The last few days have, thankfully, been very calm. The chickens are doing great – no more tail plucking/picking. They are enjoying free ranging each day – from sun up until down. I can’t tell you how much I love watching them monkey around outside. They typically stay close to their coop and run, but I have opened the front door to find them pecking around the steps, and spied them up at the top of our fenced-in yard.
We’re still making it through the never ending amount of boxes we brought out here from our house in town. I try to spend a couple of hours each day unpacking boxes, deciding what I have room for or can’t part with, and then packing the rest back up. But now that we are completely moved out of the house in town, going through the boxes is relaxing in comparison. And it’s nothing that has to be finished immediately.
It rained all day yesterday. Our rain barrel is filled to the top. I used a little to water some plants I took inside for the winter. We haven’t had rain in several weeks, so a full day of rain was very welcomed. The chicken run got a nice wash down – and so did the chickens. They spent the entire day frolicking around in the rain. One little Phoenix went into the coop for a while, and when she came out I peeked inside and saw she had left us an egg. She was outside playing in the rain again before I could thank her.
We spent this morning cleaning the coop and raking the chicken run. Chickens mulch up leaves really well. After we had raked up all the old leaves, cut grass, and chicken poo that had been in the chicken run for a week or so, we loaded up a few wheel barrels full and covered as much of the garden with it as we could. We’re hoping it will help build up that old shale laden soil we have around here. Then we dumped freshly raked leaves into the run to keep the chickens busy scratching while in there.
We have a nice fire going in the wood stove and just finished eating some turkey chili. I’m enjoying a glass of wine and thanking the heavens that things have calmed down a bit around here. The last few weeks have been a whirl of activity and “situations”. Lordy – country living can be exciting at times.
Bee Free,
Penny
Tags: feather picking, feather plucking
