The Pecking Order

Lesson of the morning: if I am ever homeless in the winter time (or through any cold weather for that matter) I will seek warmth in a pile of decomposing mown grass> all other potentially homeless people, take note!
Loading the grass into a wheelbarrow to put on the garden beds, I nearly burned myself! The grass was warm, fluffy and smelled like a flowery meadow. It was all I could do not to dive into the into the middle and just sit there with grass up to my neck, waiting for someone to notice my absence and come feed me.

Today I am sooo hung over from my crazy night last night. ugh... I just hate that. (just kidding...) Rick and Sarah have gone to get Galen and Zekiah from Victoria and I have the day to myself on the farm. There are lots of things I would like to do, but I started with the chickens because they were in need of food, water, egg collecting, and well, just some talking to.
I'm a little permanently freaked out because I definitely saw the dark side of these violently pecking buggers (one of Sarah's favorite words) today. First of all, we moved eight new chickens into the bigger coop with the other chickens last night, and when I opened the door this morning was the first time that they saw their new roommates in the daylight. It wasn't pretty. It took about 5 minutes to coax the outsider from their roost in the corner, they were so scared to plunge into the new society. Once they finally emerged and were being semi-social, the rooster who isn't used to having them began chicken bullying them: chasing them around and pecking at them, which he has continued to do all morning. Apparently there's not much I can do.

Meanwhile, I let those guys make friends, and went in to feed the little chicks, who appeared to be very hungry as there are many of them, and only one little feeder for them all. So that they would calm down while I filled the feeder, I sprinkled a small pile of feed into the middle of the box as an appetizer. This was a horrible mistake, and when I pulled back the curtain to replace the filled feeder, there was the outline of a chick who had been trampled into the ground by his siblings, his feathers matted and damp, clearly having kicked the bucket (figuratively).

I can't get that image out of my mind!!!! I need happiness!! ahhhhhh

It's about mid-day now and I'm off to the garden to do some more planting/weeding.