every chick deservers a mother
Life is not always joy and happiness. Even for chickens. Billy turned five this March. Slowly, his glory is fading. He no longer has as many tail feathers, and the color of his yellow feathers is fading. Some of the feathers on his back are nearly white.
Below are pictures of when he was two years old. He won’t be around forever. Neither will any of us. The time to live is today.
At the end of a long, dry summer, the forest floor crackles with the noise of chickens scratching through the fallen leaves. This is where they spend hours each day. They find lots of good things to eat. Keen eyed, wary, and curious, they see everything.
Where do chickens want to go? It’s easy to find out. Let them live free and watch where they go. A favorite place for chickens are grassy, weedy, brushy places. This Rhode Island mother, has a knack for jumping up and snatching flying insects out of midair. Her chick follows her everywhere. What a treat for a little chick, a loving mother, fresh air, and tall grass and flowers to run through.
The magentaspreen get more colorful each week. Each Thursday I pinch off the bright purple and green shoots, and the following week the stems are loaded with more shoots. A few of these on a salad will entice anyone to devour it.
The Swiss chard captures the morning sunshine like a forest of stained glass. It’s early in the morning, but these hens are on the early shift to lay eggs today.
Some of the Tennouji Kabura are large enough to cook. They have a comical look. Their white root balls look like doll heads and their tall, long leaves like whimsical hairdos. They are a great vegetable because not a bit of them is wasted.
Everything is at one time a baby. And this is what baby lettuce looks like. Even the tiniest leaves fold in delicate, fantastic shapes. A few more weeks and they will be young adults. And a few weeks after that, ready for the table.
Late season rhubarb, green beans, potatoes, and eggs. Just a few things to make a great supper.
This is a humorous time of the year when it comes to eggs. The hens that hatched this spring are starting to lay eggs. The first few eggs which they drop are often small, a half to a third the size of normal eggs. You can make cute sunny side up eggs with them.
Even as they age, anemones age gracefully. Their petals soften, they drop, they sag, their long, heavy stems bend and eventually fall to the ground. But they never lose their beauty and grace.
I spotted this autumn blooming crocus by the steps when I delivered eggs and salad greens to Tweets Café today. It’s too early for the leaves to be changing color, but not too early for the first blooms of autumn.
Saffron is an autumn blooming crocus, but I don’t think the crocus above is a saffron. It takes 50,000–75,000 saffron flowers to glean one pound of saffron.