Chickens

    My efforts to thwart the chickens' desire to roost atop the duck pen have finally succeeded.  Tonight I came home from the bee store just a bit before 8:00 p.m as the daylight was starting to fade.  Five of the chickens were gathered on the roof of a little open shelter I have in the chicken pen, looking perplexed as to how they could get back to their usual sleeping site.  While they were settling down for the night to roost on the open shelter roof, the older red hen was sleeping in a nice warm nest box inside the chicken coop.

Our Fresh Air Freak Chickens

The one chicken with enough sense to sleep inside

    I've been trying to break them of this bad habit of roosting on top of the duck pen for several weeks now.  I don't like the chicken poop collecting on the roof of the duck shelter or on top of the shelter over the ducks' feeder.  I have that set up to collect rain water so the ducks don't have to be watered when it rains.  With all the chicken poop on top I've had to move the ducks' water dishes to avoid any poop contaminated runoff into their water dishes.  Yesterday I had achieved partial success in that only the two roosters and one of the hens had managed to get back on top of the duck pen.  I finally figured out they were using the top of the chicken coop as a staging area in order to clear the new fencing I had added. I simply added a loose roll of leftover welded wire fencing to the top of the chicken coop and now the chickens are no longer able to fly the coop. I suppose I could also remove the little open shelter from the chicken coop and get the same result.

     I originally put the little open shelter in the chicken pen with the idea of getting some geese. I specifically wanted to get some pilgrim geese.  They are a smaller, less aggressive breed of goose, that I hoped would be more acceptable to my gooseaphobic wife.  I had actually ordered two pair of pilgrim geese from one of my favorite feed stores. I was very sad to get a call from them a few days ago regretfully informing me that the hatcheries were sold out of pilgrim geese. I will have to try the geese again next year. One thing unique about Pilgrim geese is that the males are white while the females are gray. You can actually tell the difference between males and females when they are first hatched.

     I spent yesterday evening assembling the two tandem bikes I brought home for Linda on Monday.  We took one for a brief test ride.  It was obvious that I didn't have everything adjusted quite right as the chain came loose after a few minutes. They are, however, extremely cool looking.  I suggested to Linda that we ride one in this summer's Klahaya parade. The bikes are exactly the right color, a very bright banana peel yellow.  I suggested that Linda could wear a bee costume and I could wear my bee suit.  We could even have a couple of kids in bee costumes handing out honey sticks to kids in the crowd. Amazingly enough she seemed agreeable to do that.

Mr. Buttercup's Favorite Sleeping Place

    As I was turning out light s last night I found Mr. Buttercup fast asleep in the little crib. I'm not sure where the kitten is sleeping these days. I'm just happy its not where I sleep.