Having a retirement flock of chickens living in part of the garden makes it easy to spend more time outside. They are each lovely with unique personalities.
Petrichor the rooster, has an arthritic wing, but still believes he's the strongest boy on the farm.
Lady loves to be sung to every night but won't suffer any duck but Mrs Clint - and won't go anywhere with Mrs. C.
Nana is the mother of so many chickens hatched on the farm. One of the oldest animals, she is slow, wise, and loves her comforts.
And then there is The Widow Clint. The only duck I met who was 100% monogamous and who's friendship with Lady kept her going through the worst of the grief. That and the worms we dig for her each morning. She can't wait for the worms.
We've had a break from winter. Double Digit Celsius days (over 60F) in the coldest month foretells a stormy spring.
But that's a problem for future us.
Instead, I take advantage of the sunshine and play with some yarn.
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| freshly dyed yarn drying in the winter sunshine |
And digging the garden for when it is time to plant. Because gardeners are nothing if not optimists.
3 comments:
One of the joys of animals is their personalities. Oh, and their antics. Such fun.
I can't tell yet if we're in an early spring, or a false spring. I've learned better than to trust my attempts at predicting. No matter, I'm going to answer the call of optimism and plant peas and lettuce today. I have high hopes they'll make it, since they don't mind the cold (or at least not too much cold).
And, I have to mention - beautiful blue.
And this morning I woke up to see the world covered in heavy snow.
This is going to be a fickle spring.
Lovely yarn!
We used to have chickens when I was a kid. It was not a retirement flock, unfortunately. There were too many for them to be given names, except in rare cases, such as the rooster that got to stay on the farm a little longer than they usually did (I cried when he had to go). We enjoyed feeding our food scraps to the hens, who loved them. On the other hand, the (male) chickens were scared of any food scrap we'd try to give them; there was such a huge difference, we found that fascinating.
Now, I live in the city, and urban chicken coops are apparently becoming more popular than they used to be over here. It was interesting to get to hear a rooster again in the morning when our windows were open last summer!
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