I was so excited that my thyme seeds were sprouting, until the second set of leaves appeared. All those hundreds (if not thousands) of seedlings are not thyme, they are cedar elm. So many cedar elm. Apparently cedar elm seeds survive a deep freeze just fine, in fact, they may even like it. We will be seeding native grass and clover to replace the grass death, but I need to do something about the carpets of tiny trees where I don’t want scrub brush.
Magic the hen is still in isolation while her foot heals from whatever happened to it. She is shuffling around more, and doesn’t need to be moved in order to reach her food and water anymore. Apparently the special treatment caught Twilight’s attention, and when I opened the cage after taking this picture, she hopped in with Magic. She was back out again when she realized I was putting in fresh shavings, not handing out treats!
This is one of Missy’s favorite toys; a farting bear. She wiggles the mechanism out of position, then someone in the house with opposable thumbs fixes it, then she happily makes it emit gaseous noises until the tube slips again. Rinse and repeat. I’m shocked that the rubber has held up. And since she can, she brings it up to the top of the couch. She has started to nap up there too. Cats do it, so it must be a good spot.
My eldest and I did another chicken check, where we check under wings for mites, check their vents, check their feet, and get a weight. Most of the chickens’ weight is still recovering from the winter, however Magic’s has gone down, which is not surprising since she is still in isolation with a healing foot. She is starting to shuffle around her enclosure, so I hope she is on the mend. Seashell also had a drop in weight. Turns out she had an infected foot, which we cleaned out and bandaged. Her feet are particularly prone to infection and bumbles. It probably doesn’t help that they are put together a little differently than the other chicken’s feet. Faverolles are supposed to have five toes, and the “extra” toes protrude from inside the foot. When they walk, they have to negotiate not only the terrain, but also those toes. Seashell’s legs are a little shorter, her feet rotate out a bit, and she has an extra nail on one of her extra toes. Makes for more scrapes and injuries to her feet.
I bought a splash guard for keeping the oil splatter down when I was pan cooking. I use it more as a strainer to drain my rice when I make it! (I can never get the ratio of water to rice right, so I go traditional and use a lot of water, cook for 12 minutes, then drain off the excess and rinse in hot water.) I have recently discovered that it also makes a good pizza peel for lifting the pizza on and off the pizza stone (once it is mostly cooked). I really like multi-use utensils.
Critters and Craft 