Herding Chickens...

Oh... My... Gosh...

Talk about a cluster grope wrapped in an enigma with a side order of chaos... that pretty much sums up our chicken interaction last night...

On the advice of a friend, we were going to leave Those Damn Chickens (formerly known as "The Girls") in the run for a few days, in hopes that the One Damn Chicken will reacquaint herself with her home roost and not be such a PITA to deal with come bed time...

That was the plan anyway...

After our usual Taco Nite feast at Shooter's, T'wife couldn't resist letting them out for a while (and deep down I wanted to as well), so we turned them loose for an hour or so...

Let the fun begin!!!

Now in order to get Those Damn Chickens BACK into the run, the usual "chick chick chick" call with some treats had absolutely no effect on them... just stood there and looked at me...

Normally if I pick up my Official Chicken Whackin' Stick (also known as the Rod of Obedience), and thump it on the ground, Those Damn Chickens will make a bee line for the chicken run...

Well this time the exact opposite happened - they scattered in every direction... when you have 6 chickens, that's a LOT of directions...

I tried corralling them and they would group together, only to scatter again in, yep, 6 different directions...

As I stood there and contemplated how many shotgun rounds it would actually take me to deal with this, t'wife entered the fray... instead of me using The Stick, she wanted to try The Carrot...

She actually managed to get them grouped together and heading toward the entrance of the chicken run, but the closer they got, the more they scattered...

Tried that again, same thing... and again... and again...

I'm thinking that no more than about 8 rounds ought to do it.... but I was overruled...

At this point we have 6 terrified scatterbrained chickens everywhere, but t'wife managed to get them into a corner with two miraculously still in the run with the door closed...

One by one, she managed to grab each and toss it into the run...

Hmmmm - Ten or twelve rounds, maximum...

I wonder what adventures await us tonight???

Bad Girls...

I remember saying something to t'wife one night as we sat out back admiring our six cute little fluffy hens-in-waiting... "Wife.." I said, "one day we won't be calling them 'The Girls', instead it will be 'Those Damn Chickens'...

That day has come...

What was, we thought, a one time thing where one of the Reds decided to roost one night up in the big Rhoddie, has now become a way of life for Elvira, one of the buffs...

Or in her case, a way of Death...

I'll be darned if I'm gonna spend 30 minutes every damn night trying to coax her into the damn chicken run along with the damn 5 other girls... and of course, the more she does this the more likely the others will think it's like way totally cool and start doing it as well...

Not gonna happen, damn it....

And if it does, we are having a LOT of chicken BBQ in the near future... hmmm - just in time for my upcoming 50th birthday party... mmmm young and tasty...

Careful girls - daddy's getting ideas...

Damn obligatory picture of damn chickens... it's a damn rake girls, calm down... (not pictured: Damn Chicken)...



Another damn picture of those damn chickens... think they notice the axe and chopping block in the background????



So at the advise of a damn friend... oh wait - he's a human...

So at the advice of a good friend who has damn chickens, he suggested just keeping all the damn chickens locked up in the coop/run has a reminder of where their damn home is... if this doesn't work.... mmmm chicken and dumplings...

Those Damn Chickens.....

My wife has been peeing in my briefcase....

.... okay, she's been putting a container of fresh picked snow peas in my bag before I leave for work... what a sweetheart! And they are a big hit around the office when I feel like sharing...
















This is a flower of some sort that t'wife seems to like a lot...




















Built the main part of a fire pit... next comes the hard part of tearing up the sod to form a path and ferrying in all the pea gravel for it.... joy...















I bought a bug zapper last summer and was eager to see it in action... put it up again about a week ago.... bugs zapped so far, including last summer: 1. Uno... great $44 investment there....
















Neighbor cut down a couple massive pine trees and we managed to score a bunch of the (heavy) wood... three truck loads of this stuff and all but the smallest chunks weigh about 90 or more pounds...
















Obligitory chicken picture...