I'm never gonna get an egg!!!

[Killer Tomato]

I worried about my first chickens laying too. I think most people do. One thing is you read all this literature online about chickens laying in three months. My breeds are egg layers and they took 4 months and still had a few take longer. Funny thing for me was once I posted the say worries you have and next day I had my first egg. Just be patient and it will come. Keep you chickens clean, watered, feed and healthy and it will happen..

I agree! It's especially hard for folks when they are heading into the Fall and Winter months though -- the prospect of no eggs due to low light levels must be such a bummer. I feel lucky that I had all Summer with tons of eggs (enough that I was selling them to neighbors), I'm not worried about my one lazybones girl who's taking her time.

 

[Chickassan]

I'm starting to get a little grouchy with my absolute duds. I told Lulu that she was a French delicacy, my patience is wearing thin with that one. I'm not trying to be mean i love her to death but it's like she gets dumber every single day! I couldn't find her at roost time tonight, she got into a flower pot and instead of backing out she just whined. That's how I found her i followed that god awful sound she makes.

 

[Crooked Chicken]

Fancy thanksgiving plates and tablecloth are never tacky! I buy one & keep it on until it's gross. My current fancy tablecloth has cacti on it.

It was 26 this morning here too.. and lightly snowing! I put out a heated chicken waterer yesterday. For $45, they better appreciate it! I had left the window cracked in the coop, but closed their door (raccoon worries) and decided to close up the window this morning. Everyone was alive and ready to go outside and play so I guess I was the only one freezing my butt off.

I was thinking I just don't feel like washing all those dishes.

I've let my little flock out for the entire past 3 days since I've been out there working on the coop again. I'm adding a tall narrow cupboard and a brooder cage next to it. It's so crooked it takes forever to keep cutting crooked wood to fit. Haven't made much progress.....

What are you hatching??

I'm incubating a mixed batch of chicken eggs. Dad is Rhode Island Red, and the girls are RIR, Barred Rock, Buff Orpington and EE. I'm pretty sure the 2 BO and 1 EE eggs aren't doing anything (not fertile?) when I candled last week. The brown eggs I'm not even sure who laid them -- there are 9 I hope are still in progress.

I really like spending the holidays alone now -- or with just a small, select group.

My first mother-in-law and I adored each other -- and we stayed close, even after I got divorced.

Current MIL hates my guts. I came into everything open minded and nice, hoping to get another gem MIL, but no..... she's been awful from day 1. Seven years in, when she was shouting at me to, "Just shut the eff up and get back in line! Nobody asked you!" while we were at a restaurant, it took everything I had not to slap her face and leave. I was officially done at that moment.

It's been SOOOOO nice to be free of *that* crap. I'm off the hook for any and all gifts for her, any reminder phone calls ("it's your mom's birthday. Did you call her?"), and holiday dinners or friendly visits.

Waaahhhhh. Whatever will I do without that overcooked, tasteless canned spinach that she serves with every meal???

(Seriously? I grew up in California, and never ate canned spinach in my life!!! I almost barf just looking at that brown glop on my plate! It looks like something my dogs hork up!)

Being a California transplant in Oregon, I really like to barbecue Korean short ribs and have margaritas on Thanksgiving, then buy my turkey the next day, when they are SUPER cheap, and cook it up (on the barbecue, of course) later.

I'm barbecuing ribs, and hiking with my dogs that day!

That's the kind of relationship I have with my mother -- we've never gotten along. I brought them with me after I retired because there was nobody else to look after them. She drives me mad.

They'll pluck her nearly bald! Ugh, i picked the squirrel up by what was left of his tail so i could chuck him in the woods and Lulu was trying to jump and bite the dangling squirrel....little monster hen.

Poor little squirrel. I guess he won't be going back to raid their food. I caught a mouse in a trap inside my feed box. I took it out and before I could close the feed box one of the chickens ran off with it and had everyone chasing her. Not sure what became of mousey. I think I'm going to switch back to the metal trash cans for my feed cuz I can't keep the mice out otherwise. I'm like -- why are there mealworms all over in the feed box....... In fact, I'm pretty sure I heard one scratching around somewhere while I was working out there. I hate mice.

 

[Chickassan]

@Crooked Chicken, i feel just terrible for that squirrel. I don't know if he died from his whooping yesterday or if little miss bloodlust just finished him off. You're good taking care of your mom, i looked after mine for six months after my dad passed she just didn't know how to function without him. My sister didn't help "she's a totally different animal than me" it was rough. Did teach me a human being can withstand a whole lot of crazy without snapping.

 

[WVduckchick]

You are all truly "my people"

 

[Crooked Chicken]

@Crooked Chicken, i feel just terrible for that squirrel. I don't know if he died from his whooping yesterday or if little miss bloodlust just finished him off. You're good taking care of your mom, i looked after mine for six months after my dad passed she just didn't know how to function without him. My sister didn't help "she's a totally different animal than me" it was rough. Did teach me a human being can withstand a whole lot of crazy without snapping.

I dunno.... every day I'm on the verge of snapping. When I decided to move here, I invited my brother and his wife to come so long as they helped me keep up & fix up the property, house, etc. Well, they came 2 years before me (until I retired). They did nothing but spend all the $$ I sent for improvements on the house. He passed away a year and a half ago. After I got here and saw the state of things, and her wanting to "date", I had her evicted. Thank god I'd had them both removed from our "legal agreement" (for other reasons). Now I get to do everything by myself and I'm really pushing it. I love it, but until certain things get accomplished it's a chore.

 

[Chickassan]

You've got my luck, I'm so sorry. I don't speak to my sister anymore being that she was just awful with mom. At the end we had to put mom in the hospital she just went downhill. My sister told the nurses i was poisoning mom,they had to take her off the morphine so she could set that straight. She stole out of her purse and her house. When mom died she threw a tantrum in front of the mortician,and then broke into mom's house six months after.Oh i forgot! She wanted to take mom's car before they even took the body out of the room .Closest my cheese has ever come to the edge of my cracker.

I dunno.... every day I'm on the verge of snapping. When I decided to move here, I invited my brother and his wife to come so long as they helped me keep up & fix up the property, house, etc. Well, they came 2 years before me (until I retired). They did nothing but spend all the $$ I sent for improvements on the house. He passed away a year and a half ago. After I got here and saw the state of things, and her wanting to "date", I had her evicted. Thank god I'd had them both removed from our "legal agreement" (for other reasons). Now I get to do everything by myself and I'm really pushing it. I love it, but until certain things get accomplished it's a chore.

 

[Crooked Chicken]

You've got my luck, I'm so sorry. I don't speak to my sister anymore being that she was just awful with mom. At the end we had to put mom in the hospital she just went downhill. My sister told the nurses i was poisoning mom,they had to take her off the morphine so she could set that straight. She stole out of her purse and her house. When mom died she threw a tantrum in front of the mortician,and then broke into mom's house six months after.

ugh.... luck of the draw I guess. I would have left my family many years back, if it weren't for my dad. He was always my favorite person, but nowadays even he gets on my nerves. lol

I figure things can only get better here on out.

 

[Chickassan]

My dad was the only sane one and helping him was super hard since he was such a manly man .He passed quickly but there was still two weeks of giving him all the hospice drugs. He left me with a bunch of loons.

ugh.... luck of the draw I guess. I would have left my family many years back, if it weren't for my dad. He was always my favorite person, but nowadays even he gets on my nerves. lol

I figure things can only get better here on out.

 

[Killer Tomato]

You *do* know that they think that *we* are the weird and difficult ones, right????

I have so many internet searches devoted to "divorcing" family and setting boundaries. I'm much happier for it, and I don't really care when my mom says, "You know your brother and sister really miss you!" "Yeah, well, they can learn to play nice. Until then, the phone works both ways!"