Hay!

Well, Jackie is just getting to be the cutest thing. I suspect she/he is a crested Polish chicken. Her/his head feathers are really starting to stick up.

Jackie on the roost

The broilers are still growing quickly, eating a lot, and pooping more that you can probably imagine (certainly more than you would want to.) We may be seeing the first sex differences. Some of the chickens have larger, redder combs than others. I think those might be the roosters. I caught a picture of two of the chickens having a fight. Our hens had chicken fights every morning when they were young, so I don’t think fighting is necessarily connected to maleness. Anyway, watching meat chickens fight is a bit like sumo wrestling.

Hanging out in Coop 2. The one in the back has a few black feather on its back . In violation of the don't-name-what-you-eat rule, I call this one "Spot."

Chicken fight--there are two chickens in the picture. The one with its back to the camera has its wings down.

A neighboring farmer cut the hay on Thursday. It was beautiful. While we were having a lovely beverage on the deck at the end of the day, he came to rake it. It hasn't stopped raining since. Alas. Turns out that cutting hay is even more effective for bringing precipitation than getting your car washed.

Raking hay

I took the row cover off the cabbages yesterday. Cabbages are so beautiful when they have been covered. They are all so perfect. They were too big for the row cover, though, so it had to go. The leaves were getting deformed. Within moments of the removal of the light fabric, a cabbage moth was checking out the cabbages for egg-laying sites. The worms will not be far behind. It’s more fun picking them off since we have chickens to feed them to.

My lovely, uninfested cabbages

Napa cabbage ready for harvest. 

We got cherries this year! We had just a handful of the White Gold cherries (like Rainier or Queen Anne), about three apiece. Hilda and I picked 13.5 ounces of Kristin sweet cherries, plus what we ate while we were picking. I had cherries with my lunch today. It is very exciting to be getting fruit from the orchard this year!

Our cherry harvest. Delicious!