Skip to main content

Cold-hardy chickens


They made it!
Originally uploaded by ladyhildegarde
I didn't know if they were going to live. I wasn't really sure how to deal with an extreme freeze like this one. I thought if it came down to it I would bring their half-frozen little forms into the house and confine them somehow.

Nathan and I took turns replacing their frozen water with liquid water. At some points I saw them eating snow. But on the whole they acted just like they always do. And they continued to provide one egg a day. During the day they would step down and peck in the grass. At night they roosted. And it was ten degrees for three days straight.

It looks as though now that they are protected from predators they will be with me for a long time.

Prince Charming attacks our arms when we feed or water them.

Popular posts from this blog

Love oneself

I have found a new barometer by which to judge my actions, or rather, it is an involuntary barometer that is improving me perhaps without my say. For every weak thing I do or begin to do, I ask myself if I would admire myself for it. I have felt so critical of myself lately, so ugly, so awful, and out of it has sprung this quest to improve myself. I don't want to become a slave to style magazines; rather, I could not admire myself for doing that. At the same time, I want to look right and decent and keep from embarrassing myself. I feel like my hygeine is always falling short, just like the housework. Every time I turn around, there's hair where hair shouldn't be, there's stuff under my toenails, my tee shirts are shrinking up and showing my stomach; to say nothing of my wildly oxidizing jewelry, scuffed shoes, &c. I don't understand why I don't see anyone else with these problems! Do they spend all their time at home cleaning their jewelry and ironing their

Cocoa rose

My first cocoa rose bloomed today. There are many more buds opening up, and soon we will have some cuttings.

Then, they let Margot out.

Work is going to be really tough for the next month and a half. There is really no margin for error in the goal I have set. I will have to make and run at least one sample, sometimes two, every day. I am going to have to work overtime in the beginning just to leave myself a little room. Long ago I read this story about people who colonized Venus. The storms cleared, the sun shone, and plants grew only one day every hundred years. On the day the sun was to come out some children locked the nerd (I'm sure that would be me) in the closet, and after the day was over, they let her out. That is how I felt yesterday. I could only get a table far in Starbucks, so I didn't know what the weather was doing. I had planned to shop for my spring wardrobe and I did that very well. It took two hours, which is really a lot less than it would take in person, and the things I got were very much to my taste, but I stepped out into warmth, sunshine, and balmy air, and there was only an hour left in