About the chickens...

In the most recent “Week Ahead” edition of the newsletter, I promised you a little more lighthearted fare this week. So here goes:

Florence, one of our two “teenager” chickens.

I know that not all of you are chicken fans, so if you aren’t (or think you aren’t), you may want to skip this one. But wait, before you go, I’ve got to tell you that there are few things in life as relaxing as watching chickens run around and peck in and among the plants and squabble with each other over the good bugs. They all have their own personalities, and some of them are genuinely affectionate. When you get up close, their feathers are really beautiful, like little works of art.

Pickles, our Cream Crested Legbar. She lays bright blue eggs.

Some of our chickens are a breed called Silkies. We started out with them, because they’re friendly and easy to keep. They’re feathered and fluffy and feel a bit like having a cat sitting on your lap. Silkies even purr when they’re truly happy—like when you blow-dry them after a bath. They have beautiful little turquoise earlobes. You can see how brilliant they are on Scotch, below. We’ve also branched out to include breeds like the Cream Crested Legbar—Miss Pickles lays beautiful blue eggs. And Ruth (Bader Chicken) is a Welsummer. Her eggs are a dark brown with speckles sometimes.

Scotch, one of the chicks we hatched last summer, has turned out to be a gorgeous rooster with strikingly colored earlobes.

We have a big change in the works for the chickens this spring, and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you! Our starter coop, a modular grid system, has been really great and easy to use, but with all the rain that we’ve been getting, we’ve had to resort to using a patchwork quilt of tarps over the run area outside the henhouse to keep our girls dry. That makes it tough to get pictures and share them with you. So we’re going to take the plunge and build a more traditional wooden coop. There will be a roof over the covered run and a much better setting to share photos and video of their daily goings-on.

While we’re building the new coop, we’ll have to temporarily relocate the girls to the top of our yard to prepare the foundation for the new house and run, so I’m sure we’ll have some hilarity and escapee chickens. Hopefully, none of them will make it into my basement TV studio!

Chickens are one of the ways I de-stress when things get a little too crazy, as they have the past couple of weeks. I love hearing about what other people do, and I hope you’ll share yours; you never know when your ideas might help someone else!

With all the talk of rising egg prices, our sweet chickens are making a contribution to keeping the family fed. But they’re more than that.

Butter, another one of our Silkies.

On more than one occasion, I’ve been outside, engrossed in work, when a chicken has suddenly jumped up on my lap or my shoulder. It’s a lovely reminder to take a moment and breathe, and that’s something we all need right now.

We’re in this together,

Joyce