Sights from around Crooked Acres:
The Crooked Acres Bluebird. (I told my father that we had one Bluebird hanging around. He said “They don’t hang around singly, they’re in pairs!” I told him I’d only seen the one – yesterday, I realized that female Bluebirds look quite a bit different (in fact, they look like Mockingbirds to me), so it’s entirely possible (probably likely) that there’s a female around, I just didn’t realize it.)
Baby chickens – two weeks old, I think? The others had been pecking at this one’s head, causing her to bleed, so we had to put Blue Kote on her to disinfect the wound and stop the other chickens from pecking. So far, so good.
Such pretty little things.
What I love about chickens is that I see the pretty little ones like this, and I say “I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s grown!”, and I don’t have to wait years and years to find out, only a few months.
Polish cross with a mohawk. This one’s gotta be a rooster.
“You has food for us?”
Fred and my father built a longer, less steep ramp for Charlie, the chicken with the twisted-up toes. Yes, that is correct – our chickens now have a handicapped-accessible ramp. The chickens who are pretty, and the chickens who are friendly are doing it wrong – apparently engendering pity in your owners is what gives Crooked Acres chickens a longer life span.
Twisted-up toes and Blue Kote on her neck. She’s a mess, god love her, but she’s the queen of the baby chicken/ maternity coop and yard.
Broody mamas, each sitting on three or four eggs. The Silkie is due to start hatching this weekend. Hopefully Silkies really are the good mothers they’re purported to be!
Rooster in the sun.
It appears that Michelle – formerly the head rooster of the chicken yard – has been toppled from the throne by this pretty Buff rooster. It makes me sad to see the other roosters chasing Michelle off – and Michelle sleeps in a nest box rather than roosting with his wimmins. I hate seeing it. Poor Michelle.
Michelle performs the maneuver we refer to as “umbrella neck.” The wimmins seem unimpressed.
This white rooster (one we hatched ourselves last Fall from a batch of eggs we got in Amish country in Tennessee – therefore, we call him “The Amish Rooster”, of course) seems poised to kick the Buff rooster off his throne. I have to say, I’d like to see him kick some Buff butt.
Still love the rock star.
This might be Mr. Friendly – who isn’t as friendly as he used to be. In fact, when I check for eggs, he comes and supervises and gets all up in my space. He’s not showing me the proper respect, and I’ve told him that he better stop harassing me, or we’ll be eating Mr. Friendly stew.
I’m not impressed by the umbrella neck, Mr. Friendly.
This rolled-up fencing lives in the wood shed ’til the time comes that Fred needs it.
They’ll build nests anywhere, won’t they?
This tarp covers a rain shelter by the littlest (unused for now) coop. This bird built a nest in it, and I assume she’s sitting on eggs. I snapped this picture, then the bird freaked out and flew off and scolded us, so I left it alone. I want to get better pictures, but I don’t want her to abandon her nest, so I’ll behave. Maybe. (I don’t know what kind of bird it is – I think it might be a Nuthatch.)
“You has food for us?”
Such good puppies, waiting for their treats.
Did I mention pretty?
“Do ya feeling lucky, punk? Well? Do ya?”
Naturally, as soon as I said how we were going to deal with letting the kittens out into the rest of the house, that changed. Yesterday morning I went up and let them out of their room, and they promptly went to the bottom of the stairs and meowed sadly at how all they wanted in this world was to be let out into the rest of the house, but that mean lady wouldn’t let them.
I can only stand so much sad meowing from tiny kittens, so I caved pretty quickly.
Everyone except Beulah immediately came down and spread out through the house. Our cats were NOT impressed with the tiny interlopers, but they didn’t actually smack anyone, just hissed a lot.
After a couple of hours of the kittens exploring and sniffing at the big cats and eating some of their food, I realized it was pretty quiet, and then I heard an inquisitive meow. Miss Beulah had figured out those stairs and come to see where everyone else had gone. Where was everyone? All curled up in a cat bed, looking kind of scared and lost.
I put them back in their room for a few hours, and then let them out again in the evening. When they’d been out for a few more hours, we decided to put them back in their room (so we wouldn’t be racing around trying to find them at bedtime), and we located everyone but Phinneas and Beulah immediately.
We could not find Beulah and Phinneas ANYWHERE. We looked in all the nooks and crannies of the house, called and called for them, and nothing. I wasn’t worried, because I knew they had to be in the house somewhere, but I WAS very confused.
I was looking around in my room, then suddenly heard a wee meow. I turned around, and Beulah was coming out from behind my laundry basket, looking sleepy. So now we had everyone but Phinneas, and after five more minutes of searching, he just kind of appeared in the middle of my bedroom.
In retrospect, I think that he and Beulah had gotten behind my bookcase – there’s a gap between the bookcase and the wall – curled up in the hollow place under the bookcase (you can’t see under the bookcase from the front, because there’s wood there) and gone to sleep.
Kittens find the most amazing places to curl up and hide, don’t they?
Kittens looking through the screen at Miz Poo, who cannot be bothered to even look their way.
Possibly this would be a better picture if I could ever hold the camera straight, ya think?
Snoozin’ Jasper.
“Tryin’ to sleep here, lady!”
She has such intense eyes. She scares me a little.
Previously
2008: It just looked like a great big blob of tumor, is what it looked like.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: “Light” my ass!
2004: An odd duck, that one.
2003: Unfortunately, he lived.
2002: 10 Things I Learned Last Week
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.