they come out and they’re on the wrong side of the fence. Some of them wailed like they were going to their doom when I plucked them out of the coop to drop them in their man cave.
It’s screen door season, so there’s Cheeks on the doormat. She can and does come to watch me through the door. She one-legs it more at the end of the day; her foot must get sore. She’s so sweet. She seems attached to me, hanging out close to the house far more often than the other chicks and when she’s alone, but I can’t touch her. Oh no. She’ll barely take food from my hand. You might stick me in a box again.
It’s also bug-bite season. Ugh. I’m speckled with bites. “Speckled” is kind of a pleasant word, and there’s nothing pleasant about red welts all over, swollen forehead lumps, from blackflies and noseeums and mosquitoes and ticks. I think it’s that magical time of the year when ALL the biting insect “seasons” overlap. They’re all on right now.
As I threatened to, I’ve taken to wearing my bee suit gardening, and it’s as awesome as I imagined. As close as possible to being sealed in an insect-excluding ziploc. It sure gets dirty fast though. I ordered another suit for actually working with the bees. Can’t wear it everywhere, though, so existing outside of the bee suit right now means bites.