The chickens experienced their first significant snow this week. Over 16 fluffy inches were dropped on our backyard and the girls were quite visibly baffled by it. The Eglu now looks like a true Igloo, heaped with snow and a glossy ice finish. It took three days for the girls to work up the nerve to go exploring. Everyday when the door to the run was opened they would all three stand at the entrance and nervously poke their heads out. Dorothy was the first intrepid snow explorer, prompted by a handful of cracked corn. Annabel and Frances proved far more fussy, a look of true distaste spreading across each chicken’s countenance as she made her first footprint in the snow. Each cluck seemed to translate to “ick! ick!”, and other various dramatic expressions of woe.
Yesterday, however, all three were prepared for an epic snow adventure. As expected, Dorothy was the first to try her wings and sail away to a new scene. She set her sights on a large fallen tree branch propped on a trailer a good 30 feet from the run. Dorothy can be no more than five pounds and her small body glided easily with a single effort from Eglu to branch. Frances and Annabel agreed that Dorothy had the right idea and they too spread their wings and took off. Unfortunately, these two portly ladies misjudged both the distance and their own flight ability and landed off the mark. Annabel did fairly well, landing rump first under the bird feeder post 10 feet from the branch. Birds and squirrels had compressed the snow beneath it, so her only challenge was keeping her balance on the ice and recovering from the indignity of missing her target and her graceless landing. Poor Frances however landed halfway there, up to her neck in a pristine, untouched patch of snow. She was quiet for a moment, but then her panic rose in the form of hysterical squawking and clucking. The strange white stuff she had been so keen to avoid was now getting a little too friendly with her. She did not like it. I, however, adore chickens in the snow. It becomes very easy to catch a chicken when she is immobilized in a snow drift. I walked over and scooped up Frances and Annabel between my own hysteric fits of laughter and carried them to Dorothy’s branch where they sat and stared for a good forty minutes. It seems that Dorothy finally got the last laugh.
Please take a moment to enjoy the video that follows. I was able to capture some of the aftermath of this very undignified moment in the lives of my otherwise noble chickens. Happy Holidays to all!
Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. I always build up incredible anticipation for Thanksgiving throughout the year, yet somehow it always sneaks up on me. I am an enthusiastic supporter of tradition when it comes to the holidays. A big part of Thanksgiving magic for me is the setting. All my life, we have celebrated Thanksgiving at our family home in Ocean City. It’s not remarkable from the outside. Perhaps, to a stranger, the inside isn’t remarkable either. To me, it’s the living meaning of Thanksgiving, and taking it anywhere else would be criminal. Every year I want to have the same thing, cooked the same way with no substitutions, only additions. We can add more to the family feast, but nothing can replace time-honored favorites. We even have specific roles that each family member is expected to fulfil year after year. My father always cooks the turkey. He has a terrific knack for tenderly coaxing the bird to crispy, golden brown perfection. My aunt and mother usually divide the task of preparing the sides. These absolutely must include stuffing, Hayman potatoes, mustard greens, and cranberry sauce. Once upon a time the list of sides included an asparagus jello molded salad. That was one tradition I was happy to let go of. It is always my task to produce the pie and the sweet potato biscuits, the latter being my tribute to my grandmother. I heartily enjoyed our gobbler, but have no desire to add a turkey to my little micro-flock. I am always interested to know what traditions other people uphold for the holidays. If you happen to read this post and are inclined to share, I would love know what your Thanksgiving or Christmas can’t do without.
While Winter was sticking its tongue out at us all last week, today Fall re-gained the upper hand and graced us with a beautiful day. Naturally, that means there were some great Kodak moments of the chickens to immortalize. While I’m sure the ladies adore their Eglu, they are thrilled when they get the chance to get outside. Today was their 18 week birthday and they celebrated by basking in the sun and taking dust baths. Having tended these gals from nearly day one, I feel I speak with great authority when I say there is nothing sillier than a chicken. They are simply ridiculous. I hope you enjoy the two videos that follow. I will likely update you next when I find an egg in the nest box. It shouldn’t be long now!
This video shows the girls dust-bathing. At the end, Annabel Lee spots a hawk! Oh my!
This video features sun-bathing and clover-feeding.
Since I started work again in September, I’ve missed some important moments in the lives of my chickens. I failed to witness the perfecting of their bug-snatching technique. I even missed the moment when they cashed in their sweet little “peeps” for grown-up “clucks”. This week, it seems I’ve missed another milestone: their first encounter with a hawk. It really ruffles my feathers that I have to hear these stories from others rather than witnessing them myself. Still, I’ll do my best to make it a fascinating read for you. Let me set the scene…
On the morning of the incident, a family of deer wandered through the backyard. Everyone, including the chickens, stopped to take notice. Each chicken peered at the deer through the green wire of the run, no doubt speculating and gossiping as chickens do. As these creatures continued to eye one another, it seems the chickens caught the eye of something else up above. Within moments, a hawk dropped from the sky, speedily descending on the unsuspecting ladies. Frances and Annabel Lee collected their senses quickly enough to make a mad dash for the Eglu. Dorothy, however, was suddenly possessed with the frantic, lunatic spirit of Henny-Penny. Beak open, wings flailing, feathers flying, frantically clucking, “THE SKY IS FALLING!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!” or perhaps more likely “OH, BALLS, I’M GOING TO DIE!!” Somewhere between the clouds in the sky and this frantic ball of raging, spastic feathers, the hawk realized that it was about to smash its face into the wire cage of the run. Not a moment too soon, the hawk pulled up and flew off — probably to go buy some hawk glasses and get some therapy for what was likely the most embarrassing moment of its life. After making a sublimely stupid spectacle of herself, Dorothy pulled herself together and managed to get through the rest of the day… a few feathers short, but when your head is full of feathers, does it really matter?
Please enjoy the following video featuring Frances and Annabel Lee as they get way too excited about my jeans:
It has been so long since my last post that I’m almost ashamed to even show my face ’round these parts. I would promise to reform and give up my lazy, starry-eyed ways, but that’s a promise I know I can’t keep. While you all have been anxiously awaiting any tiny morsel of chicken news, I have been quite busy falling in love. It’s none of your business, of course, but I like to think there is a chicken angle in this development that warrants thoughtful comments on this blog. Picture this: a young woman updates her match.com profile with news of (what else?) her new enthusiasm for chickens. This is in part an effort to separate the wheat from the chaff. For example, how many young men do you know who would say, “Oh, baby!” to that? If you know even one I’m impressed. Nevertheless, our heroine is undaunted and proceeds to send out emails to promising individuals. Within a day or two, a particularly promising young man responds with a question about… chickens. “Where do you keep them?” he asks, “Clearly you don’t live in a condo.” No indeed. She does not. They decide to meet. Before long, both hearts are full of gloppy, gooey, glorious love. As these two characters work to develop the Happily Ever After chapter of their story, the young woman begins to perceive her chickens as little feathered fairy godmothers for the role they surely played in securing her present happiness. The End.
Check out the new chicken pictures below! The little darlin’s are ten weeks old as of Sunday and looking more chicken-like than ever. Believe it or not they will continue to grow until they reach a whopping six to eight pounds! They shall be quite voluptuous, like Peter Paul Rubens’ women. I would say that at present each chicken is pushing three pounds. It has been sad to see them lose their baby fluff, but the advantage of a big fat chicken is that it’s far more huggable.
Dorothy.... what the hell are you doing?
Dorothy basking underneath the blueberry bush
Dorothy's "crazy face" is pretty crazy.
Frances has grass!!!!
Annabel Lee really works those feathers, don't you think?
The Three Musketeers
Annabel Lee strikes an interesting pose...
Annabel's beautiful feathers
Frances is no longer impersonating Albert Einstein.
Welcome back to the present day! The ladies are six weeks old as of yesterday and they are looking a hell of a lot like chickens. They move like chickens! I can hear you saying, “Well, duh! They ARE chickens, stupid!”, but what you don’t understand is the fact that a mere five weeks ago they looked like eggs on legs! The comb that Frances has been sporting since day one is really pinking up. Everyday I tell her to remember that she’s a hen and there’s no place for transgendered chickens in my Eglu. Let’s hope she takes it to heart and stops turning into a rooster. Frances is also getting her “superfreak” on with her blue eyes! Every other picture I’ve seen of this breed shows bay colored eyes. It’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Hopefully someone in the know will read this post and enlighten me.
Frances at 6 weeks.
Frances flashing her baby blues.
The girls are simply mad about their Eglu. At dusk, they hightail it inside and cuddle up at the back to escape the creepy crawly black of night. When I let them out in the morning they literally burst through the door and descend like a plague on their “grub and glug”. Dorothy, being the smallest and most spastic, is often seen flitting from one to another in a frantic fit of feathers while the others do their best to keep her as far from them as possible. Oddly enough, it’s Dorothy who is turning out to be my lap chicken. She loves being held and doesn’t put up a fuss. While Annabel Lee and Frances have now mastered the art of attacking and eating baby crickets and grasshoppers, Dorothy (not surprisingly) remains out of the loop. She is my “special” chicken. Annabel Lee is as fat as ever and getting fatter. Though all three are continuing to bid for the highest place in the pecking order, it’s always Annabel who comes out on top.
Annabel Lee at 6 weeks
Annabel Lee. I know this is an exaggerated angle, but it really is funny how disproportionately small chicken heads are to the rest of the body.
Dorothy at 6 weeks.
Dorothy striking a pose in the garden.
Dorothy stalking a baby grasshopper. She was successful in catching the insect, but did not appear to understand how to eat it. Poor thing.
Here is a video I shot this morning of the girls emerging from the Eglu for their breakfast feasting. Hope you enjoy!
This post is very late! It’s supposed to be the one where I show you pictures of my ladies at five weeks of age. As of yesterday, however, they are six weeks old. We need to do a little time traveling to get back on track…
~WOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!!
There, that’s better.
Today my chicks are five weeks old. I celebrated by going to the Maryland Renaissance Festival with my high school buddy, Eric. It’s the second time we’ve been to this ridiculous place together. We piled in the car with his friend from college and I drove us all along, all the while thinking, “This is so very silly” and also “I’m so excited”. I’m sure Eric spends the whole year building up anticipation for slurping down mead and gnawing on turkey legs. The reality may not eclipse the lusty, greasy dream, but he sure looked happy clutching his chalice. He did not finish the leg. I found, as I always do, that I secretly wish I had the nerve to dress up like a beer wench. Again, reality intercedes; those costumes are damned expensive. I also do not have the bosom for it. Oh well. Once, while window shopping at match.com, I stumbled upon a gentleman with a username like “yourshiningknight” or some such nonsense. Thinking the poor dear had an overheated sense of romance, I thought I might as well amuse myself by reading what I perceived would be an incredibly gooey profile. Silly me. The fellow was a professional jouster employed by the Renaissance Festival. For all of us who go to events such as this one to escape our own reality, where do the people go for whom our dreamland is their reality? Hmmm…
Here are some pictures of the girls on their five week birthday. The biggest difference I’ve noticed between weeks 4 and 5 is to be found in the length of the tail feathers. You will also notice that they are no longer being kept in the shower! That’s right, folks! They have moved on to the Eglu, and there they will stay.
The chicks have made it through their fourth week and they are growing like mad! Frances has replaced Dorothy as the ragamuffin of the group. She looks a bit like Einstein. All of a sudden they are taking great delight in ripping their newspaper bedding to shreds. That’s really the only new development I have to share with you this week, apart from the new pictures. Next week they will be moving into their eglu home, and there they will stay, apart from the occasional garden romp.
Enjoy the new pictures!
Annabel Lee at 4 weeks. She's got class.
Dorothy at 4 weeks. Her feathers are actually looking quite lovely, and vary in color from gold to graphite.
Frances at 4 weeks. It looks like her head has been vigorously rubbed with cling film.
Earlier this summer I took a watercolor class at the Lorton Workhouse in Lorton, VA. When I was a wee thing, my parents enrolled me in watercolor classes at the home of Judy Wengrovitz, a well known watercolorist ’round these parts. My folks would drop me off every Saturday for three years and I would sit and learn and paint along with ten or so other children. Judy was a wonderful teacher and I was quite an eager student, but for some reason or another, I soon abandoned watercolor for some other interest. I didn’t get reintroduced to it until I went to college. If you major in illustration as I did, you really can’t avoid watercolor. It is the perfect illustrative medium. Three years later, I had finished graduate school in a program for art education where watercolor was again cast aside. I wanted to pick it up again, but I always feel that I don’t know where to begin. Enter Catherine Hillis.
Catherine’s class was described as “Watercolor Boot Camp”. My mother, who has taken a retirement induced enthusiastic interest in art, spotted the class in the Lorton Workshop catalogue. She figured she might as well add watercolor to her list of artistic pursuits and signed us both up. Catherine went over the basics, taught us some tricks (which we all promised not to tell anyone about), and put us to work. We had been instructed to bring photos to work from. I chose a photo taken by my late grandmother, the location of which remains unknown. Now, over a month later, I have finally finished it!
This time, the trick is not to stop here. I’m determined to keep it up and I want you to promise to give me a hard time if I don’t post new art projects here every month. Everyone needs a good verbal paddling every once in a while to stay on track. We’ll call it encouragement.
This week marked a few landmark events for both me and the chicks. I’ll start with mine. On Saturday, I made my first big investment in art and (probably) simultaneously received my first parking ticket. There is a wonderful art show at the Rehoboth Art League in Delaware every August. This year I went with my mother, an aunt, and a cousin. We took care to avoid all the lawns trimmed with red flags and parked behind a small row of cars, thoughtfully keeping off the grass. We then moseyed on through the event, popping in and out of the little white tents, each displaying the work of a different artist. I found that no matter which direction I took, I kept winding up in the tent of Jim Lemyre. Jim is half of a two-artist team that includes his wife, Lynn. They work on each painting together, taking inspiration from each other and conversing about their progress and direction. Their paintings are all at once whimsical, surreal, calming, and thoughtful. I wanted to leave with almost every painting I saw. By the end of our stay, I knew I had to buy something. I was particularly drawn to a painting called “Upwards” featuring a traditional forested landscape in the background. In the foreground sits a pale wooden ladder backed chair, the back of which eventually terminates in delicate tree branches with two tiny black birds preparing to fly from them. You can view the painting and others at the Lemyre’s website. I left the event happily clutching my purchase and feeling pretty great until I saw the ticket on my windshield. Apparently it is downright criminal to leave any of your four tires on the pavement when you park in this neighborhood. Fifty dollars will set you right if you commit this heinous crime. And heaven help you if you do it on a weekend because city hall is closed and the fine doubles every 48 hours. Joy! I immediately contacted the security officer on duty and put on my “pity me” face. It must have worked because he voided the ticket after I repeatedly stated that I’m from out of town and no signs were posted to warn non-locals to “Stay on the Grass!”. Woe is me, etc. So, thankfully, I left with my spirits intact and I’m on a mission to be sure this happens to no one else. I’m spreading to word to park on the grass!
Enough about me, let’s get back to the chicks! I believe that the chicks are now four times the size they were when they arrived. One morning last week I went down to replenish their feed and found all three hopping about on the floor. My behemoth Walmart bin failed me. These little buggers are flying all over the place. I solved this issue by sticking the birds in the glass enclosed shower stall downstairs. Once I had them settled I was sure to slap myself in the forehead for not thinking to do this all along. It’s perfect! The girls like being able to look out of the glass, and I like how they remind me of fish in an aquarium. Of course, their looks aren’t quite as fetching as they were two weeks ago. Their wings are nicely feathered out, but they’re getting new pin feathers in all sorts of silly places. It looks as if each new feather is wearing its own plastic turtle neck sweater with only the feather’s tip peeking over the top. It’s quite hilarious. I’ll leave you with new pictures of the girls taken yesterday on their three week birthday. Later alligators!
The girls in their new shower house.
Annabel Lee at 3 weeks. Notice the feathers coming in on her breast. She's ahead of the pack...
Frances at 3 weeks. She was not cooperating for this photo shoot. Chickens will be chickens, I suppose... =)
Dorothy at 3 weeks. Note an improvement on last weeks scraggly tail. She's still a bit of a ragamuffin though.
