Happy free range chickens! Not so much. Today the girls are giving Jimmy and me the stink-eye. There are times when the girls need to be penned up for their safety or our sanity . But one of the ancient reds has always been able to escape no matter what we do. Oh... and she taught the little girls how to do it. She earned the nickname Hilts (Steve McQueens character from 'The Great Escape). Over the last two weeks we have plugged and netted every place we could find and she still gets out. Until yesterday...... Jimmy put an extra wooden bar over the gate posts and stapled the netting to it. That seems to have plugged the chicken portal. He decided to do it when he saw her leap up on the gate, wiggle her way through the netting and then trapeze up to the goat barn , where she casually walked over about ten feet and did a little hop to the compost pile on the backside of the barn. We left them penned up all day yesterday...just to make sure any escape routes were closed off. Now maybe we can get some work done without them following us around, getting into everything we do. They LOVE it when we are prepping the beds. They think the freshly turned, uber soft soil is for them. They dont even wait for us to finish the job any more. They dive right in when the first shovel full comes out. Poor Hilts got a faceful of dirt a couple of days ago and did nothing more than yell at me. She let out a screachy 'Raaaaaaccck!' (which is chicken for 'WTF!') and then, in open defiance, jumped right back on top of the pile, daring me to shower her again. I did!
I have managed to keep track of the camera this week and have some new photos of the girls enjoying thier freedom. I also got a couple of great shots of the up cycled table and chairs, in use, on the veranda. There is no one sitting at the table because I was taking the photographs and Jimmy has a 'dont post my face on the internet' policy. And check out the vintage/antique Perfection coal oil parlor stove. I bought it at a garage sale for $10 and then found a fuel tank for it on ebay. It kept us very toasty while we finished off our wine after dinner. I'm not sure which PC term applies to the stove....its not upcycle cuz we are using it for its intended purpose (sort of ) nor is it recycled......maybe re-purposed? It's original purpose was to be a single room space heater in the 1920's. Maybe it is just one of those things that is really cool and almost art. And yes, it was painted blue when I bought it. My plan is to strip off the blue paint and go back to the original, classic, flat black. But re-conditioning the uber functioal veranda heater is not high on the priority list right now.
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| Antique Perfection stove still still doing its job! |
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| Happy free range chickens! |
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| Chicken parade! |
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| Hilts has appointed herself superviser of the three month old pullets. |
