Snowed In

   Thanks to winter storm Cato, in a matter of hours my yard went from late fall to a mid-winter wonderland!

   Also thanks to Cato, our seemingly perfect fencing system is in ruins. Driving around my town you can see tons of downed branches and we were no different. Luckily this didn't fall on the coop! However, it did fall on the electric fence.

   I am writing this just as our power came back on. It has been out for five days including Thanksgiving! Luckily we had a generator and family with power close by.

A funny snowman I helped my sister make!

   The chickens were, no are, not happy with the snow. None of them have dared to touch it yet. I have tried to bribe them out with treats but they still refuse.

Here Daisy was considering touching the snow.

When she decided not to and turned away she slipped and almost fell out. She freaked out flapped her way back in. (Sigh.)

   Something else exciting happened this week. Don't worry; good exciting. Come back next week to hear all about it!

Eggs

   One of the many things I love about chickens is the eggs. There is nothing going like going outside, saying hello to your little flock, then opening the coop, and finding a perfect little egg the girls left for you. This was our first egg we got from our chickens. Hazel laid it in August 2010. She was five months old.

   Hazel was our best layer. She laid us six eggs a week and sometimes double yolkers for the for the first year. After that her laying has dropped off to almost none. Her eggs were a light brown, but the darkest of our chickens' eggs.

   Sunny was the second chicken to start laying. She laid her first egg in October of 2010. Her eggs were very light brown. She laid an average amount. About four to six eggs a week.

   Ceci's first egg came in November of that year. Her eggs were very small and white. Ceci only laid about three to four eggs a week. However, she was still laying that amount until her death.

   Julie was the last one of our girls to start laying eggs. She began in December. Her eggs looked a lot like Sunny's but usually a bit pointier. She was also an average layer like Sunny.

    For me they are just pets that happen to lay eggs as a bonus. So, even when the chickens stop laying eggs completely, I will still love them. 

Ceci

   Ceci was always a little different than the other chickens. She is a Silver Speckled Hamburg.
When all the chicks had yellow legs, she had gray.

When the chickens grew up and they all had yellow eyes, she had dark brown.

   And then there was the tail. We didn't really know what to make of the tail at first. No one in our family had ever seen a tail like that on a chicken...

   She was also the smartest of our chickens. She was always finding a crevice in our fencing to wander the yard. She also loved to make "secret nests". Under sticks and leaves, under bushes, and once at least six eggs under the deck. (I say "at least" because we are not sure we were able to get all the eggs out when we discovered the nest. 'Sigh'.)

   Of course she had to lay them in the very back of the deck. I had to lie on my stomach with the longest-handled shovel I could find. 

   Although she was the most shy and flighty in our flock (she has been known to perch in trees and on the roof), I still loved her and always couldn't wait to see what she would do next.