I realize these may be loosing their pizzaze … pizzaz? pizaz? pazaz? pazazze pizzaz pazzaz paz… whatever, you know what I mean! They may be a bit redundant or lacking in mystery and excitement, but I still want to try to keep posting them when I can to see several things…

1-just how long can I keep this up? I know I/we miss once and a while, but we’ve been doing this for a while, so it’s kind of interesting to see how long we can do it without giving up on it.

2-It’s kind of interesting to think I can go back and look at some quick facts about the weather and other things most days for a long time.  I can see what the weather was like when I took the pictures, what the flock was producing (which is affected by heat/cold, rain, I think, daylight hours… raccoons… or even if they dumped the water bowls (or the coon or who?) on a day I was gone at work–they have been down to the stream but chicken logic/memory isn’t quite the same as human logic and memory… so I’m not sure they really even bother to go there when they’re thirsty and have dumped their water dishes.  That’s one reason I put up their sippy waterer thingy… I’ve seen them use it, and it’s much less “out of sight, out of mind” being up near the coop.

And I started taking pictures of the thermometer/barometer up by the coop to keep an eye on some of those factors as they may affect the egg production (current/upcoming).

3-Additionally, those pictures of the thermometer/barometer are kind of like a mini-weather/climate project too, even without the chickens.  Similarly, I’ve been trying to include a picture or two of what the trees, shrubs, and other flora are doing in the area so as the seasons progress, there’s a peek at how they’re progressing.  Can you see all the way to the back field? Are there the shrubs leafing out? Or are they starting to change colors? And I also try to remember what the weather was like overall, and have been adding that as a description to the dry-erase wipe-off little date thingy for the egg basket.

And since I’m taking the pictures to be a record, I might as well share them… maybe someone will find them useful. Plus, it gives me a place to legitimately put the goofy pictures of the chickens I occasionally get!  Like Lacey and her cluck-walk up and down the yard…what gives!?? And why doesn’t Kyle chase her?!?

So here goes!

August 1, someone is laying in the olive barrel for now, and others are laying in the run’s nesting box….for now.

 

 

And August 2.

And it’s a bit embarrassing but I’m not completely sure which chicken that is in the olive barrel…  I remember surprising Sunny Side a few times in the barrel, but from this angle it looks more like Lacey, but I’m pretty sure Lacey just laid an egg in the back barrel… and it looks a little to dark to be Blondie but she’s a potential too… I mean, of the 10 hens we still have (and of course I can rule the 3 roosters out easily), I know it’s not Oregano (the Oreo or Zebra sorta looking one, plump and with narrow bands of black and white), Bubbles (larger but similar colors to the picture, but darker, especially on the head, and bearded), Granite, Pebble (big and little dark grey), J-Frost (big and light grey), not Rusty (the reddish one), or of course, it’s not Pixie! Sooo…. I am not completely clueless of my chickens, just having trouble with ID from one photo with not so great context…

And on to August 3.

 

And August 4.

As you can see, the weather has been moist, and that seems to suddenly have encouraged a spurt of growth in the back barrel, and the intense (well, not hurricane, but definitely strong-ish winds) storms we had in the last day did push over some of the Spotted Jewelweed (also known as Touch-me-not… either orange or spotted touch-me-not, as opposed to pale jewelweed/touch-me-not which has yellow flowers, and is, I think, an alien).  It’s not the most rugged plant, but it had made it through some previous heavy rains, but this one with the extra winds knocked some over.  And speaking of over, I had a bit of a oops and over went an egg… at least I got pictures first.

And August 5.

 

On to August 6…

I survived disrupting Pixie, which is good.  She’s a pretty emphatic bird!  I went back later to see if she did lay an egg after I left, but there wasn’t an egg to be found.

And here comes August 7.  I know these pictures start looking like a blur of the same thing ver and over, but once and a while, the hens go and switch things up… like suddenly it’s cooler to lay in the little coop… or suddenly we all love the olive barrel.  Today, it’s the little coop which is popular.

August 8.

 

August 9th. I’m pretty sure I took pictures of the coop floor because I was so proud of how clean I got it… and then of course the chickens pooped on it…  but then again, that’s kind of par for the course, and I’m not going to invest in a ton of chicken nappies.

 

And here comes the 10th.

urm…. I can’t find the 10ths pictures?

Hm.

Oh wait, I found them!

 

Well anyway, August 11!

And a few videos from the 11th, sometimes a rooster’s just gotta find a high place and… peck some leaves? Or something else.

August 12…

And here comes the 13th… I found another somebody using the little coop… and well, I’m hoping there aren’t eggs in the coop from this somebody.

And here comes the 14th…

And of course, as it’s already August 28th and I’ve not gotten to that date, there are more to add, but I’ll add them later!

Hope y’all thought some of it was interesting!