Our favorite time of year...

When I say "our" favorite time of year, I mean me and the chickens.  Travis prefers 25 degree weather when he can shoot things.  But for us chicks, Spring time means we get to play outside!  Or maybe I just have several items on my outside honey-do list, like tilling the garden.  : )

Freshly tilled garden = worm hunt.


 

Right behind each shovel of dirt, there they are, eating every single worm and bug their beady little eyes can see. If the dirt Travis was digging didn't have worms, they would run over to see what I was digging on. Back and forth and back and forth.

 

 



Got one!

We planted asparagus last year and it's just starting to produce.   Luckily chickens don't eat asparagus, or at least they haven't discovered it yet.   Look how much it has grown in just the last three days!

 

Saturday  

  

Sunday (Naked Dottie in the background, sorry, I think she's pooping) 



Monday

 

The weatherman says it may freeze this week (stupid Oklahoma weather), so hopefully we will plant everything next weekend.  We effectivly stalked Sanders Nursery to make sure we got the best selection of vegetables this year.  We've purchased a few heirloom tomatoes that are generally harder to find after April.  

 

 

 Of course we will have about three thousand peppers and a bazillion other tomatoes.  We'll be overwhelmed yet again, but it's fun.  

 

Oh and I'm sure you noticed that the girls still have no butt feathers.  It's seriously an Unsolved Mystery.  (Someone call Robert Stack!)   I'm getting desperate.  Littlefoot has almost no feathers on her back (thanks to Dottie), Ginger has no feathers around her tail now and Dottie, WOW, she's practically naked.  Notably, MB has most of her feathers.  The real mystery is that they all seem to be just fine (minus the occasional attack) and they are all still laying eggs.  I swear they are just bored.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my quest for answers I've discovered that people have all sorts of theories for why my chickens have no butt feathers.  They could even be cannibals!  One lady said after her chickens had four bare butts and one hen was killed, she put pine tar (yeah pine tar) on their butts, they lost interest in each other and all survived.   Another lady put DUCT TAPE on the plucked areas of her chickens.  I told you these people are nuts!  But what does that make me if I've purchased this junk called Blu-Kote: 

 

 

 

 

This is a germicide, but it also dyes the chicken's butts a dark blue/purplish color.  You see, chickens are attracted to blood and will peck and peck and peck a bloody spot until the death!  And right now, the girls butts are BRIGHT RED!  So this Blu-Kote stuff will (maybe) fool the other chickens into thinking.... thinking what? That they have a full butt full of feathers? That they aren't a weak link?  I don't know, but it is supposed to work!  Maybe it tastes bad?  I'm really not sure, but it apparently doesn't harm them so why not try it?!  Something must be done otherwise my girls will get sunburned or worse.... they could get killed.  DUN DUN DUNNNN! (scary movie sound)