oh heloise!

my rogue chicken returned!
today my fellow chicken enthusiast picked up a arucana and barred rock for me. i will now have 9, though i am considering finding a home for my Tselma. (not to mention the rooster.)i came home at lunch to find all the chickens loose in the back yard—including heloise!

frankly, i'm shocked. after a week i'd given up.
my working theory was that she was now a rogue chicken living in michael stipes backyard. yet, she made her way back the first time the girls were loose in the yard. now beulah will not be the bottom of the pecking order (having been seperated, alone at my rental for awhile.)

my chickens are again one big happy family.
the new chickens are already laying and are looking a little grubby from having come from a chicken farm—not to mention pale because they've never seen daylight! yipes! to think we eat eggs and meat from birds living like that. i haven't named them yet but i am happy that they will get to live such a wonderful life with me.

tonight i will loose them into the yard to snack on bugs and meet the barred rock (who remains at large in the yard.) last night tslema slept on an outside roost, iphegenia inside the coop, the rest on top. tonight i will prop the roof up just enough to make that no longer an option.

so, in addition to painting two bedrooms i need to build a nesting box and pick up some hay. all in all i've continued to make progress on the house and am not feeling nearly as defeated as last week—thank god.

the internet arrives tomorrow. once its on and things are settled, i will tell the tale of finishing the coop, complete with pictures.