Since the last time I posted about the chickens there have been major developments. Really important, vastly huge, incredibly large developments: #1 The New Girls, #2 The New Eggs, and #3 The New Sculpture.
#1 The New Girls
First, we added two new chickens to the flock. Well, actually we added three, but after a couple of weeks, poor Hazel died suddenly one day from… we have no idea. Coulda been fibromyalgia; I’ve been seeing a lot of commercials for that lately. Anyway, she just died. And it really makes you sad when that happens.
But the other two — Pearl and Josephine — are doing just fine.
I mean, other than having to deal with the mean girls — Henrietta, Pauline, and Freddie.
At first, we had the new girls in their own coop and run, so they got to see the mean girls every day, and vice versa, and get used to each other. We have two doggie doors built into the chicken runs. One that leads out into their own part of the backyard, and the other which adjoins the two runs.
When we finally opened the door that joins the two runs, it was quite tense at first. The mean girls just went wherever they wanted and wouldn’t accept the new girls into high society. Just like The Gilded Age on HBO Max.
It’s now been awhile, and slowly the mean girls are behaving a little better. But they still remind Pearl and Josephine from time to time that they’re New Money, not Old Money. Sometimes we tell the mean girls, “Hey! Stop being dicks!” But they don’t really listen to us.
#2 The New Eggs
The second piece of news is that the new girls are finally starting to lay eggs. At least we believe Pearl is. Pearl is a Copper Maran. She’s got beautiful black feathers that actually sometimes look purple and green when the sun hits just right. She lays dark chocolate eggs. In her case, they’re not quite as dark as Jodi was hoping but they’re spotted, so at least we got that going for us, which is nice. And right now they’re just little wee eggs, so they’re pretty cute. But it probably will take about a dozen of them to make a breakfast burrito.
Josephine is a Jubilee Orpington. She’s really pretty, and her eggs should be lighter brown. I found one yesterday midway up the ramp, but I wasn’t 100% sure it was hers and not Pearl’s. I think it was Josephine’s because it wasn’t really spotted and I think she might have been too scared to go all the way up to the coop to lay the dang thing. Those mean girls are really in her head.
#3 The New Sculpture
The last thing to report is a new wooden sculpture that we’ve placed outside of the chicken house. My brother Mike made it and sent it to me. It’s called “Lemon Chicken.” Check out the lemon that makes up the chicken’s body. The story behind the sculpture is that Mike and his wife Peg went to their daughter Annie’s house one day, but she wasn’t home yet. Mike got hungry and ate the rest of her leftover lemon chicken from the fridge. When Annie came home, she couldn’t find her lemon chicken. As penance, Mike made two wooden sculptures of lemon chickens. Annie has one (although she can’t really eat it, at least not without lots of Cholula), and through my vast connections, I have acquired the other one. My brother is really talented. You should check out his Etsy stores Pieces of Wood Art and Pieces of Art by Mike.
The chicken update is now hereby officially concluded.
The End.