At Home: Greenhouse, Bad Feather Day, and Peeps Perching.

I recently looked back into the photos I took, back when I first arrived home.  I think the subject matter says a lot.

Here's the greenhouse I built for Margaret.  It wasn't fully finished when I shipped out last year, around the end of spring.  I managed to get all the glazing on, with the exception of the door and a salvaged window pane on the east side, to the right of the door.  What was still unfinished  However, with the help of Grant, the husband of one of Margaret's friends, Betty, this is how it looks now.  Grant did a great job!  Leave it to someone who actually knows something about building construction--unlike me.

Above is a glimse inside to how Margaret decorated things.  It's her happy pod!

This is how I left it looking when I shipped out last year.  Still some shingles left to put up.  Like I said, Grant did an awesome job completing it.

Here's Edie recovering  from her first molt.  Looks like a bad feather day.  Too bad I missed out on seeing what a full-fledged molt looks like.  Only she and Henny, the other Amerucana, molted.  As it turns out, when chickens molt, they stop laying eggs.  With the combination of the loss of feathers and the onset of winter, egg production slowed to a crawl.  I suspect that mostly Penny and sometimes Butch were the only ones laying.  There were that few eggs.  Even now, in March, production isn't like last year's, though it is clear that the girls are actually ramping back up.

Here's Butch and Penny--our top layers.  Penny was the first to earn her keep, back two winters ago.  She may be the nervy, noisy type, but she always produces more than the others. 

Here's a good shot of Henny.  Notice the minimal comb and absence of wattle?  The girls do love perching on the bedroom window sill.  The rhody bush also gives them good protection from the eagles that sometimes glide by.  When the crows raise the alarm, the hens dash for cover.  Yes, I have seen that happen!

Oh, yeah.  One more picture.  This is where the girls aly their eggs and sleep the night away.  It may not look like much, but the design was more to suit the needs of a chicken than any human aesthetic.  Inside are roosts leading up to the nest boxes.  That they have to ascend to their nests adds to the sense of security needed for a stress-free egg laying session.  Nothing but the best for the girls!

Umm...  By the way, Margaret still isn't letting me post--let alone take--a picture of her. 

Ciao!

--Dave