Chickens are funny little creatures that make you laugh almost every day.  This trio of new girls do the weirdest things as they are growing up and getting more comfortable.  Chicken-Diana has taken to liking her humans so much she greets you when you get home and runs to say hi whenever you come outside.  She also often follows me to my car in the morning as I leave for work.  I would love to take her to Walgreen’s but that would just be too distracting!  They also like to (peck) knock on the doors around the house.  I opened the blinds the other day to see them hanging out on the firewood having a good time.

In other exciting chicken news we are finally back to egg production.  Chicken-Mary had her first tiny little starter eggs this week.  She seemed to look like she was getting close so I put the fake wooden eggs in the nest boxes for encouragement.  I checked later that afternoon and sure enough she laid a cute little tiny egg. Penny also seems to be thinking about laying eggs again but we don’t expect very many from her anymore.

For months I have been wondering why Layla is digging so many holes along the back of the house.  It started with a couple spots of narrow holes probably out of boredom.  Here lately, there have been several large ones behind the hydrangeas.  Today, I was surprised to find out it may not be entirely Layla.  She digs them but I think others are responsible for making them much much bigger, rounder and chicken butt shaped!  This social gathering of bathing in the dirt is a really good sign that the flock is fully integrated. Penny was right there with them.  Diana was trying to run into the kitchen…of course.

Keeping on the subject of feathered friends, there are two new guests at the pond this week.  On our walk last week, Layla and I startled two ducks swimming and they flew away.  Since then, I have watched them come back and hang out most days in the pond.  After getting a good look at them they are 2 Mallards, one male, one female.  Its amazing how camouflage the females are.  If she wasn’t swimming I may not have seen her at all.  She is just behind and to the left of the male and hard to see in the photo.  I tip-toed as quietly as I could down the hill to take this picture of them this morning.  I didn’t want to scare them away.  Maybe they will decide its safe here and stay.  Maybe there will be ducklings one day. I am looking into encouraging nesting with duck nest boxes.

Since we are down at the pond we can visit the resident salamanders again.  This time I got a better picture.  You see, Sal and Amanda like to hide.  They actually like to come up and look at  me with cute little faces THEN hide right as I have my camera out.  This time Sal played dead and floated in the water a while trying to convince me he was just a stick and I got a decent shot.  Enough to share that he is indeed a salamander. Amanda is in the weeds below, she’s never in the mood for photos.

In addition to being distracted as usual by wildlife we have done a few things around the yard this week.  We had a pretty sunny Saturday and it seemed a good day to visit the nursery for a few plants.  We decided to put Gardenia in the front of the house.  The green foliage and white flowers should look good with the red house.  Also, I love the smell of gardenias (we had them in Sacramento) and hopefully the fragrance will drift into the house through the open windows this summer. I also transplanted a piece of a fern in the yard to the spot right near the deck.  It should take root just fine.

Speaking of sunny days and Spring time, its time to get the motorcycle ready for adventures.  New battery in, and it got a bath and tank of gas this weekend.  Every familiar sight and (Harley) sound here makes it feel more and more like home, its feeling much more settled in around here now.  Motorcycle dates are in the future as the weather gets warmer.

Here is a daffodil picture just for fun!  The wind knocked some down so the broken ones came inside to look pretty in a vase.

Oh look its Nessie!  She is so cute.  She is enjoying being a couple pounds lighter lately and jumping and exploring lots.  The other night I found her on the far side of the house when I went to lock her up for the night.  She also got a new cat house for the loft.

There was an old two sided shelving unit in the loft when we moved in.  It looked like it may have had glass fronts at one point much like a display case (I removed some broken glass).  It is open on the top and has shelves front and back.  She has played in the shelf the whole time we have had her.  She usually likes to jump to one shelf then the top shelf then to the catwalk.  She also likes to go around to the back and hide when noises scare her.  I decided to make the shelf a cat house for her.

She can hang out in her bed on the middle shelf then jump up through the open top to the top bed or continue on to the catwalk and walk along the walls like she does.  There is also still the option for going to the back shelves and hiding from things when scared.  Of course there is plenty of recycled old carpet for her to have a soft landing and also to scratch and claw.  She is already liking walking and balancing along the front and sides.  The bottle shelf is a great place for her food and water as well as some storage. She loves it!  In warmer weather I will probably paint it a little cuter but for right now she doesn’t seem to have the patience for me to have her house occupied for that long!

And last but not least here is a Layla picture, just because!