First, the chooks:
And a smoothie (with a tiny gnome in the background, courtesy of Kathryn):
Here’s the recipe, if anybody is interested:
About a cup and a half of crushed ice
About a cup of orange juice
Two organic bananas
About half a cup of frozen organic cranberries
About a cup of frozen homegrown blackberries
Blend until smooth. The blackberries give it that gorgeous dark purple color. Bonus: This recipe is completely vegan.
Emily
Our hens are aging rapidly, so in the interest of making sure we continue to have a steady supply of eggs, we decided to replace Honey (executed last year for war crimes) and Maud (heat-stroke casualty) with a couple of youngsters.
Because my friend Terriann was interested in backyard chickens but didn’t want to fool with raising them from babies, I bought four extras, bringing my flock of fledglings to six. We got sex-linked goldens this time. They’re a cross between Rhode Island reds and Rhode Island whites. I wanted either barred Rocks or buff Orpingtons, but they didn’t have any buff Orpingtons at the feed store, and the barred Rocks were straight run, meaning we could have ended up with a mess of roosters. I don’t have anything against roosters, but they’re awfully noisy for an urban setting, and they don’t lay eggs (which is the whole point of owning chickens).
Anyway, these little boogers should be ready to go outside by the end of April. If they’re like the last bunch, I’ll be ready for them to go outside by the end of March, but fresh eggs are well worth the annoyance of living with young chickens for a few weeks.
If you’re playing along at home, this brings our current fauna count to three dogs, one hamster, one finch, 10 chickens, and God alone knows how many bees.
I need a farm….
Emily
