More chicken news...

The most memorable thing that has happened in the chickens' lives lately is that Trustin finished the coop and they were finally moved in. He worked very hard and, though he had some help (Thank you, John! Thank you, Michael!), he did do most of the work himself. I am very proud of him.

Here's what it looks like:



Inside, I caught the Araucana taking a dustbath:



She really seemed to be into it:







Then I learned that dustbathing is contagious:





If we're not careful, we'll have a dustbathing epidemic on our hands.

For now, the majority of them just hang out most of the time.



Even the posh-looking Polishes seem to approve of their new abode.



Speaking of which, here is a close-up of the ridiculous sophisticated Silver Polish topknot:



And one of the Golden Polish, taken from the side, proving that they do indeed have eyes:



Overall, the chickens seem to enjoy being outdoors in the sun and shade quite a bit. You can find them lounging in sleepy states throughout the day.

Like this:



And this:



I swear it looks like they're smiling.

They don't always rest for the same amount of time, so a few seconds after the above picture was taken, the Rhode Island Red got up to go peck at something and left the rooster to nap alone.



Sometimes he sleeps in unusual positions. Here, he looks dead.



So that he won't be lonely, his mate, the only other Yellow Campine, who we call "Chickadee", has been known to keep him company.



Here she even adopted his same position.



You know what they say about imitation and flattery. I'd say the rooster has at least one sincere fan.

More about the chickens...

There is a lot that needs to be updated with regard to the chickens. Firstly, and this is really important, one of our chickens did turn out to be a rooster, but it wasn't the big yellow araucana. It was the one that developed the comb before all the others. We didn't think he could be a rooster because (A) we were in denial, and (B) we'd ordered two Yellow Campine hens, and he was one of the only two Yellow Campines in the whole flock. Now, unless one of the mystery birds that died and couldn't be properly identified turns out to have been a Campine pullet, the hatchery made a mistake. It's really not a big deal, but it's good to know now for certain why that one "chicken" developed so much faster than "her" sisters.

Here is the missexed one now:



No mistaking his roosterness. That and the fact that he crows. In fact, that's how I realized "she" was a he. I went upstairs about a month ago and heard this strangled chortle coming from the flock. When I looked inside, there he was, stretching his scrawny (at the time) neck and coughing out a watery belch. He wasn't gassy, though. He was just teaching himself to crow. After a few short weeks, he was crowing like a pro, much to our dismay. He now crows when he's disturbed, so we try to keep him as happy as possible. Sometimes, though, he'll crow his fool head off and we have to intervene. We do so by picking him up (no small feat), holding him, and talking to him. We figure he'll come to associate crowing with being picked up (something he doesn't particularly like) so that he'll either come to like being picked up and crow so that we'll do it or he'll reduce his crowing to avoid the restrictiveness of being picked up. Obviously we're hoping it ends up reducing his crowing.

More updates to come...

Wasabi Egg Salad Sandwich

Decided to finally try out that wasabi mayonnaise we'd bought.



I'm not really into wasabi, but Trustin is, so I got two peeled hard-boiled eggs, added a dollop of the flavored mayo, and smashed it all together with a fork.



I got some organic spring greens to go with it:



Mid-assembly:



Finally, in the recipient's hands:



According to Trustin, it was good, but the wasabi mayo was "stiff", meaning the spice was a little much. He said he felt like he was having sushi.