Good morning.

We are sick. Again. Last night was rough, and we finally threw in the towel at 4:00, and just got up. Dishes half done, three loads of laundry, and we got an enclosed area for the ducks done. I took pictures, but I don't know where they went. Does anyone else have a Polaroid PDC 5080? We seem to have lots of troubles with it---things stop working, then miraculously start working again... pictures disappear, and reappear weeks (or years!) later.

Anyway, I kicked the broilers out yesterday--literally forced them to go out the hole into the big outside. (It's all enclosed now!) They don't seem to like it too much. They'd much rather stay sitting, thank you very much. Then, at the end of the day, I had to herd them back in. Yea, that's fun; chicken herding. I would like to go on record here. We will not be getting broilers again. I'm thinkin' the end-of-the-year chickens for $.50/piece, then butcher in Jan. you know, those nice days we seem to always get. You'll know if that's what we did, if it doesn't get nice in January ;).

The big chickens do not seem to tolerate the little ones as well as we would have thought. Ben has been 'training' Amelia to sit on his arm. She is very good at it. The picture below was taken about 8:00 this morning--none of the other chickens were out (they all came out at 6:30) so, I'm a-thinkin' the big ones kicked the little ones out. Ben can sympathize; it's rough being the little one. Now that the crested breed is big, I kind of think of them as either classical musicians or part of a Big-hair band. What do you think?

Well...

It's been a while. I have to tell you that things are going really slowly. The broilers are disgusting. We clean out their area everyday, and it's still really gross. IF we ever have broilers again, we're putting them in a chicken tractor (it's a mobile coop, so when they make a mess, we just move them to a new area---if we plan it out right, we can have them prepare our garden for us! or just clear out some land... hmmm.).

The ducks are kind of the same way, but that's because of their dabbling. We have the ducks outside as much as possible, but we don't want them out by themselves just yet. Eric has been getting the rest of the hut ready for the chickens. Ah, the chickens.

We have 6 of the babies left, and 4 of the chickens. ha. It was kind of funny, when the last 2 disappeared, Eric was around, and wanted revenge. :) Must be a guy thing. I remember him telling me after the decimation that it was a bummer, but there was nothing I could have done. Pat, pat, you know, but when HE'S here, KILL THEM!!!!!

Somewhere along this winter, Gabby became the head goat. She has also shed her fluffy coat, and is really pretty. She also loves a good rub-down, on her terms, of course. Deer is just as friendly as ever, and even Slash seems to be coming around, slowly, if you have corn. They seem resigned to the ducks, and enjoy going into the duck hut when we aren't looking. The ducks give them away, every time. The bummer about them being so friendly, is that they'll follow us right out of the gates. And aren't the slightest bit scared of us, so waving our arms to keep them away just has them cocking their heads and staring at us. 'What are they doing now? Where's the corn???'

Gunner follows Eric around, and stays with him through all of his chores and whatnots and goings ons. Eric really likes it, and Kodiak leaves him alone, so that's nice.

Squeak goes outside at every opportunity. There are more now, than before the huge hole in the screen door appeared. He really likes it outside. Oz? Not so much. It's very funny--when I had Squeak, he didn't act much like a cat until after we got Oz.

So that's that. It was supposed to be 68 to day as a high, but they changed it to lower 50s sometime overnight. Tomorrow is still supposed to be in the 70s... for now.

Overall, things are fine. It's very wet here. Everywhere.

What a beautiful day!

It's a little windy, but really, it's always a little windy here.

Everything is doing really well--here are before and after pictures of the ducks (they were in two dog kennels at one point, but we don't need to focus on that... :)

Here are my beautiful chickens, out and about. I went in to move the waterer over to the broiler side (it holds 3 gallons, so we'll only have to fill that up once a day, instead of the 2 gallon-sized waterers three times a day--and they can't knock this one over!!!) and when I came out, the chickens were gone. Gone. Hmm. So I called them, and did the comfort clucking, and over by the burn pile (that is now a huge pile of brush) I saw a neck and head crane out to take a peek. They were all in and around the burn/brush pile. :) Here they are mowing down on the fresh grass and bugs.

The goats didn't know what to think of the ducks. They tried to get into their hut, but I stopped them. I called Kodiak over to see what she would do with the ducks, but as soon as she came into the cemented area, Gabby chased her out. I felt kind of bad--I had called her in... the goats are lined up very nicely, hoping for some corn, probably. :) They tried to get positioned to butt the ducks, but the ducks wouldn't hold still. If I were to interpret the goats it would go a little something like this; how am I supposed to get my head low enough to charge effectively... and on a moving target... ah, forget it. :) :) :)