Wait It Out

We got a beautiful respite from the cold, dreary winter weather this weekend!  Mid fifties and sunshine!!  Woo!!  And I even felt a little better and was able to get out and do a little.  Just mostly puttered around yesterday but today I was able to wash and hang 3 loads of laundry!  And... do some minor yard work.  It was great!  Of course, if I think too much about what all I used to do it gets a little depressing but I'm just trying to be thankful for what I can.  Mainly I just wanted to be outside all I could because we have another snow/ ice/ sleet storm coming Monday night and it may last a few days.  Hard to believe that's coming on a day like today but that's Alabama for you.  The place where you can get frostbite and sunburned all in the same week.  I also needed to catch up on some housework and the weather today was a great opportunity to do laundry.  I did not have the stamina to vacuum and dust but I did cook supper so that was something.

We are not the only ones that are eager for spring it seems!  Despite the very frigid weather we have had fairly consistently, almost all of my daffodils are trying to come up.  I wish they would wait because I know they are going to get bitten.  Maybe I need to replant these a little deeper.

We had a little drama yesterday when two of the Easter Eggers got into a knock-down-drag out.  The one in the foreground there gets picked on a lot for some reason and I think yesterday she had about enough of it.  The other ones don't like her to eat out of the feeder if they are around but she decided she was going to eat out of it no matter what!  Well, one of the other girls pulled a plug out her head and in the ensuing fight she broke her middle toenail off on the other hen or something. I went down to the coop and there was blood everywhere!  So, get out the medical kit and start patching.  You can see her big bandaged toe if you look close.  Thank goodness for duct tape.  I gave her a half of a baby aspirin for pain and she seemed fine.  Just thinking about getting one of my toe nails ripped off just makes me shrivel up!!  Ugh!

Grass and all is getting so scarce now that they are wanting to range a further than normal and a little out of my comfort zone, so when I needed a break I would go sit with them and play chicken herder.  They were apparently finding a good assortment of slugs and snails in these deep leaves so I was willing to stay with them so they could get some good foraging time in.  We keep layer mash for them at all times in the coop but I'd much rather they find all the protein and goodies out naturally, rather than eat the bought stuff, and I think they prefer that too.  Organic chicken feed is hard to find around here and ungodly expensive when you do, so it's pretty much out of our budget.  So, we just try to let them get all the natural food they can and only eat that layer mix if they have to.

Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up......but I refuse to look at the camera no matter what you try to tempt me with!!!

Are any of you getting a break from this cold winter??