i out smarted a chicken--- for the moment anyway

we have a couple chickens, as some of you folks know. dulcette and henrietta who are older then dirt and lay an egg here and there....henrietta is 'confused' and crows, has grown spurs and still will lay a nice egg.  (the picture at the right is lilli in a greenhouse type daypen)

then there are the new baby chickens i just got.....the speckled sussex X buff orpingtons

well we also have 'the pullets'

they are about 18 months old now. - i never did like those damn chickens.

now they are trying to eat their eggs

yesterday i outsmarted them and got the egg before they ate it

one was ok one they'd pecked through the shell.. i gave the pecked one to phoebe.

she'll clean it up for me and they (the chickens from hell) didn't get to eat it

(yes they do get oyster shell and granite sand and all sorts of goodies..... they are just terrible chickens-they don't even crouch for the rooster-they aren't even polite chickens, with good chicken manners)

meanwhile momma is laying me a nice egg a day

so baking and rice pudding making will be resuming soon.

thaddeaus i think is doing better but it's sort of touch and go, this rain today is not going to help much. he doesn't do well in the rain. he came up to bed at about 3am for a while... i was so happy he finally came up. i was worried about him

but the rain will help the ducks little pool so for that it's a good thing

i should plant my outside deck planters, however i didn't put new dirt in....that would be tomorrow,  i separated out the seeds:

lettuce

snow peas

spinach

chard

purslane

we are looking at what may be a very early spring and a hopefully productive growing season. oh and my little seeds i planted the other day are germinating.

i have more to plant today and tomorrow the rain is good for that even if it isn't so good for cleaning the animal pens.

i was supposed to go to town this week twice, once wen, to met a friend, and then again today to meet another friend--- yup yup, i basically don't go out for two months....... well the plans fell through so i didn't go which is fine with me!

as much as i wanted to see these friends, and i do want to see them

i am ok without going to town

i can't get the fire going again, we're out of kindling and paper. that too will get taken care of this weekend.

i am still up in the air about the watercolor paper situation.

i need to sample some but that's pretty pricy.... so i am going to use my inktense pencils for now on the paper.... however i don't think they are light fast, or as light fast as i would like them to be, which means any originals done with them will have to be kept in a black box and only reproduction archival prints made from them- archival prints would last long then the originals! i think they are rated for 100 years! which is ok for straight commercial work but i think that i would eventually like to put all this work on the market for sale. those i wouldn't be able to with a clear conscious.

now regular watercolors will last hundreds of years,......now you know why i was trying to get the paper situation under control. i still intend on it, but it will take a while as the paper isn't cheap at all.

i just gave the cats their fancy feast with hot water and chinese sinus herbs, they are all still sneezing a bit. the budgies just got their minced veggies and are chattering away, the chickens have their light on. so as of right now all is right in my little world

we are starting to look into a few more budgies, this cage will comfortably house six, so we are sort of looking into more..... budgies these days don't seem to have a very long life, no matter what you do to take care of them so i would like to make sure there are a few just in case we do lose one, the others will still have flock members...... but maybe if we have 6, we WON"T lose any as they will have the flock and enough excersize etc?

i would hate to lose any of these guys, they are such charming little birds, and with so much personality.  i do love them. and they do make the studio very lively.

i tried to upload a very short video of momma duck splashing happily in her little pool but that didn't work for some reason. so you have a picture of lilli in her day pen

meanwhile we are a bit chilly here with no woodstove going......... so i am going to go and see what i can do about it..... we don't have enough kindling to get the wood to take well and it's a bit warm out

meanwhile i better see to it before the feathered and furred inmates start to get angry....