Have I mentioned here yet how awesome it is to be engaged to a personal trainer? I still do my own thinking, but have his brain close by to pick anytime I'm not sure about a food choice - and when I try to cancel a training session, he knows I'm full of (bad) excuses and won't let me! Why is this so smile-worthy? Because in working with him for the last month, I've lost 4.5 pounds and lots of inches. I'm so thrilled to be back on track and super close to my goal weight yet again. :)
PLUS - when we're out and about running errands, and I see something fuzzy I just HAVE to bring home, he 'lets' me. (I use the term 'lets' loosely - we aren't exactly a 'I let you or don't let you' kind of couple - but you know what I mean!)
Meet Red...she's likely to be our best layer of the bunch....
Red is named after our favorite character on our current favorite TV show (plus, she's a Rhode Island Red chicken - so it just made sense!) Mike and I usually only watch one sitcom at a time - we watch season after season until we're either tired of it or it ends. Our current favorite? Can you guess? I'll give you a hint: Red is hilariously grouchy.
I've considered changing the name of my blog to: From Polish to Poultry - because once upon a time, my nails were painted beautifully every single day. Now? I'm loving being an urban farmer - dirt, feathers, chicken poop and lots of hand washing = no more pretty nails. BUT - today, I splurged and painted them. It's a few hours later and they're already trashed. It's okay - I'll trade polish for poultry anyday!
More chicken news: Tweety (aka Little Miss Perfect) may actually become Little Mister Not-So-Perfect and may need to leave our flock. Since he was a Bantam chick, he came to us straight-run (which means he wasn't sexed and it's a 50/50 shot at whether you get a rooster or not!) We think he's a he because he isn't getting his feathers yet...and I've heard that roosters take longer than hens to get their feathers. No other reason, really - just a hunch. I wanted to be sure we had 3 good layers - and adding a young chick too much later in the game isn't going to be fun. Red is from the same place as the rest of them, and likely hatched around the same time...she looks like it, too. Sweet bird so far - doesn't mind being held at all! She's a tiny little thing compared to Big Mama and Rio.
In other foul news, the ducks are whacked. They are seriously crazy...so much fun, but insanely messy, active and loud. Oh, and huge. These suckers are growing almost as fast as my neglected asparagus. (Have you ever seen that plant grow?!?) We haven't been able to keep the ducks from swimming in the water, which is creating such a mess, wet bedding and just plain chaos.
So, our solution was to separate the fast growing crazy ducks from the smaller, cleaner, sweeter chickens. (Who's idea was it to get these ducks again?) So here you have it - a bathtub containing the largest plastic bins we could fit...
The ducks are being SO loud since we separated them. I'm not sure if they're bummed about the chickens being gone or super thrilled to have so much space (and an open water dish!) I can tell you that this is the best thing we could do, even after only having it this way for a couple of hours. The water in the chicken brooder is clean (and there! We were having to refill it every hour or two because of the ducks splashing!) and the litter is dry. I'm not sure what happens when we try to combine the two sets of birds in the outside coop - fingers crossed we all get along! Maybe we'll have to have brooder playdates every day - move them all into one for awhile or something, so they don't forget each other? Any ideas for me from the more experienced bird keepers?
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