Happy Harvest Blog
Friends
It's so interesting and touching to see chickens form alliances and bonds. Sometimes it makes sense when birds hang out together (birds of a feather), sometimes I forced the issue, but most of the time it's organic, and often odd. I would never have called this one. Sidewinder and Apples' chick. This is so unlikely. Sidewinder is a VERY low chicken. I can say with certainty that she's the lowest. She's kind of a mess, with a butchered beak, therefore wicked underbite-not good for self-defense or settling arguments, bad feet,
Sun day
The sun came out and dried up all the rain. Not all - there was a lot of rain. And more wind. This morning, the pig house was upside down. No pigs. That's never happened before (the pig house flipped, certainly not absent pigs). I can picture them bolting out of there as their house lifted off of them. Pigs are easygoing, pleasant, optimistic creatures though, so they had no worries about settling back in after breakfast. I had a good time in the greenhouse, cleaning up, untying strings.
Second frost
Had a proper frost; ice crust on the water buckets. This is the right time for frost though, not September 24th! Overnight, one of the Five has become the spitting image of Philippe Petit. A petit Philippe. I don't want to believe he's 100% a rooster yet, but he's looking awfully leggy. So many roosters! The young roosters are refining their crows now. They don't have to go hide in order to practice. They're sounding pretty good. Silkieland and the Colonel on patrol.
cool days, cool Moms
It's chilly in the mornings. The chicks are around with their shoulders shrugged up. The leghorn twins went back in the box. The cardboard is warmer on the tiny naked feet. Do you know what's really warm on the feet? Mom.Until she starts walking away - whoa! Ursa Minor surprised me with chicks this morning. She had that I've got chicks, ya know the face. And then there was all the peeping. Oh! there's a little leg, and it's attached to some black feathers! Yay, another black one. Oh, there's a whole little butt, already dry and fluffy.
Foxy and Feisty
Feisty's a very pretty chicken. We had a good photo shoot before dusk: If you catch them at the right angle, which isn't hard to do, Silkie hens look like they have no eyes at all. Foxy is irritable. Her chicks are at that stage where they ignore her until they need her, don't pay attention, and want to stay up too late. I've still no idea how many days/weeks it takes for them to hit these chicken stages of development, like pants, reluctance to go to bed, independence, rooster hero worship,
The before bedtime lounge
Before it’s bedtime, 7-8 pm-ish, it’s the hour for serious lounging. The various chicken cliques are scattered around, and more likely to be settled down on the ground than perching above ground. They just sink down in the grass/weeds (or wherever they are) and have a little lull, maybe even a proper nap. Two of Ursa’s new chicks came supplied with the most amazing permanent eyeliner. It’s too bad I used up the name Cleopatra already (although it was entirely appropriate) because these two have totally Egyptian eyes.
Instagram.
I may not make a blog post every day, but at least I Insta.
Bite size.
