Tag: Bertie Lee

Summer Is Hard

Geez. It’s crispy here. And it’s unbearably hot for people, animals, and plants. The horses got new hay today, which sure made them happy.

It made MY morning!

The horses and I are trying our best to get some exercise other than running up to greet me (only Droodles and Apache do that). We have been walking around over pieces of wood, trotting a little, and getting minimally groomed. I go out early and late as possible to see them, since I’m still reacting poorly to the heat.

We’re hot, too.

We had our first summer casualty, too. Some kind of predator must have gotten at the chickens when they were cooling off at the horse troughs, and it got my matriarch, Bertie Lee. She was my oldest hen. The only clue I found was a large feather that looks unlike any hawk or owl I have seen. Ugh. There were only feathers left.

Yuck

I’m glad I made a point of saying bye to her before I left. I sure am glad everyone else is okay. There were some yellow feathers, but Blondie seems fine.

I like the shade. I lay eggs here, too.

I will get more hens when/if it cools off. I’m getting doubtful about that. The hens look so sad every day when it’s so hot, but they have access to the coolest spots possible and lots of fresh water.

We want nice new sisters.

September is coming. I’d say we have three to four more weeks before the weather breaks, but it can come sooner and I won’t complain.

I tried to make things feel cooler with blue nails and stars.

More intellectual content will come soon. All my smart thoughts have drained through sweat.

The Great Hen Detective Strikes Again!

Take THAT, Bertie Lee! You can’t fool us forever! You’re just a chicken, and we are human hen detectives! I think they could start paying me for this egg-finding work. Yep, I finally found where Bertie Lee is currently stashing her eggs. I say currently, because I only found ten. Of course, she could have just started again after finishing molting, or after the cold episode. I don’t know. I’m not a chicken.

Look at all those sort of dirty Bertie eggs! And one very clean Henley egg that was just laid.

Lee helped on this one, because yesterday he said he saw her coming out from behind the work benches again. He thought maybe she was laying in her old spot, which she’d gotten chased out of. So, this morning, I decided to look even harder than usual, and used the step ladder to climb on top of the sturdy old workbench. I looked down behind it, and there they were! Eggs!

Bertie Lee tells Bruce that she’s glad the garage is such a mess, because it’s easy to hide eggs in. Her eggs are secretly under that white cabinet.

Of course, they were in a really hard-to-reach place, as Bertie Lee is a smart hen. She survived the 2019 and 2020 hen attacks that lost us a lot of our flock. I found the perfect egg-moving device however, our fishing net. I was able to carefully roll them forward and get them, without injury to me or any eggs. Well, two of the eggs were cracked, but I think Bertie must have done that herself, since the mess was dried up.

When I brought the eggs in, I immediately tested them for viability by seeing if they floated, just like I did a couple of days ago when I found Big Red’s egg stash. These were all in GREAT shape, with only one looking slightly iffy. I put it in with Big Red’s, along with a couple others, ready for becoming deviled eggs for Easter!

Bertie is trying to tell Buttercup to hide her eggs better, but Butter is focused on bugs.

Now I have seven hens capable of laying, and six of them are active (I hope; I couldn’t find Springsteen this morning, and she’s the low chicken in the pecking order). Theoretically, I may have enough to start giving eggs away again. And I can’t wait to see if Star hatches any baby hennie chicks! She’s still in there, setting away.

She knows she’s my favorite. Don’t tell Buttercup.

What a great way to start a day off! The Sherlock Holmes of Laying Hens strikes again! I’ve already had my personal Easter egg hunt.