Hi, all! Finally mostly caught up on the thread! (Okay, maybe I skimmed just a little...)
It's been a lousy year over here thus far, but I'll spare y'all the sob story.
I haven't been able to do much of anything for a lot of it, including the various building projects I had in mind for the summer, so no real updates to be had from my neck of the woods for the time I wasn't posting. Classes started last week, so I'm on the move again for much of the week. I did take a ton of pictures Sunday night, though, and thought I would share the best of them here. I was really not feeling the picture taking in light of the flock feeling so much smaller now, but the Dorkings made it their goal to make me feel better, so they feature in a lot of the pictures. I mean, how could you not love these faces? 
My Elda, getting her cuddles.
Elly's 'sweetie face'... and then she saw the camera lens.
Kit-kit was up by my shoulder for most of this, chattering away.
Love these girls.
Freema is not so enamored of them.
She was giving me grief for giving anyone but her attention.
Margaret was being bizarrely cooperative. I love her pretty eyes!
Tiwhiri the Light Brown Leghorn. I could only get her picture at a distance, of course, because humans are evil and gross to her.
Poppy the Cream Legbar giving me an odd look. Her comb has gotten so ridiculously rumply!
Reuben's in the clink at the moment because he's being really rough with Margie. He doesn't mess with the other girls, but he can't resist Marge.
The call duckies, Trudi and Malcolm:
Malcolm gets all riled up whenever I have Crash out near the duck pen. Sunday, Crash decided she wasn't taking any of his nonsense and went at him a couple times as well! Also, I can't believe how big she is next to the adults! I tried to get a picture of her on her own, but she wasn't being cooperative for it. :/
Just for fun, here's the woods behind the chicken yard. For part of the summer, I had a temporary fence up, so they weren't really free-ranging but had some space outside their yard to go to. Well, around the beginning of August, I decided this was a terrible idea and just let them loose. So now the temporary fence is keeping them out of the driveway and away from where we walk most after being off the property, but they can go through the woods as they please at free-range time. Makes them happier, and me, too. Anyway, I thought this picture was kind of revealing as to how quickly chickens can decimate a place. Can you tell where their fence used to be? 
And that's probably overdoing it on the picture count, but enjoy. It's all ugly and storming today, so I guess that means I could do some of my homework now... 
It's been a lousy year over here thus far, but I'll spare y'all the sob story.
I haven't been able to do much of anything for a lot of it, including the various building projects I had in mind for the summer, so no real updates to be had from my neck of the woods for the time I wasn't posting. Classes started last week, so I'm on the move again for much of the week. I did take a ton of pictures Sunday night, though, and thought I would share the best of them here. I was really not feeling the picture taking in light of the flock feeling so much smaller now, but the Dorkings made it their goal to make me feel better, so they feature in a lot of the pictures. I mean, how could you not love these faces? My Elda, getting her cuddles.
Elly's 'sweetie face'... and then she saw the camera lens.
Kit-kit was up by my shoulder for most of this, chattering away.
Love these girls.
Freema is not so enamored of them.
She was giving me grief for giving anyone but her attention. Margaret was being bizarrely cooperative. I love her pretty eyes!
Tiwhiri the Light Brown Leghorn. I could only get her picture at a distance, of course, because humans are evil and gross to her.
Poppy the Cream Legbar giving me an odd look. Her comb has gotten so ridiculously rumply!
Reuben's in the clink at the moment because he's being really rough with Margie. He doesn't mess with the other girls, but he can't resist Marge.
The call duckies, Trudi and Malcolm:
Malcolm gets all riled up whenever I have Crash out near the duck pen. Sunday, Crash decided she wasn't taking any of his nonsense and went at him a couple times as well! Also, I can't believe how big she is next to the adults! I tried to get a picture of her on her own, but she wasn't being cooperative for it. :/
Just for fun, here's the woods behind the chicken yard. For part of the summer, I had a temporary fence up, so they weren't really free-ranging but had some space outside their yard to go to. Well, around the beginning of August, I decided this was a terrible idea and just let them loose. So now the temporary fence is keeping them out of the driveway and away from where we walk most after being off the property, but they can go through the woods as they please at free-range time. Makes them happier, and me, too.
Anyway, I thought this picture was kind of revealing as to how quickly chickens can decimate a place. Can you tell where their fence used to be? And that's probably overdoing it on the picture count, but enjoy.
It's all ugly and storming today, so I guess that means I could do some of my homework now... 
