Coop Life

I spread scratch, crushed eggshells, and spinach in the coop and watched the news spread from one chicken to another chicken to another chicken to another chicken to the last chicken.

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BB

She was looking so lovely today.

Frizzy

Weezy is molting.  I swear she knows her neck is almost naked and kept moving so the pictures would be blurry.  She can be self conscious if she wants!

More Room

Papa Hen did some coop cleaning and rearranged the hay bales to make more room for chicken business.  The hens of Red Door Coop are happy with the change.  Following are some views of the chickens munching their afternoon snackies.

I had no idea that Papa Hen had the camera out the other day while I was leading a chicken parade back to the coop.  BB always seems to be last.

Gift From The East...and The Past

Over the winter holidays, Red Door Coop received a very special gift from a family friend in Massachusetts.  My grandmother, Lucelia, (Mama Hen's Mama's Mama - that's a mouthful!) had a best friend named Kathy.  Kathy's daughter, Linda, sent my mom a tablecloth stitched by her Mom in the late 1940's.  In the accompanying note she wrote "it was used when her [Kathy's] crafty friends got together-for pie, coffee, and chatter."  What a treat!

I asked my Mom to tell me a little bit more about Lucelia and Kathy.  She wrote:
Lucelia and Kathy were like sisters.  A sister was someone my Mom always wanted, she had 3 brothers.  They had a LOT of the same interests which , as you know, makes life more fun.  Having a female sidekick is such a blessing!!!  They talked on the phone almost every morning, probably after my Dad went to work.  They were both passionate about nature:  birds, bees, flowers (especially),etc.  Every Christmas my Mom gave Kathy a beautiful glass jar, so, Kathy could put moss and plants from the woods in it,  a terrarium which my Mom kept on the window sill in the dining room.  It was always very special...

Later on, Kathy and Harry took in patients from a local hospital which helped the patients to adjust back into society.  She did a lot of reading and I will never forget all the arts and crafts she was always doing.  She was a meticulous seamstress, artistic, read a lot, many hand crafts, and was very caring.  Kathy and my Mom kept in touch with each other after my Mom moved to the South shore, near my sister after my father's death.

Harry and Kathy came to my Mom's wake.  Kathy was wearing a BEE pin on her hat which was exactly like the one my Mom wore,  I think I still have it?? I was so HAPPY to see them and that bee pin really meant a lot to me. 

Thanks for these special chickens and this little peek into the past. 

Eggs

We have had less eggs than normal lately due to our two aging hens being less productive, the cold weather, and the fact that the cold has brought a heck of a lot of cloudiness to this normally sunny place.  Although Fitz and Bill are laying less often, their eggs have been large.  Very large.  Sometimes they are topographical too.

Here's a look at what we have in the refrigerator right now.

Safe Travels

We opened the coop door yesterday and the chickens were timid to venture into the partially snow covered yard.  To help them travel safely through the snow I fashioned a mulch path over the small mound of chicken-blinding white.  It worked!

They enjoyed a 60 degree January afternoon.  Today, Sunday, was not so generous with warmth. 

Looks like I had a 1950s setting on the camera.  

Stranded

I opened the coop door yesterday, curious if the chickens would venture out into our mostly snow-covered yard.  They did.  And then they got stranded.

I had to pick Weezy up and get her out of this predicament.

Queen of the hill. 

Then I noticed the other birds in a little patch of green on the East side of the yard.

Then they got stuck on the West side of the yard. 

I had to carve a path in the yard to help them get back to the coop.

With a lot of coaxing they finally made it home to Red Door Coop. 

BB Takes the Lead

BB is a timid bird.  Yet she is a curious bird too.  When I put some additional pine shavings in the coop tonight, she was the first bird to investigate the commotion.  The other birds slowly followed her lead to see what I was doing.  

Papa Hen in the Coop

Morning chores are a breeze when we do them together.  Papa Hen was in charge of the red (waste) bucket this morning.

Here he is in the run.

And now scooping under the roost in the coop.

You can't see the chickens in the pictures because we had just given them some scratch and were occupied filling their crops.  However, they did manage to squawk many supervisory comments at us!

The Biggest Chicken

There's a children's song here somewhere.

"The biggest chicken...that I ever did see..."

We saw this big leghorn near Carbondale, Colorado.

One Bird Stands Alone

There always seems to be one bird standing alone.  Today, it was Weezy.  She is the most skittish of the Red Door Coop Birds.

Yesterday morning, BB stood alone on the roost long after all the other birds had started their day of chicken business in the chicken run.

Here are the girls today.  You can see how the birds fluff up their feathers against the cold.  Weezy stands alone near the hay bales and feeder.