Chicken Stories

Hi!
        I don't know the difference between fieldstones and flagstones, but
about 4,000 lb of one or the other showed up at 8:30 this morning.  The
lumberyard delivered the pallet of stones with a really neat giant truck
with fancy hydraulic arm to lift the pallet *up* and *around* and
*down*.  Then TPV and I spent the morning moving them so the new
pondlets are circled by stone and so is the the faucet by the coop.  I
even got wildflower seeds sprinkled around the rocks before the rain
hit!  And we are now pooped!  Photo of the pondlets, pre-weeds &
wildflowers attached.
        In the chicken news, all 20 chicks are doing well in the basement -
even the smallest ones are looking pretty chipper (ha!). They
(Buttercups, Hamburgs, Dorkings, Silver Polish, Gold Polish, and Mottled
Houdins) are 10 days old today.  Unfortunately, the Buttercups have
learned how to fly up to the edge of the corrugated cardboard circle
that encloses the brooder and then fall backwards into the brooder -
since they don't balance well yet on such a narrow edge - but I think
the falling backwards is a matter of luck more than anything else.  So
we have to put up some netting to keep the chicks from flying the
coop-substitute.  And the Dorks' plus one tiny Hamburg's latest trick is
eating tiny dabs of lettuce from my fingers.  I think the rest would
like to learn the trick as well, but the Dorks (closely related to the
raptors of 65 million years ago, in my opinion) keep everyone else at
bay when the lettuce appears.  Photo of 10-day old vegetarian predator
Dork attached! 
kcl