Here are four of our chickens. There are two more Nancys but they look just like these two. We gave up trying to tell them apart and named them all Nancy (after Nancy Drew.)

Houdini is a bantam which is why she's so much smaller. It's also why the other chickens pick on her (Stephanie mostly, she's the last hen from the previous flock. She has issues.) Or it might be Houdini's wacky beard that makes her the target of ridicule in the chicken yard.

You can kind of see it in this picture:



She looks a bit like The Lorax.

There's been some debate in my house about whether she's an Araucana or not. I can't remember what C. said he thought she was but he was wrong. She's just proved me right by laying the cutest little blue egg.

I ♥ my hens.

I am having a strangely stupid and stupidly strange day. But who cares? Look at our new babies!




We picked them up on Sunday and then frantically had to chick-proof the fencing around the chicken yard. They're so small they had no problem sneaking through the holes and wandering off into the yard. Cheeky chooks.

Stephanie, the lone survivor of our last flock, is not amused by them. She's been doing a lot of complaining and spending most of her day perched up high, away from them. When I come over to the coop she runs up to the gate like she's dying to get out of the enclosure. I always worried she was lonely, but I guess she was happy on her own. Too bad.

They haven't learned to associate us with food so they run away if we get too close to them but I held them when we first picked them up and they're so soft and tiny. A friend of ours took care of them for a few weeks while they were still little, so we kind of missed the entirely fluffy phase. They're already getting feathers.

And the peeping. Oh my god. It's insanely cute.

My day has been derailed by a cold. It doesn't seem to be a bad cold but The Boy woke up at 4 this morning (after being up until 10) with what sounded like the beginning of a cold. He couldn't go back to sleep so we've been up ever since. He only has the mildest congestion and no other symptoms now but I knew if I sent him with that little sleep he'd have a horrific day. So. Yeah. I won't be getting much done today.

We are going to the studio, though. He hasn't been in a while so I'm sure he'll be amused and occupied long enough for me to get one or two things done. I hope so anyway, my yesterday got eaten up by errands and I'm feeling antsy and unproductive.

In other news, we went to have a look at those baby guinea pigs and to fill out an adoption application. They are so cute I don't know how I'm ever going to choose which ones to adopt. This is assuming our landlord realises that saying no to guinea pigs is completely and utterly STUPID. The shelter requires a notorized letter from him saying we can have pets so my partnerperson (I'm not using the H word!) sent an e-mail asking if he could write one and the guy replied saying no. He said it would be unfair to the other tenants in the building and "the public" that uses the space below us (we live in a building owned by the school where partnerperson teaches and it is sometimes used for meetings and conferences and whatnot.) It's such a loopy response I can only imagine he thinks we want to adopt PIGS, not furry little rodents who will live in a cage in our house and never even be seen by the other tenants or "the public".

The partnerperson was pretty grouchy about all this. Our landlord also works at the school (in the business office) and partnerperson has to deal with him now and again for different reasons. I guess he's often pissy when people make requests of him but then he'll calm down and become more rational, so maybe this is one of those things. Maybe he just reacted and didn't think. I mean, can you think of a more innocuous pet than a guinea pig? Maybe a hermit crab. Or a rock. An e-mail appeal was sent last night so maybe the landlord will have a change of heart. I hope so. Those piggies need to live with me.

I hope it all goes well. Not only because I want those guinea pigs but we already ordered some baby chicks ... without asking if we could have more chickens first. Think we could convince him that our one remaining hen laid the eggs? Think he'd notice that we don't even have a rooster? Think he'd notice the chicks aren't even the same breed of chicken? And more importantly, if I get evicted can I come live with you?