These chicks are just three days old and already out in the grass and weeds. Little chicks go nuts with joy the first time their mother takes them outdoors. She had them out yesterday, on day two, in the garden. Today she is taking them further, across the driveway and along the brush of a stream.
Or, they could be in a situation like this. In their short lives, the chicks in a broiler like that shown below, will travel less their whole lives, than the chicks above do every day with their mother.
-
Just Three Days Old and All This Fun
-
Old Love Birds
I’ve never seen two old love birds like Billy and Imelda. They’re not exclusive, mind you. Billy continues to cavort with plenty of other hens, but Imelda has a special place in his heart. They spend a lot of time together, and this afternoon when I saw Billy standing in the doorway of one of the doghouses, I went to investigate what he was doing.
He was watching out for Imelda, who was in the doghouse to lay an egg. He hovered around her for half an hour or so.
He was right next to her when she laid this egg.
And afterwards, he followed her around. The two make a touching pair. He is five years old and she is four. For chickens, they are well into middle age.
There is more going on in their tiny brains then we realize. -
The Beauty of Growing Produce
Growing vegetables and fruits is like living in an art museum. Every time I step out into the vegetable patches to weed, thin, and pick vegetables, there is more beauty than I can possibly absorb.
There are many artists who are known for the flowers they draw. Where are the artists painting growing salad greens or blooming herbs?
-
Teaching Them to Feed
Chicks will grow up without a mother hen to teach them how to feed. But when they do have one, they follow her around everywhere, watching what she is doing, what she eating, how she is digging it up, and finding out what she finds especially delicious.
[wpvideo QbqTWTwC] -
Dandelions
Biking home from the post office this afternoon, I had to stop and take some photos of a field full of dandelions.
Look closely at each dandelion, and you quickly realize that it would take hours and hours for a person to make one flower. Each of the hundreds of seeds on a single flower has a fine stem. At the end of these stems are 30 to 40 fine threads attached which form the parachute the seeds use to fly away.
How long would it take to make one parachute and attach it to one seed? How long would it take to make the hundreds required for one flower? How about making the tens of thousands to decorate a single field?
And yet, no one has to lift a finger to make a field of dandelions so beautiful you just have to stop to take a look.