Frosty Window Panes

These are pictures of the frosty windows in the chicken coop.

I think they are amazing.

And beautiful.


I get to look at them every time I visit the Ladies.

This one looks like a flower.

What do you think they look like?

Brrr! Chilly Chicks

I took a few pictures of the Girls on Tuesday.

"Can I get a little privacy?"

I love this picture for some reason. The purple chick on the right and the hawky on the left.

Fluffy!

Zela checking out the cold snow.

Brrrrr!

"No thanks! It's too cold!"

Look at those fluffed up feathers!

One of the red girls chasing Ray the cat.

Zoom!

Watch out below!

"I'm outta here! Too many chicks for one man(ly cat)!"

Such a pretty girl.

Winter Chickens and A Purple Girl

Here are a few pictures of the Ladies.

You can tell Winter is in full swing: cabbage and warm mash for all!

Cheap chicken entertainment - a hanging cabbage.

There's Butter!
She's busy catching that cabbage.

Zela and Lavender

And a purple chicken!?!

I nicknamed her Turkey.

She started moulting and her sisters picked on her, so.....I Blukoted her.

It's a spray that covers up the bare red skin and doesn't taste very nice.

There are a couple other Girls developing bare spots, so I might give them a little dash of Blu kote too, if Carol doesn't mind.

Winter is hard on a chicken. :(

Isn't she cute?!?

Little cutie!

I noticed her attitude changed, when she realized she wasn't going to be picked on any more.

She's more assertive and was *sigh* picking on the Barred Rock girl, while she was taking a dust bath, yesterday.

A lot of Carol's Girls are getting friendly, as you can see from this video.

They like to be held and snuggled.

The only problem - I only have 2 arms!

Daring Cook's November Challenge

The November 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was brought to you by Audax of Audax Artifex and Rose of The Bite Me Kitchen. They chose sushi as the challenge.

~

I want to thank Audax and Rose for the challenge.

It truly was a challenge!

The recipe is really, really long.

I didn't post it, because I wanted more room for my pics, but go to Audax or Rose's blog to see the step by step directions.

~

Before this, I had never tasted sushi (or wanted to taste it).
And now that I've tasted it-

I hate it.

Let's just get that out of the way.

The nori tastes and smells like a stagnant lake.

The rice is sticky and sweet. And not in a good way.

Although, you might remember I said here in my Pumpkin/Bulghur post
that I wasn't crazy about white rice.

It also seems like a lot of work and mess for pretty, but inedible food.

~

First, the spiral sushi roll with baby corn, coconut black beans*, fried red and yellow pepper.

Ta da!



I like wasabi and peppers so I ate that.


See below for the fate of the sushi.
Bwahaha! (evil laughter)



The dragon roll.


So cute!


And so yucky!





I used fake crab sticks and fried peppers inside.


Avocado on top and red pepper for the flames.



Black beans for the eyes.




And the nigiri sushi.
I thought I might like these, because they don't have any nori.


But it's a huge chunk of rice with toppings.


I ate the tops.


Yum! Smoked cheddar cheese, rum/ginger/cinnamon syrup raisins and kiwi slices.










I ate some of the rice with coconut black beans and topped it with avocado.

It was tasty.


What did I do with all of that sushi?




My girls had a sushi party!

They didn't like the nori.

Or the rice.

Too sticky for chicken beaks.

They picked out the fillings.

Silly chickens!

They usually gobble up rice.

*Coconut Black Beans

1 cup dry black beans, rinsed

1 can coconut milk

1 small dried chile

1/2 tsp dried onion
1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger powder

salt to taste

Rinse beans. Add beans and 6 cups water to med. saucepot. Bring to a boil and boil for 10 mins. Remove from burner, cover and let soak for 1 hour.

Drain beans and rinse (again).

Add rinsed beans, coconut milk and spices to the saucepot.

Simmer at med./low heat until the coconut milk volume has been reduced in half.

About 1 hour.

Beans should be tender by now, but still holding their shape.

Add salt to taste and serve.

Update On Chicken-sitting

I have been taking care of my friend Carol's chickens while she is in London.

It has been so much fun!

I collected 13 eggs on Saturday, 9 eggs on Sunday and 11 eggs today.

Since I added the golf balls there haven't been any broken or eaten eggs.

Yay!

Like my girls, her hens are starting to be really friendly.

I pet and hug each hen, every night, before they go to sleep.

Some are starting to want to be cuddled and a few are still ambivalent.

Hopefully I can break down their standoffishness and make them snugglers.

I love a snuggly chicken!

Cuddliness: really the best reason for having chickens.

Bon Voyage

My friend Carol left for London today.

(My 4 chickens live with her 18 chickens - like the Brady bunch)

I am so jealous!

She's going to tour London and Paris.

I hope she tries macarons and takes lots of pictures.

Bon Voyage, Carol!

~

I visited the Ladies today.

Carol said I could collect and keep all the eggs while she is on vacation.

Yay! I love collecting eggs!

Today there were 6 eggs.

There were 2 broken/eaten eggs underneath the roosts and another half eaten egg in a corner.

Uh-oh!

Egg eaters!

I'll take some golf balls out tomorrow and try to get them to stop eating their eggs.

Hopefully banging their beaks a few times on the golf balls will stop them from sampling eggs OR I'll have to make a few mustard eggs.

Bloody Wattles or How To Make New Friends

Today, when I visited my girls, Mr. Cocky, the rooster, had taken his harem into the grove.

So, for once, I didn't have to worry about a covert flogging.

He loves to hide in with the hens, sneak up on me from behind, and then do a jump and scratch attack.

*@#$!% Rooster!

I closed the gate on the run, so he couldn't sneak in.

Have I mentioned that he is very sneaky?!?

The Ladies were so happy to see me!

Two days this week I have found Lavender free ranging with Carol's chickens out on the grass.

Who knows what Lavender gets up to with those wild Ladies.

She can be a pretty bad influence on well behaved chickens.

~

I closed the gate and opened the wire fencing, that separates my girl's run from Carol's chickens run.

I did this for two reasons:

1. So I could clean the run without having to clean around my Ladies.

2. So the girls could interact with a few of Carol's hens that were in the big run.

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And the result?

Butter made friends with one of the chunky white girls.

They checked out the dust bath area together and talked chicken.

A skinny red head tried to jump Zela.

Zela and the red chicken fought.

Zela ultimately won and the red girl ran away, but Zela ended up with a bloody wattle.

My poor baby!

She got an extra bunch of cuddles from me and I kissed her boo boo.

Lavender decided she wanted to lay an egg, so she sat in the dog crate....wait! then she ran out...then she ran back in...then she ran into the run....back in to lay an egg...

Pixie ventured out into the big run, ate some food, decided she didn't like how one of the white girls was looking at her, so she jumped the white chicken!

A chicken 3x bigger than her!

Then the white chicken, Mrs. Dirtyback, pecked her and Pixie ran underneath Mrs. Dirtyback.

She got caught underneath her and for a few seconds was hilariously caught with her head sticking underneath Mrs. Dirtyback's rump and her tail wiggling in Mrs. Dirtyback's face.

Once Pixie freed herself, Mrs. Dirtyback pecked her in the comb and I intervened.

~

My Girls were scooped back up into the small run.

Home Sweet Home.

Sort of.

Wait For Me

Every morning the big girls are waiting to be let out into the run. They dash out of the coop as soon as I open the door.

But when Zela has to lay her egg they all troop back inside. Honey and Butter wait patiently outside the nest box. Sometimes they lie down and take a nap.
As soon as Zela lays her egg and hops out of the nest box, all three girls can go outside together.

Butter and Honey only do this for Zela. If they have to lay an egg Zela doesn't bother to go inside and hold their wing.

Are ladies in waiting one of the perks for being top of the pecking order?