Wednesday, October 11, 2017

New Chickens

The weather here has been extremely dry and hotter than usual which makes for very dry soil.
The fronts come  through but seem to split over our area and go north and south and leaves us with a few drops.

I have been watering the new hostas and also the  three new shrubs I finally picked for the front foundation berm.  I saw these at the oral surgeons' offices and did a little detective work.  I took pictures on the phone and sent them to the greenhouse that did the landscaping.  They were immediately recognized as Canyon Creek Abelia.  I had an abelia so I was sure it was a variety.  This one is much prettier than mine and a better fit for the location.  I haven't mulched them yet but will soon.

Max is doing well.  Finally catching up (a long way to go) on clipping pastures.  Our only dependable worker (former neighbor) is helping a couple of times a week.

I decided I needed chickens.  My girls, Domineckers, will be three  next spring.  They are in their first molt and are not laying well.  We get 1 to 2 eggs daily and that is not enough.  I found a couple of small flocks through Craig's list.  One was at Bolivar, Mo.  Funny thing is the closer we got to their place, I began recognizing  it as where we bought chickens a few years ago.  She had
two laying girls and one of them had a 3-month old pullet baby. She said they were Wyandottes (can't remember what variety she said they were) and one was a Splash Wyandotte (forget the color).  We bought them and I have been trying to identify the coloration.



Then a lady at Strafford, Mo., had 5 young laying hens.  She needed the pen space for her huge flock of guineas.  She called the white ones Light Brahmas, I think the speckled ones are Silver Laced Wyandottes.  I will post better pictures of them later.  This one is blurry. 
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