Tails and Tidings: Twisted again, try to keep up.

I was going to write an introduction of the all the animals we keep and clean up after, but the spirit of the holiday has overcome me. Besides, we're down one chicken. Hot Sauce started talking smack and I said to myself, "You know what? Maybe a little chicken tetrazzini would be just the thing for dinner tonight."
Oh, look at that, Hot Sauce! Somebody just cut off your head and feet! Whatcha got to say about that?

AprilFoolzJKLOL?

Not bloody likely! You may not eat chickens, but I feast greedily on meal worms and losers!

And, scene*

*No chickens were beheaded in the making of this blog post. They were, however, humiliated, and reminded that their owner is a dork. Maybe tetrazzini isn't a worse fate than that.

Tomorrow marks six weeks with our lovelies. They have gone from silky puffs of cheeping sweetness to big scratchy mottled pullets whose cheeps turn to hoarse clucks when they're startled, or thirsty, or peevish. We got them from the Urban Farm Store, in Portland, Oregon.

Here they are, waiting for me to finish cleaning their "cage". It's more of an "area", but I'm afraid that makes me sound like a "total slob", so let's go back to "cage". I've got tarps enclosing part of our laundry room. It contains them somewhat, but they could get out if they were really determined to do so; say, if someone forgot to dump and refill their water bowl after they meticulously packed it with shavings and feces. They'd cross the barrier, fashioned from crates, buckets, and a bag of goat feed, to find said owner, and cluck at her hoarsely.

So let's do a pullet line-up. Pullet is what you call a female chick when she's not cute anymore. That's just science.
Lenore is a Black Star, or Black Sex-Link. She is so-named because her gender is linked to her color. Males of her breed are brown. This is a great chicken for us because we knew from the get-go that she was a she. We're beginners in the world of chicken-keeping, and we have neighbors to think of. No roosters allowed. They are rumored to be prolific layers, so we have high expectations for Lenore. No pressure, girl. Just crank out enough high quality organic eggs to feed me and my enormous family. Think ovulatory thoughts.

You may remember Hot Sauce, from our prankery earlier. She's a Rhode Island Red and she's feeling much better than she looks. Not everyone has to be cute in the face, you know.

Candy is a Buff Orpington. She is starting to seek work as a model. She just looks so ideal. So chickeny.

I was saving the best for last. Cora, rocking the cheek puffs. She's an Ameraucana, has dark bluish gray feet, and will hopefully grace us with blue eggs. Most of the time, she can be found playing their drum (an overturned empty humus container) and touching up her eyeliner.

These girls will move outside in a month or so. I'm planting seeds for their outdoor yard: flax, vetch, clover and buckwheat. Geza is designing a two story coop/in-door yard out of an old kitchen table. Enticing, eh? Old kitchen table? What? You want to know more, don't you? You want to see pictures and squint at your screen and whisper "wow" to yourself, right? I know! Stay tuned!