Yes. Probably just one. (I definitely wasn't meant to be a farmer person.) What I miss is that when it gets to be late in the day and I still haven't written my blog and my mind has gone blank... there were always chicken antics. Or chicken...
Mr. Rooster is a larger-than-life-sized ceramic chicken who has been sitting on our "porch table" since 2011 or so. I can't remember exactly how we came to have him but I think, originally, he belonged to our former neighbor Polly Friedlander....
If the oystershell telegraph -- actually, in this case, the eggshell telegraph -- is correct, Slutvana is undergoing a name change at her new home in Seaview. It was reported to me recently that she is now being called "Vanna." I wonder what she...
She didn't really say so -- which is out of character for a Russian, even a Russian Orloff -- but she was lonely. Her hen friends had left her, one by one, each the victim of old age, until she was the only coop lady left. She tried to talk to...
I read somewhere that common character traits of Russians (the people, that is) are, broadly speaking, generosity, resilience. and strength. I cannot vouch, however, for those traits in Russian chickens -- certainly not in Russian Orloffs and most...
We've probably all known girls like Slutvana. Aloof. Totally independent. A bit pushy when she wants to be. And the biggest flirt in the crowd. Do the boys see through her? See her for what she is? Who knows? Most of those randy- rooster...
Last night Oh so lightly She was breathing Nestled among the cedar shavings On the coop floor. That she knew Farmer Nyel was home I have no doubt. Chickens know more things Than you would think. Nyel raised her From a fluffy ball of yellow And for...
If you'd have told me that I'd be writing on this day about... but wait! Let me start at the beginning. When I went down to let the girls out and give them their morning treat, I found Slutvana pacing back and forth along the inside of the...
I've had trouble in the past being mistaken for an alpha male rooster, but only by actual alpha male roosters who were so cocky they didn't even get that I didn't have feathers. Or wattles. Or a comb. And since I wasn't equipped with claws and...
*Chicken Farmer Much as I hate to admit it, I have recently realized that my chicken duties as the wife of Farmer Nyel have become tiresome, burdensome and some other things, as well. I place no blame on the Farmer and only a little on the...
Well, we don't really have a "path" from the house to the chicken coop. It's not all that far to walk and it's just across the east lawn and behind the cypress trees -- a spit and a holler, you might say. In fact, I try not to follow exactly the...
Not that it makes any difference. But, I have discovered that it wasn't Clara who was feeling ill. It was Ida-Mae, Clara's almost-twin sister. I'm embarrassed to admit it but, for almost a year, we've been calling our (now) missing hen by the...