Breaking News on the Poultry Front - We have a broody hen! Victoria, our white rock chicken, has been dutifully sitting on an unknown number of eggs since Sunday. I know for sure that there are at least eight eggs under her because I put them there myself last night, a dangerous operation that I was lucky to walk away from with only minor injuries. The eight additional eggs were donations from my father's flock and a friend's flock, just to spice up the mix a little bit.

On a less cheerful note, we appear to have lost a guinea, bringing our total down to six. I found a pile of guinea feathers in the middle of the field last night but no sign of a body. For a couple of weeks now I had suspected that one of the guineas was sitting on a nest out in the field, and it was most likely that guinea that got snatched. On the bright side, Ranger (the former outcast guinea when there were seven) has hooked up with the dead guinea's mate and is now accepted into the larger guinea group again.


We've reached that very sad time of year when the rain stops falling with any regularity. This means lots of time spent hauling buckets of water to the garden from ever dwindling rain barrels. Everything is planted and growing nicely, however something is making my young butternut squash plants wither away only days after they've sprouted. Hopefully I'll figure out the culprit and how to nip it in the bud before it is too late!


Flower photos, from the top: Water lily, portulaca and calendula. All are growing in my garden at the moment. :)