What I Did Over My Xmas Vacation (All 2 Hours)

We put in a new chicken yard. It's 2-3 times bigger than the other one, and on the other side of the henhouse. It's also got a lot smaller poultry netting (that's farmer talk for "chicken wire"). It's the yard we're going to let the new babies into come spring.


For now, here's Cargill, keeping watch on top of the water cooler. Not that he's a particularly effective watcher. This morning I was working from home. I could hear a Stellar'sjay screaming outside. Now, as we all know, Stellar's jays are the playground tattletale of the bird world. If you didn't know, you do now. I went outside to see what wild feather this particular jay had going on. It was one of the wyandotte roosters outside the yard, strutting around. After ten minutes of chasing it around trying to catch it (and being hampered by the new chicken yard), I finally got smart. I put all the other chickens back into the henhouse, opened the gate to the yard and just stood there while he strutted himself right back in.

After all, he's just a chicken.


And here he is, back with his cronies.


And here is their view. Over the holidays, it's been exciting. At one point, the creek was up over the gabion wall and lapping at the edge of the yard. The chickens couldn't have cared less, but the people in the house were freaking.


Take a careful look. The first culling of the chickens is slated for this weekend. The first will be the largest barred rock rooster. After this weekend, this yard is going to look a lot emptier.