He said he wanted a purple wall

The youngest boy has been asking to have a purple room for over a year.  He finally agreed to have a purple wall.  So while he was away at summer camp I got to work.

I added several large super hero pictures to complete the room and he came home with smiles on his face.  Three layers of paint!  So glad that it was only one wall that I had to do. 

Eggs Eggs Everywhere

The chickens are laying pretty regularly now, we got five today!  They're still cute little eggs at this point.  The bad news is that they keep laying them on the ground.  I think I need to build new/better nest boxes.

Not as Lucky in the other bedrooms

I pulled up the corner of the carpet in one of the other bedrooms.  While the floors look like they have so much potential, they definitely need to be refinished and can't be uncovered and temporarily enjoyed until the refinishing starts.  This will definitely have to wait until next year.

Roaming too far

Our birds don't seem to understand that there is plenty of other space to roam near their coop... going completely around the house and down to the basement door should not be an option.

And trying to come to our back door should definitely not be an option.

Our Flock

Perhaps we should have broken down our flock sooner.

We have :

three Australorp - one of them is a rooster that's been nice so far (all black)

three Barred Rock - one of them is a rooster that's not very nice (black and white ones)

three Buff Orpingtons - one seems a little "special" (beige/tan ones)

two Silver Laced Wyandottes (black and white ones)

one Gold Laced Wyandottes (black and tan/gold)

two Rhode Island Reds (dark brown)

two ISA brown (lighter brown)

From left:  Australorp, Buff Orp, Silver Laced x 2, Rhode Island/Australorp/Buff together, Barred Rock x2, Rhode Island

From left: Rhode Island, ISA Brown, Buff Orp, Silver Laced, Australorp rooster

In the coop from left: ISA Brown, Silver Laced, Buff Orp from behind, Australorp, Barred Rocks, Rhode Island in the dark shadow

Barred Rock in front, Buff Orpingtons giving you "the eye", and an ISA brown behind her.  The two black ones are Australorps

You don't belong here

We had guests over yesterday that said one of our chickens was down by the road.  I was surprised that one would be alone or that they would be very close to the road but didn't think anything of it since all of them were safely in the coop at bedtime.

Then this morning my youngest son called me outside.

Our closest neighbors have 4 barred rock hens, no roosters.  The next closest neighbors really aren't that close.  We have no idea where this guy came from.  His neck looks like it's been plucked of feathers and his tail is a little beat up.

I went out a few minutes later and he was gone, no idea where he's run off to.

Our first eggs - again

I found out first eggs last night!  They were laying on the coop floor (not cool chickens!) and were so tiny and cute!  

Penny for scale size

We have several breeds and they all lay brown eggs, so that doesn't help us to figure out who might have started leaving us breakfast treats.

We've been flocked

Our community does a Library Fundraiser where people pay money to "flock" someone's house.  The Flamingo flock arrived at our home for a few days.

Do you see something wrong here?

On the 4th of July I went to lock up the chickens and was happy to see that none of them were on the ground or trying to sit on the nest boxes.  But there's definitely something wrong in this picture.

Cash and Paisley still run this place

No words needed.