Let’s talk chicken feet today, shall we?

First off is Fred’s feet.

His spurs are like nails. I mean there is no give to them when you squeeze them. Just complete and utter HARDNESS.

Fred is not a friendly rooster, but he and I have an understanding. MrC sometimes has to remind him of their mutual understanding in other methods involving a shoe and threats of a gun.

But overall Fred isn’t too bad of a rooster. And when we have visitors, he’s never bothered anyone. *knock on wood*

Now onto a less lethal pair of feet:

This is one of my Barred Rock hens. In fact, she was/is the dominant hen.

You can see the toe on her left leg is facing backwards. I have NO IDEA how this happened. Just one day last Spring, I noticed that she was limping and closer inspection showed that she had somehow ‘broken’ her toe so that it wasn’t correctly positioned anymore. I brought her inside to inspect it closer (much to the dogs delight) but there was no swelling and I couldn’t see any external damage.

Chickens are mean to the weaker chickens so I kept a close eye on how she was treated. She was eating normal and would hop from the chicken coop to outside with the other to eat bugs. But all that hopping would make her tired and she’d just lay in the grass for periods of time. She still slept on the roost by hopping slowly up the ramp, and none of the other chickens were picking on her.

Then her toe swelled up. To about 3 times it’s normal size. I knew that if she got an infection in her leg, it would eventually kill her so again I kept a close eye on her for any signs of change.

The swelling eventually went down and soon she became one fast hopper. I’d call to the chickens and they’d all come running and here she’d come, hopping like her life depended on it.  I wish I would’ve gotten a video of it b/c it was pretty comical to watch her come hopping so fast.

Now you can’t even tell there’s anything wrong with her.  She’s still the dominant hen and never hesitates to make sure the other chickens know that.

But I still wonder- how in the WORLD did she break her toe like that?

I don’t think I’ve had a picture on here of Barney, our EE (Easter Egger- he carries the blue-egg laying gene) rooster. Him and Fred (our Golden-Laced Wyandotte rooster) get along pretty well for the most part. They’ll often roost side-by-side at night, and only square off every once in a while. He also doesn’t try to attack people like Fred does. (Fred doesn’t attack me b/c he knows that I’m the alpha in the pack!)

He’s a pretty big boy, but he’s not as hard on the ladies as Fred is. I’ve considered sending Fred to the stew pot (Not mine! But I’m sure someone would take him) but I’m sure that Barney would then be more aggressive in trying to assert his alpha-ness.

I caught these two talking on the job:

“…and you know what he said? Nothing!! Like sharing him with 17 other hens is acceptable!”

This past Sunday we went to the lake house to do some more work. We had originally decided not to remove the strips that covered the gap between the drywall. Then we decided that we might as well do it now, b/c painting this room again- even in 15 years- was NOT going to happen.

So, we took off the strips AND the moulding. (molding?) You can see below- all the white spots show were moulding or the strips were.

You can also see my trusty painting stool that I’ve about fell off 10 times.

So, after we took off all the unwanted materials (we plan on buying new crown molding, but the molding around the doors and window we kept so we can repaint it) I went through and hammered in all the little nails. It took a while, but sometimes you just need to swing a hammer, ya know?

This is a close-up of the gap between the drywall. Mr. C will fill in the holes, sand it down and we’ll paint. AGAIN. You can see one of the many, many nails that I hammered in too.

I am really happy with the color, even though it still needs at least one more coat (it was a little bare in spots!). In my head, I see a brown coverlet with a white duvet cover on the bed with brown pillows. The trim will be white (or maybe cream?) colored. The curtains will probably be white, but maybe a light brown. There’s still lots to do before we start putting the room together though!

The last picture is one of the lake. They lowered it and they weren’t kidding when they say it gets reduced to a small river in the middle. You can barely see the little river from our deck. Crazy.

With the leaves down, we have a great view of (what used to be) the lake!

Isn’t it funny how some things look scary

But when you look closer, they’re full of love?

It’s kind of hard to see, but this tree has a ‘heart’ in the bottom of the trunk. It’s neat.

Jimmy has made a list of what we want to plant and when we need to plant it. He also started some seeds while I was taking my nap last weekend. He started tomatoes, peppers, and a couple of other things. Now we just need to stake off where we want the garden to go.

This year my goal is to try and preserve whatever I can from our garden. I want to can everything that’s can-able and freeze whatever is freeze-able. This could be easier said than done since I’ve never done it before and I’ll be travelling a lot, but where there’s a heart (hee hee) there’s a way!

I told Fred how I bragged about what a good boy he has become:

“Aw shucks! You’re embarrassing me.”

This weekend’s weather is looking to be 65 on Friday and 50 on Saturday and Sunday. I need a good spring weather weekend so keep your fingers crossed!

Our Golden Laced Wyandotte rooster, Fred, had me worried at first. On BackYardChickens.com, people talked about mean roosters (which would sometimes end up in the stew pot) and the nice roosters. For Fred’s early rooster months, I thought I had wound up with the former.

Fred wasn’t friendly. When I brought treats out for the chickens, he would peck at the girls so he could eat it by himself. If he even thought I was going to reach out to pet him, he would hop and run away. (Which is better than attacking me, I suppose) I was disappointed. I wanted a nice rooster!!

Then one day, I noticed that Fred would make a funny sound if he ‘found’ something that resembled a treat. He would point his beak at it and make this sound and the girls would come running to see what he had found. Fred was calling his girls to eat something good that he had found! Fred also started eating things out of my hands (grapes, etc). At night, he’ll even let me pet him.

I love his coloring and I think he turned out really well for a ‘pet quality’ rooster from a hatchery. He’s missing some feathers on his back and I can’t figure out why, but other than that he’s beautiful!

Now Barney, our Easter Egger rooster, is another story. He’s trying to find his place in the stackup and he’s pretty mean to everyone. I hope he’ll settle down like Fred did.

Speaking of the chickens, we got 15 (!!!) eggs on Sunday. So that means we still have at least 5 that aren’t laying. Ours have been laying really well for it being still cold outside!

I don’t know if it’s just the area we live in or if I finally have time to enjoy the sunsets, but we’ve been getting gorgeous sunsets lately.

The sky’s colors have been amazing. It makes me yearn for a good camera.