I found this one in the house on an Amazon gift bag. Not entirely sure if she hitched a ride, or was inside for the winter and likes the color blue. Either way, this is the first time I’ve seen an Ashy Gray Lady Beetle, although they are common in our area. How adorable are the little heart spots?
I’ve decided to play music for my future chicks. I did for my human children, so why not? I found an old iPod shuffle, and really old speakers and they miraculously work together. I’ll have to charge the iPod every night, but that isn’t a big deal since I only want to play the music during the day. I read that some chickens seem to like classical best, so I picked out some soft instrumentals, but also some with women singing and men singing in hopes that it will acclimate them to both kinds of voices. The list is rather heavy on Loreena McKennitt and Simon and Garfunkle.
I seriously considered playing them barbershop tunes, but some of those get quite energetic. Maybe later.
Faverolle chicks are said to be easily freaked out, so maybe this will help. Or give them all little birdy heart-attacks. I guess we’ll see. I’ll keep you posted.
Maybe I will have musical chickens?
There was some debate on whether to paint the floor of the coop or not. Painted floors are more water resistant and easier to clean. But because most people keep some kind of litter on the coop floor at all times to make the clean up of the droppings easier, bare floor does just fine as well. It came down to: if the floor was to be painted, it needed to be now or never. This week is forecast to be beautiful and a can of latex floor paint is $23. So my husband and I cleaned out the coop last weekend, and this week I painted the floor a nice brown. I like it better than gray for floors. And it didn’t cost any more than the gray, except for about 5 minutes to get it mixed (I went to the store early on a weekday). Totally worth it.
The paint needs 72 hours to fully cure, so I should be able to move things back in this weekend.
Last week there was a beautiful moon near the horizon and a stunning sunrise, in opposite directions. I couldn’t photograph them in the same shot. I thought that if I had a mirror, I might be able to capture both with some experimentation with angles, but alas, I had no mirror and the minimal focal distance of my lens is longer than my arm. So I put a composite image together in Photoshop. I think it came out nicely, and it was certainly fun to experiment!
This is not the first time I have seen these deer breaking the law, but it cracks me up every time. I did have to do a little Photoshop magic to get the deer and the sign both in focus, but that was fun too.
Maybe they are card-carrying members?
Critters and Craft 