Martha, my dear

As I'm making up the bed in the morning, I often find myself glancing out the window and taking inventory of the guineas and chickens that are within my sight range. The official head count comes during the morning ritual of a scoop of cracked corn, an event that brings all the birds running.

5 guineas - check
3 yellow chickens - check
1 white chicken - check
1 peeper (aka Salmon Favorelle) - check
2 red chickens - sadly, only one :(

This is a number that fluctuates. The guineas have varied wildly as they first had a population explosion last summer followed by a population crash as autumn neared. Over the course of two years, we've had four chickens vanish without a trace, about one every six months or so. This is a sad side effect of an otherwise blissful free range lifestyle, but it's a balance of healthy wildlife populations and happy chickens that I'm willing to accept. Our latest disappearance is taking me longer than normal to adjust to as it was my favorite chicken, Martha, who vanished. Martha had serious personality and was definitely the tamest of our flock. She was always the first to come running when I'd bring out a handful of cabbage worms from the garden, and she was always right underfoot, mumbling away in her distinctive voice, whenever I was out and about working in the yard. The flock as a whole responds to the call of "Here chick chick chick!", but Martha also responded to her name.

On May 23rd we'll be getting 8 new little chicks in the mail. I'm excited about adding some new breeds to our flock, and who knows, maybe the next Martha will be in the mix.

Front: Martha
Back, L to R: Mopsy and Victoria (There use to be a Flopsy and a Cottontail as well, which made Mopsy's name make much more sense. However, Flopsy and Cottontail were two of the previous chicken disappearances. I've really got to keep this in mind when I'm naming chickens in the future.)