In case you missed the mention in yesterday’s post: there’s now a blue “random post” button over there in the sidebar. Like you’d expect, given the name of the button, if you click on it, you get a completely random post. Warning: it is a total time suck, and you might look up and find that three hours have passed while you clicked and clicked and clicked!
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Sights from around Crooked Acres.
Arnold seems to have hit his awkward stage, to say the least.
Arnold and the Cuckoo Marans are now out in the maternity yard together. Fred put Arnold in the brooder with the Marans for a few days so that he’d get used to them and they to him. I was worried that Arnold would freak out at going from the midget of the bunch to the giant of the bunch all of a sudden, but he handled it quite well. Arnold, you could say, is a chicken’s chicken. He gets along well with everyone.
Sunday, Fred moved Arnold and the Marans out to the maternity yard. Arnold handled it fine – well, he’d already been there before, so it was familiar to him – but the Marans weren’t interested in doing anything but huddling in the coop for the first day. Eventually they got hungry enough to come outside and follow Arnold around.
Maybe they think Arnold is their mama.
Toasty and his wimminfolk, outside the maternity yard.
Brahma rooster, staring off into the distance.
The Spirea bush by the side of the front porch has bloomed. It certainly is pretty.
I wish it bloomed longer, though.
The chicken yard is home not only to chickens, but also a LOT of mice. There was apparently a batch(? litter? bunch? shriek?) of baby mice born recently, and when we lifted up the garbage can (where we store the chicken feed) to check for mice, about 20 of them went flying, leaving the babies behind (they always eventually come back for the babies when the danger has passed). You can see the tails of three grown mice as they try to fit into the tunnel at the same time.
Wee baby mice. (They were alive, and I assume they still are. They weren’t under the trash can the next day when I peeked.)
To answer the questions I know you have: (1) There are no cats in or around the coop; the coop is in the back forty, which is fenced in. George and Gracie wouldn’t take kindly to cats in the back forty. (2) The chickens do eat the mice they can see, but the smart mice stay out of sight under the two garbage cans by the coop. (3) We left the babies where they were. (4) Every year, Fred traps the mice (using a humane trap), and transports the mice he catches to the other side of the back forty, where he lets them go. You’d think they’d just turn around and go back to the coop, but they don’t – after enough trapping, the mouse population dwindles pretty drastically. It probably helps that there’s a horse pasture on the other side of the back forty. I assume the mice head in that direction.
I’ve never ever seen a mouse in the house. That would have to be one dumb mouse.
“IS SNACK TIME YES?”
“I lubs snack time,” says Gracie, who has clearly been rolling around in dirt.
“In the name of King Harold of Squirrelandia, I claim this feeder!”
Finally, at least a month later than last year, the Wisteria has bloomed!
This crazy Spring, y’all. We are JUST getting stuff planted in the garden this week. It’s nuts! We probably won’t get tomatoes ’til mid-Summer at this rate!
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Yeah, Jareth spends a lot of time laying around with his claws out. He’s a nut, that one.
And Charming spends a lot of time laying around looking astounded.
Grumpy Leia.
He is such a sweet boy. Jareth’s always the first one to run over to me when I walk into the room (well no, Kate’s actually the first one. Jareth’s the first kitten. And if I don’t sit down immediately, he starts climbing my pant leg.)
They love to get in that basket and just sit there.
Jareth, sitting on my leg.
Falling asleep. His lights on, no one home expression is cracking me up.
Fighting with Charming in my lap. As long as they’re fighting with each other, they aren’t stabbing me in the leg with their little claws, so I’m okay with that.
“I can haz a snuggle?”
Jareth and Aslan (who is trying to get away) in my lap.
Aslan on the hammick. They certainly do love this thing.
And a short video, just random bits of the babies playing and being cute.
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“Ummm… nah. Not today. When you’re least expecting it and when I’ve had enough pampering and napping, then there might be babies.
“I’m not sure how much more this belly is going to expand, though.”
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Stinkerbelle, on her platform, keeping an eye on things.
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Previously
2012: “I SCARED it down!”
2011: No entry.
2010: No entry.
2009: “Hey! You! Guys! She’s got the camera out AGAIN!”
2008: Kara’s kittens, named.
2007: It’s very squirrelly in our back yard today.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.