I got two more chickens, and it's great to have four again. No more excursions outside of the coop, no matter what.
These are full-grown bantam Rhode Island Reds, and they are much smaller than my other two, one of which is a Barnevelder, and the other possibly a mixed breed. The new cockerel is fighting a little with my old hens, who are bothering "his" hen, but they are already calming down, and hopefully some day I can have happier chickens and more eggs again.
Since my rooster's death my hens haven't left the nesting boxes or laid eggs, and one of them is turning an ashen color, feathers and comb. I hope more birds and and a new rooster will help her feel better. Winter isn't their favorite time I know.
I dreamed in darkness, cold and alone. Phantasms shifted around me, frightening me, but I was powerless to escape them or even move, as I was sealed in a casket. I thought of the Queen, my Stepmother, and tears dripped from my eyes as I considered the quasi-poignant moments we had once shared, when we might have been considered to be close, when the Queen had nearly been a mother to me, and the face of love had shone radiantly upon me, before eclipsed again by the storms of Venus. I thought of the huntsman, stung to consider that my only friend had been poised to betray me, to kill me, and again in my mind I felt the horror of his shadow, of waiting while he came behind me, knowing there was no escape for me from a death he would inflict. My heart lifted as images of the Prince entered my mind, his grace atop a white-maned horse, always out of my reach, just beyond the words I longed to speak. If only there had been more time for us to fall in love. He might have saved me from those...