Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara

Poor Vince . . it’s a good thing he loves me . . or maybe he just keeps me because I can cook and I do iron his work shirts.

Last night he was telling me that he wanted to do a couple of things in town . . did I want to meet him in town for lunch?  Oh, yes, I had a few things I could do in town too.  Then . . I slept and while the gray matter was resting, the slate was erased clean.  The next thing I knew, it was 10:55 (Vince leaves at 11 for lunch) and the phone rang.  The minute the phone rang . . I knew who was calling and I knew I had forgotten about our lunch date.  I still had on my pajamas, had mud halfway up one leg where I’d stepped in a muddy spot in the garden.  No makeup, hair not combed. He was fine with it  . . he came home for lunch and we’ll go out this afternoon when he gets home.

In my defense . . I was up at daylight . . which is about 6:30 a.m., started a loaf of bread, worked in the garden til it got too hot, came in and finished up the loaf of bread, made three batches of pickled eggs and emptied the dehydrator to fill 4 jars of squash!

Pickled Eggs

See .. evidence is all in one picture, bread, eggs, squash in jars.

I’ve now had a shower, have makeup on, hair is done (as done as it gets these days) and I’m going to sit and knit for a while.

I’m tempted to call the vet and see if I can have Thelma, the rooster, neutered.  We are going to be overrun with Silkies.

Louise just hatched Houdi and Gracie the first part of April and guess who’s on the nest again!  If you guessed Louise . . add Houdi and Gracie.

Houdi, Gracie & Louise

Those two chickens are so attached to their mama . . they will not let her out of their sight.  She sits on the nest 24/7 .. with Houdi and Gracie right there in the nest with her.  They never leave her side. I’m betting Louise is trying to figure out a way to get rid of them but nope, they’re attached at the hip to their mama.

When the baby chicks hatch, they’re not going to know who’s the mama and who’s the brother/sister.

We have weird animals, don’t we?

When it comes to chickens, neither of us know very much.  I still haven’t figured out how two solid white Silkies had two almost solid black babies and their next two were solid white.

Mean Chicken’s eggs were not fertile . . no rooster.  So we gave her fertile eggs from the Dominque chickens which look like this:

Dominiques

And we gave her fertile eggs from the Silkies who look like this:

Silkies

The first three babies to hatch were little black, obviously Dominique babies.  The fourth one to hatch was a little yellow baby.  Vince was sure it was a Dominique because it was bigger than he thought the Silkie babies should be.  I wasn’t saying anything because I just don’t know much about chicken genetics (or human genetics for that matter).

Today when I was out checking on them, I noticed the little yellow baby had feathers on her legs . . a sure sign she’s a Silkie.  We went out to take baby pictures tonight.  Don’t ask me how my grandmother’s hands got in these pictures!

Silkie Proof – Feathers on the Legs

Heck, it’s been so long since I’ve had time to shave my legs, that little chicken would probably think I’m a Silkie too . . but don’t tell anyone.  I’m going to take care of that tonight!

She wouldn’t look at the camera!  Shy little thing!

Fluffy

Finally, she must’ve realized I wasn’t putting her back with her mom til she looked at the camera and smiled!

Fluffy

We walked out there, I took the baby out and wanted Vince to take a picture of her but he grabbed the watering cans and walked off so I was standing there holding the baby. She was chirping quite loudly to let me know she wasn’t happy and Mean Chicken was getting so agitated.  She didn’t like me holding the baby and she was so upset that the baby was chirping.  I had to rush Vince along to take the pictures so as not to cause too much frustration.  They seem like a happy little family and the 11 other red hens don’t seem bothered by the babies in the coop.