a hennish introduction

These are my hens, for those of you who haven't met them in real-time. The gold one in front is Henrietta, she is a Buff Orpington and came here as a gift from my old friend Sharon in Olympia; and the red one barely visible in the background is Hennypenny, she is a Rhode Island Red, and is the lost hen who came to live here...

Once upon a time (last year), not too long after I moved in, I was in the front yard, planting the sage plant that Bill gave me (which I had been carting around in a big pot for many a year), when I heard an odd sound. As I looked around, there was a little red chicken walking across the yard towards me. As I have neighbors that let their hens "free range", I thought she was one of those
...it turned out that they were not missing any chickens, and as I had intended to keep some hens "someday" she ended up living with me... after a number of months she had another hen for company, and a beautiful henhouse, built with wonderful helpfulness by my friend Chance, helped by his wife Rois, myself, and their two sons.

Later this year, I intend to paint the henhouse... as the idea this past autumn was to get the hens solid walls and a roof before the winter rain and snow. Their previous shelters were cobbled together with zip-ties from chicken wire, tarps, and discarded wood scraps from old political signs, not the most weathertight (or predator-proof) of abodes.

My friend Heidi, (who, with her husband Dan are the blacksmiths of White Hart Forge,) made the forged iron weight for the sliding henhouse door.

recovering slowly

(sigh) I am not well enough to travel to Midwinters, though I did go to work today for a half day. I am now really tired, and will probably fall asleep after dinner, but almost a whole week without work is bad for the piggybank. I like being self-employed, never handled the whole subordinate thing very well, but it sure would be nice to have a few "sick-days" that did not automatically mean no income.

Well, enough grousing, at least I will hopefully continue to feel better, and can visit Adiantum sometime later in the year...

This morning the folks from the Downspout Disconnection program came to my house (as I had requested last month) and talked with me about which downspouts they could re-route. I will be getting two re-routes complete with new gutters; one along the front walkway (roof drainage over the former garage), and one along the north side of the house( drainage from the north half of the house roof). The gutters and downspouts will be blue, similar to the trim already on the house.

The one downspout that I already disconnected qualifies, so once the work is done, probably next week, I can apply for the "Clean River Rewards" program, though not for the full discount, since the downspout from the north garage roof is, as I suspected, too weirdly located to re-route. But...if I can route it into a water-barrel setup that also meets the criteria of both programs, I will be eligible for the full discount, though the inspector this morning said that the difference between full and partial would be less that $2 per month, so I don't have to do it ASAP.

I am arranging this not only because sending clean rainwater through the sewers is a stupid idea, but because the water/sewer bill is my most expensive utility, and anything that will help lower it is good, and this will lower my bill a little bit for at least the next ten years.

Anyway the library is closing soon, so I'll sign off

still sick...bleah!

The dread rhinovirus has invited several friends with spikey tap shoes to dance around inside my poor head, and copious applications of tea and soup have not discouraged them...I've been sick since late Monday, haven't gone to work for the last three days, and I fear that I will be in no condition to drive south for Midwinters, not to mention that I have no intention of sharing this crud with any of my friends. (Mayhap I can plan a later trip down to Adiantum, but I will have to miss the wonderful feast...)

When I looked out the window to the backyard this morning, Henrietta and Hennypenny were doing their "dustbath" thing, and were a red-and-gold patch of feathers flat on the ground in the sunny spot next to the shed. I still find it amusing/weird that chickens "bathe" in dirt, mostly because they look so funny when they do. But I had never seen them bathing together before.