nothing in particular

I am wondering if my little Silver Duckwing Rosecomb cross might in fact be a Golden Duckwing. I am not sure... his hackles seemed very white when he was younger (he's not even 3 months old yet) but now they seem more of a cream color and his back is brown. Hmm. He hasn't been out in the sun either! Weird, I sure don't understand all the wacky stuff I ended up with. Can't wait to take some photos! No camera yet... *sigh* It had better get here by Draft Horse Classic!

I started moving cockerels into the conditioning coop today, but I got a late start and by the time I got all the older males out of there I only managed to get two pens cleaned (8 more to go) before it was pretty toasty outside. Hard to say how many of the little guys will end up being show quality. A lot fewer than I'd like, I think!

I had to move my ancient rooster "Eddie" out of the pen he was in because I needed it for some other birds, so I put him in the aviary with the show pullets. Normally I would NEVER put a male in with them, but he's like "Grandpa Eddie" to them. They adore him, and follow him all over the place (if I put an aggressive young male in there the pullets would run away). He's not the slightest bit aggressive toward them, so it works out well. He seems happy! He's ten and a half years old now, but still going strong.

I tried to put all three horses in one corral tonight. My farrier B.H. is coming over in the morning to trim everyone, and my horses have such hard feet I always soak them the night before (put the sprinkler on one corral for a few hours til it gets muddy and leave the horses in there all night). Well, that didn't work. The girls totally terrorized Dusty. They actually seemed to work as a team to corner and kick him. Why must they be so evil! So I had to let him into another pen and I'll just have to be out there REALLY early to deal with them. I think I'll tie them all up to feed tomorrow, so I can feed them all along the same fenceline and keep it watered down. Fun with horses, it never ends...

Things are exciting as always in the art world. I'm working on the last set of sketches (preliminary rough drafts, b/w pencil outlines) that I'm aware of (unless the Phoenix do indeed get added, in which case I'll have a cow). It's the Old English Game Bantams now, and as I expected all along they are a challenge. It's one of those breeds that seems to generate a great deal of fervor and there are a lot of different opinions out there about how they ought to look. I have to be thankful that this stuff is not available for public discussion, because then it could go round and round for years (centuries perhaps) and never conclude. I'm striving for a happy medium. Personally I think I nailed it, but I have all my fingers and toes crossed (or at least I did til I started typing) and hope to get an approval in the morning. The Silkies are giving me headaches... I fixed a problem that might not have been a problem, sorta depends who you ask I guess. So I kinda had to "fix" it back a little bit. Fun with x-acto blades! (rolls eyes) Let's hope for smooth sailing from here on out. Now if I could only get a definite answer on the Phoenix I could start counting down!

I have to clean the living room this week, we are hosting a poultry meeting this weekend. It's hard to clean now, not just that I'm a slob and don't like cleaning, but I'm starting to pack up for DHC so I've been taking a lot of things out and stacking them, so now I have to put them away, or at least move them elsewhere. Why did I volunteer to host this? Oh, I guess because I was asked to.. Oh well, an excuse to make ~100 apricot pastry cookies again...hope nobody's getting tired of them! :-)

There is a tree frog living in the house. They end up in the house all the time, they wander under this little gap under the screen door, and I catch them and put them back out. (amphibians and dust bunnies are a very bad combination, it does not end well) :-( But this one little dude has taken up residence in a potted plant by the front door. I heard it croaking the other day and put it outside, and a day later it was back (same one, I can tell!) So I figured it must be happy there, and I left it alone. It's been there for two days now. I don't know if it goes out and wanders around the room, or maybe it goes out the gap under the door and then comes back. I wouldn't think there would be much to eat inside the potted plant. Not sure how long this will last! Now if I only I could take a picture! Oh man, this blog is going to be flooded with photos when that camera comes back.

I got my hopes up today, I heard the UPS guy pull up when I was out cleaning coops. *squeal!* I ran up to see what he brought. Alas, not my camera. But it is this nifty new keyboard that I'm typing on now, oh so much more sensitive than the old one, I shall type like the wind!