7/17

This is my first official posting using the blog format! Hopefully you guys will all like it. This weekend it's been nothing but rain, rain, rain. Everybody, especially the turkeys, seem kind of cranky. At one point it rained so hard I had to chase down the chickens and lock them in their shed. They were not happy about being confined during the middle of the day - I could hear the squawking from inside the house.

On a positive note, the chickens are producing five eggs a day now! I need one of those fancy wire egg baskets that Martha Stewart is always photographed with. And it's not just for aesthetic purposes, I really need one. I have been putting the eggs in my pocket (because usually I check the nesting boxes in the evening, when I'm rocking my plaid comfy pants with my plaid rubber boots. If it's plaid, it matches). Using my pockets as a mode of egg conveyance ended predictably, which is to say, disastrously. If any one knows where I can buy one, please let me know.

Other than that, the crops seem to be growing, despite the lack of warm temperatures. I already have a bumper crop of slugs. Lucky for me, they seem to prefer the compost pile over the gardens. I was walking around the compost area last night just as the sun was setting, and I saw at least 15 of them congregated there. The Bedonkaducks are going to have easy pickings once they get out of the brooding box. So far I've only seen the black slugs - I wish we had those bright yellow banana slugs in this area, those ones get HUGE.

Unlike the slugs, the goats hate the rain. They've spent most of the weekend either sleeping (just like their mama) or hanging out on the spool underneath the covered area of the pasture. I think we're going to need a larger spool pretty soon, Fiona's real estate is expanding, as it were. When the goats are in the shed sleeping, the turkeys hang out on it. It will be interesting to see how the Bedonkaducks fit into the pasture area; I hope they'll like their new home. Hopefully this weekend we can put in the pond. The turkeys love drinking out of the hose when I refill their watering stations, so I think some type of fountain in the water feature is a must. Gene will have to get right on that.