Don't people pay for frozen eggs?

Now I know what happens when an egg freezes...

Grilled Salmon - it's for the birds

I had a huge piece of salmon that was a day overdue.  It was probably good enough to eat still, but I wasn't in the mood to eat it and there was a part of me that just wanted to reward the birds.  So I did.

And they rewarded me

Happy Birthday!!!

One year ago today I came home to this...

And tonight I have this...

Happy Birthday girls!

Silkie Sue is doing some cooking

Silkie Sue is the smallest of our birds as a silkie-mix hen.  She lays small green eggs.

Clyde either really likes her or he's just too darn heavy and rough for her because she's lost all of the feathers off her back.

So I had to order a "chicken apron".

This will protect her back and so far she's okay with it.  I brought her in the house to put it on and Faith was nose to feathers sniffing her before I even realized what she was doing.  She was good and gentle but I still put her in another room while we got the apron on.

I took pictures of this feat, but of course my phone didn't save them.  So I had to run outside to get a picture of her with her apron on...

I think I can now do anything

The temperatures were dropping below freezing and the animals weren't able to get any water.  I could easily  find a water heater for the goat's water because it is a big tub and finding a heater was simple.  But finding ways to keep the three smaller water dishes for the chickens from freezing was looking too expensive, each new water dish was over $40 because they were new water dishes with built in water heaters.

And then I found information on another chicken blog that told me how to make a water heater for a few dollars...

Yes, I bought two tins from the store for a couple dollars.  Then I took the light bulb piece from two lamps and attached them.  I put them out there immediately to test them out, and sure enough that little 40 watt light bulb heats up the tin just enough to keep the water dish on top of it from freezing.

I also bought an outlet converter that only turns on when the temperature goes below 35 degrees, so the water heaters will all turn on when it gets too cold, but automatically turn off when the temperature warms up.  

I felt like a genius this day :)

They can fly!

I already knew the guinea fowl could fly.  They can't fly like a normal bird but what I'd read and witnessed was that they could fly 20-50 feet.  And so yesterday when I heard a fluster I turned around and watched two of them fly up into this tree.

I told myself it would be cool to get a picture of them up there and then decided to run in and grab the camera.  Of course one flew out before I came back outside, but I managed to get some proof of how high these crazy birds went.

As soon as I snapped off two pictures of how high the bird was she decided to take off and fly down, so I got a few shots of that too...

And she's off!

Faith sees dinner!

Please excuse the compost, metal scrap pile, and soccer goal...

Coming in for the landing

I still have no idea what made them take off and fly up the high in the first place.