We never did find our pullet that went missing last week. I still suspect neighborhood hooligans but their hang-out (an empty house next door) was just cleaned up and rented out so I'm feeling good. If they can't trespass there anymore, my backyard is no longer an escape route. Which is great, because we kicked butt this week to finish some projects back there before I start school again...we're trying so hard to make it nice.
We rented a jackhammer Monday and knocked out two big cement slabs (roughly 7' x 10' x 4" thick, ugly wastes of space and we've wanted to get rid of them since we moved in), had to clear out all the concrete chunks (anyone need them for fill or retaining walls? It's all sitting in our alley-side driveway, haven't had any craigslist takers yet
). Tuesday I had 10 yards of fill dirt and tagro dumped in our driveway (my husband's eyes got huge when my "truckload" turned out to be a dumptruck
), had to shovel and wheelbarrow it all into the back to fill the holes we made, and finished that by Wednesday afternoon. Yesterday we dropped some grass seed and straw, and we're hoping to have some cover before winter and a nice green yard next spring. I am sore and worn out, but so glad to be done even if it does look like someone blew up straw bales all over my backyard.
To celebrate, I replaced the missing pullet...with two more girls . Joining our buff sussex (Luna), red sexlink (Ren), and Rhode Island white (Sun), we now have a silver laced wyandotte (no name yet) and an easter egger (Jackie). They're pretty skittish, but already opening up to bribery by mealworms. We named Jackie after Jackie Chan...this little pullet is the fastest, flightiest, most ninja chicken I've ever been around and is impossible to catch with out very coordinated efforts by myself and my husband...but once caught she easily falls asleep and makes sweet little noises. I think she'll be pretty cuddly once she learns that the happy lap time doesn't need to be preceded by 15 minutes of screaming and running and doing backflips over the lawn furniture...even though we're just standing in strategic spots waiting for her to calm down. The other girl isn't so high-strung...just aloof.
Fluffy butt wyandotte needs to grow in her tail feathers:
Jackie doing the creep:
We rented a jackhammer Monday and knocked out two big cement slabs (roughly 7' x 10' x 4" thick, ugly wastes of space and we've wanted to get rid of them since we moved in), had to clear out all the concrete chunks (anyone need them for fill or retaining walls? It's all sitting in our alley-side driveway, haven't had any craigslist takers yet
To celebrate, I replaced the missing pullet...with two more girls . Joining our buff sussex (Luna), red sexlink (Ren), and Rhode Island white (Sun), we now have a silver laced wyandotte (no name yet) and an easter egger (Jackie). They're pretty skittish, but already opening up to bribery by mealworms. We named Jackie after Jackie Chan...this little pullet is the fastest, flightiest, most ninja chicken I've ever been around and is impossible to catch with out very coordinated efforts by myself and my husband...but once caught she easily falls asleep and makes sweet little noises. I think she'll be pretty cuddly once she learns that the happy lap time doesn't need to be preceded by 15 minutes of screaming and running and doing backflips over the lawn furniture...even though we're just standing in strategic spots waiting for her to calm down. The other girl isn't so high-strung...just aloof.
Fluffy butt wyandotte needs to grow in her tail feathers:
Jackie doing the creep:
