Jailbreak.

The CE let Hope and the chicks out of the pen for a bit yesterday and forgot that the gate from the Chicken Kingdom to the Big World was open. They made a run for it, which meant we spent close to half an hour trying to coerce them back to safety.

Concrete was a new experience! That's Luna in front, Lucy in back on the left and Pippa on the right

Hope quickly herded them through the breezeway to greener pastures...

Once they discovered the bushes, neither love nor chicken scratch could entice them to follow us.

Tulip blends in pretty well

A miraculously-recovered Autumn tried to join the party and got mightily pecked for her troubles.

We shook that cup of scratch like a maraca but neither Hope nor the chicks cared. Autumn was interested, though.

"You can call all you want, but we're not coming out!"

The CE finally convinced the little family to head back to the coop. I think crickets might have been involved.

Did you know that the Great Pyrenees is considered an ideal flock guard? I think we need one, stat!

(image from greeneatsblog.com)

Such gorgeous dogs! We need one - or two! (image from top-dog-directory.blogspot.com)

Autumn is doing great today! As if nothing had been wrong. Wish I could say the same for my forehead…it looks nastier than ever and the area around the gash is turning a disturbing color of yellow. Stitches come out tomorrow.

Three strikes and I’m out.

Some weeks look better in the rear view mirror and this was one of them. The CE wrestled with small disasters on BOTH home fronts. Things got soggy in New York when the apartment above ours sprang a leak. We currently have holes cut in our ceilings so everything can dry out. And here at home our yard is torn up while the failed septic tank is being replaced.

A molehill that looks strangely like a mountain

And just to make sure the misery gets spread around evenly, I’m 36 hours out from prolotherapy injections, which turn out to be just about as harrowing as I remember them. Prolotherapy (Proliferative Injection Therapy) is a technique used to strengthen weak ligaments and connective tissue.  A solution, usually dextrose and lidocaine, is injected directly into the ligaments, thereby irritating them and creating inflammation. As the body works to repair the area, scar tissue and – reportedly – collagen are built up in the area and the structural integrity of the ligament is strengthened. Or so they say. Doctors’ opinions vary as to how effective the technique is and it seems to work better in certain parts of the body than other.

This is what I had done on Friday, only the needle seemed MUCH bigger

I had extensive prolotherapy done a few years back and it really helped stabilize the hypermobility in my sacrum. My physical therapist has advised another pass at it in hopes of lessening lumbar spine rotation. Of course, if you’re going to go around poking needles in your back to cause inflammation, that’s exactly what you’ll get, and plenty of it. So while the CE paces the floor in worry over unwanted construction projects, I lay (lie?) on my fainting couch whimpering “Woe is me!”.

And the chickens are having none of it. Where are the crickets? Where are the mealworms?

"Those silly humans have their priorities all wrong"

In fact, there are delicate issues coming up in the barnyard as well. It seems that twice-a-day free-ranging expeditions are no longer sufficient for my three graces. They have now been spoiled into believing that additional cuddling sessions should be de rigueur.

Granny obliges Autumn's cuddle request

The week has not been a total loss. I finally finished Les Miserables, all 1260 pages. What an incredible story!

By now you know that Hope is tweeting on Twitter. She would love to have a few followers!

"Follow me! I know exactly where I'm going!"

“Blue Monday”.

Personally, I’m feeling just a squeak better today – head feels like it weighs only 50 lbs instead of 100, but according to a report from FirstCare, a firm that studies absenteeism, today is officially the “most miserable day of the year”. ‘Blue Monday has been described as the most depressive day of the year with absence rates expected to be higher.

This is how Hope looks today.

The combination of cold, dreary weather and post-holiday letdown – both emotional and financial – makes today the “most depressive day of the year with absence rates expected to be higher.”

The chickens are definitely experiencing Blue Monday. No absentees – after losing Lily, I do several head-counts daily – but the girls are very, very unhappy with the rain. They thought they wanted to free-range this morning but when I let them out of their covered pen (great foresight, CE!) they shivered their feathers and begged me to turn off the waterworks. Hope was especially vocal. You might say she’s as mad as a wet hen…

A possible three inches of rain is predicted for today. Stay dry!

Temptation.

It generally comes in the form of chocolate, but for Dodger and for me, temptation is shaped like a chicken.

The Dodge took a half-hearted run at Autumn and Hope this morning while they were free-ranging in what we call the “Big World” that lies beyond the Magic Chicken Kingdom, aka, under the oaks where we hope they are devouring everything that is, was or would become a tick.

Dodger keeps a safe distance from those scary chickens

Plotting his strategy

"You don't seriously think you could take me down, do you?"

The CE has been neatening up the little strip of yard beneath the oaks, which now beckons the peeps to follow the yellow brick road…

Looks nice!

All roads seemingly do lead us into temptation, however, so back to that topic…when Ivan was over for poker the other night, he mentioned that his family will be placing an order for chicks in the spring. They keep a flock of at least a few dozen for laying and eating, so they can easily manage the hatchery minimum order of twenty-five chicks. After hearing that we had lost Lilly, Ivan volunteered that I could add a few chicks onto their order if I wanted to, and that’s when the door to temptation was flung wide open.

Depending on the day and my discipline level, I might sensibly decide that I shouldn’t add to the flock until 2011 or, alternatively, I get whipped into a frenzy of chicken lust and justify the idea of adding two or three chicks this coming spring. I continue to dream of Silkies…

A "splash" Silkie hen

With Belgian Mille Fleur d’Uccles as a close second…

Belgian Bearded d'Uccle Bantam

Both of these breeds are known for having calm, friendly temperaments. Silkies are sometimes referred to as being the “lap kittens” of the chicken world. They are bantams, though, so they can’t be sexed, their eggs are smaller, and their lighter weight may make them a bit more of a “flight risk”.

French Marans

Marans lay gorgeous dark brown eggs

Sultans originated in Turkey

Interesting breeds of chicken abound, and, while I would love to have Marans for their chocolate-colored eggs, or Sultans, or even Dominiques, truthfully I think I might just go for another Ameracauna or Easter Egger like Autumn. They come in various colors. most of them seem to have great personalities, and their eggs are little treasures: colors range from light pink to turquoise to olive green.

A Buff Ameracauna hen

So many chickens…so little coop space!

Four hens a-laying!

Lily laid her first egg! She settled into the nest in earnest this morning when Hope hopped up there to show her how it’s done.

No one uses the actual nesting box, but oh well...

It will be very hard to tell her eggs apart from from Hope’s and Amelia’s.

Lily's first egg

Hope's is on the left, Amelia's in the center, and Lily's on the right

Hope’s eggs tend to have tiny white flecks on them and Amelia’s are just slightly darker than the others, but in general, we will only know who has laid what if we are on hand to see it happen.

Autumn took the day off – she was too busy exploring. I’ve taken to leaving the hallway door open so the girls can free-range while I’m working in my office. That way I can more or less keep tabs on them. Typically, Autumn prefers to hang out with the humans, and she invariably wanders into my office to see how things are going. Today she was apparently waiting to have a fax delivered…

"I hope they got my order right - 200 lbs of scratch and a year's supply of mealworms"

Gridlock in the coop, and Autumn goes AWOL

We had a full-up traffic jam on the nesting counter yesterday. Hope was camped out in her preferred spot in what I call her “laying trance” – feathers fluffed and eyes glazed  – very serious about this business of laying eggs. She generally meditates on her work like this for a half-hour to an hour before producing an egg.  Yesterday she had to accomplish this with an impatient Amelia looming, glaring at her, and all but tapping her feathered little feet in annoyance. Never mind that the nesting counter is plenty big enough for both of them; there’s just something magical about that particular corner. They eventually worked it out with two more beautiful eggs to show for their work.

Amelia knows how to loom!

I let the girls free-range a bit while I cleaned the coop. with lots of “help” from Autumn, who insisted on standing wherever I tried to work. Since I was in a rush to get to a meeting, I was relieved when she finally hopped down so I could concentrate on finishing the chores. Except that a few minutes later, I heard a ruckus outside the coop – the girls were making such a racket I thought they were being attacked. When I went outside to investigate, I realized that Autumn was missing, and the others were loudly protesting her absence.

"You looking for me?"

Since Autumn is the smallest of the hens, it’s easy for her to flap over the fence, so I knew she could be anywhere. The gardeners were working nearby and joined me in searching for her, but after ten minutes she was still AWOL. I was getting worried, and so were the other three chickens, who continued to call out loudly for her. Finally we heard a muffled response to their cries, and we tracked down the little wanderer. She had found her way into the garage where she was scouring the corners for bugs. The gardeners, the three other ladies and I were all very happy to find her!

After her adventure, she rewarded us with her second beautiful egg, which the neighbor kids discovered when they stopped by yesterday afternoon.

They brought their homework along and the CE set up a table for them in the roofed pen since it was raining. They visited the chickens for quite awhile, staying toasty dry and drinking hot chocolate while the rain fell all around. Another good day in the kingdom of chickens…

All's well that ends well for Autumn

Coop de Coeur

There was a nice surprise awaiting me when I arrived home yesterday. Taylor and Victoria painted the door to the chicken coop while I was gone. Doesn’t it look great?

What’s more, the CE is moving forward on plans to build  a small deck in the chicken yard.  Here is an outline:

The CE took very good care of the chickens while I was gone. They have now come to believe that daily free-ranging is an entitlement, and they complain mightily if we don’t open the gate to the pen on their command.

Lily free-ranges in the fuchsia

I stopped by the feed store on my way home yesterday to pick up a bag of laying feed for the girls. When I commented that they haven’t yet started to lay, the employees told me that it’s possible that we won’t get eggs until spring. SPRING!!!??? Actually, I knew this was a possibility from the beginning. When we had to postpone getting the chicks from April to June, I realized we would be right up against the edge of the seasons. Chickens go through a molt in early fall, which for our young pullets amounted only to a mild mess of feathers. After a molt, as the feed store employees put it, “they take a break from laying”. A break? How can they need a break if they haven’t laid anything yet?

An example of a mature hen during a molt

The dual factors of a molt and the change of seasons – shorter, colder days of fall – some, perhaps even many, chickens stop thinking about egg-laying until spring. We still think that Hope is getting ready to lay – she has been spending an inordinate amount of time trying to make a “nest” of the paper towels that line the coop counters. Today I’m going to set up the nesting box counter with the same layering of newspapers, paper towels and pine shavings as we have on the other counters, and hope that makes the nesting boxes more attractive to her and her three eggless counterparts. Spring is a long, long ways away and far too long to wait for our first, fresh, organic, free-ranged eggs!

Home Is Where The Hens Are

In Las Vegas, the day begins with a piping hot pot of capuccino delivered to the room and a review of the days’ “tasks”: where to have lunch? Where to have dinner? Which corner of the pool has the best shade? Back home, it’s a bit different: make your own darned coffee and get over to that chicken coop because the girls want out!

Early morning free-ranging

The hens are busy today because the soil is filled with yummy surprises since the landscapers dug the trenches last week. We love the way it looks:

New drainage "moat" around the coop

The chicken yard now has its own water supply!

All in all, it’s good to be back. Look who was waiting to welcome us:

Boo!

Rainy Day Women

You’ve no doubt heard the phrase “mad as a wet hen”? Multiply that times four and you can imagine what I heard when I stepped into the coop this morning. Then add in the coinkidink that the CE decided to start work on a drainage system for the coop yesterday and you’ve got mad and muddy wet hens. Is that the same as a mudhen?

Autumn shakes off the raindrops

Under construction...again

Where is the doorman with our umbrella?

Oh well, we need the rain, right?

Eek, Yikes and Eureka!

Halloween is clearly just around the corner, and not just because the calendar says so.  Look who’s lurking in the chicken yard:

photo from http://nature.berkeley.edu/

An Araneus diadematus, that’s who. Otherwise known as a common garden spider, but the Latin name sounds scarier. We all know these spiders are actually the good guys in bad pants, but still, when one is crawling in your hair, it’s hard to feel chummy. I’ve been doing battle with these spiders since Day One in the Chicken Kingdom – their webs are everywhere! I guess it’s actually more their real estate than mine, and they remind me of this daily by spinning their webs all over the gates, fence, lawn furniture and even in the plants. As long as they leave some bugs for the chickens to catch, I’m willing to cede them their share of the space. Not that I have a choice.

No sooner did I say my how-do-you-do’s to Mr. Spider yesterday morning than I was alerted to another intruder. The girls like to free range a bit while I’m cleaning their coop in the mornings. Their favorite activity is bug-catching, followed closely by runway practice. More airplane than catwalk, in their case. They heave their bodies forward in an awkward, ditzy run and a wild flapping of wings which pays off in about a 3-4 ft. off-the-ground sail for about twenty feet or so along the length of the yard. It’s worth the price of admission, believe me.  But I noticed a sudden break in the action and looked up to see all four of the ladies standing stock still, necks craned toward something in the corner. I walked over to get a better view, and stood pretty still myself, because there we all were, face to face with – Rosie!

Showdown!

For the uninitiated, Rosie is our loner cat, known best for hissing and growling should anyone glance her direction. Everyone gives her a wide berth; Soho would sooner give herself up to the coyotes than cross the threshold to come inside if Rosie is sitting on the step.

I knew that if the chickens advanced, there would be trouble, and that if they retreated, Rosie might give chase, so there was a mildly tense moment until the chickens (smarter than they look, folks!) meandered off to the left side pretending they hadn’t seen this dark apparition and Rosie slinked past on the right. I opened the gate for her and she shot through, possibly never to be seen again in the Chicken Kingdom, as she seemed more afraid of the chickens than they of her.

Which brings us to Eureka. Remember the rooster I keep hearing up the hill? I’ve just been itching to find out where he lives, and now I know! We ran into a neighbor this weekend who mentioned (as chickenkeepers are wont to do) her shared partnership with another neighbor in tending twenty hens…and said rooster. Mystery solved! But not necessarily with a happy ending: the neighbor mentioned that the rooster may not be cockle-doodle-dooing too much longer as he is relentlessly pestering the hens and being a general nuisance. Come to think of it, I didn’t hear him this morning…

And just to round out the Halloween theme, yes, this IS a chicken in a witch costume:

from www.backyardchickens.com