In the back of the backyard, I’ve got an expanse of thin, sandy soil. I’ve put up a temporary chicken wire fence around a 15 foot diameter area and dumped in all of last year’s compost. I’ve set up an old patio umbrella, put out a waterer, and when the weather is good – like today – I take three hens out there. They turn over the old leaves and grass clipping and garden scraps, eat up bugs and level it out. They’ll have about 7 weeks of glorious scratching, and then I’ll kick them out and plant pumpkins. When the growing season is over, I’ll have a lovely plot of dirt. Last year’s pumpkin patch is ready for wildflowers. I bought 3 packets of seeds today.

As you’ve probably noticed, there’s a lot going on around here. The inside of the barn was stained this week. Now it has a light gray wash so it doesn’t look so yellow and raw. The fence for the new chicken run is going in. Not an easy job, as we’ll be burying part of it 6 inches to keep out predators, and since this is New England, you don’t dig through loose soil- you make a trench in a mix of packed dirt and granite gravel. Also, I’ve got some non-standard porch doors from a salvage yard going in. And a new vegetable garden being installed on a slope, so we’ll have to put in a stone retaining wall. That’s the royal we. I don’t do any of this. For close to 15 years, I’ve relied on Mark from Rudy’s Tree and Landscaping.

The outside of the barn will be stained tomorrow. Amazing what some friends will do when you offer BBQ!

And then it’s time to divide the flock. Seven hens – the ones that will be photographed for the children’s book, will go in the new barn. Snowball, of course, will be one of that flock. Who else? Tell me which is your favorite hen.

Lastly, I’m sure you’ve spied the two new, pretty as can be, Bantam White Leghorns. I bought them from breeder (and poultry judge) Don Nelson. I know some of you out there say, “I don’t have room for a flock.” Well, go to a local breeder and buy two hens for your backyard! You can buy gorgeous pullets of just the breed your heart desires. Check the American Poultry Association for a list of shows near you. Go, look at the birds, and connect with a breeder.

When you have a Web Cam running from your chicken coop, figuring out technical glitches isn’t as easy as looking in a manual. We’ve been experiencing intermittent stoppages of the signal. This morning, my IT guy (and wonderful husband) Steve, went out to the coop in the middle of a blowing, raining, Nor’Easter to announce that he’s solved the problem. Well, at least figured it out. The problem is Candy. She found the only exposed wire in the entire backyard area and did what bunnies love to do – she chewed through it. The fix will require a bit of rewiring and a new, metal conduit. It’s not going to happen today. Take a look at the weather out there!

Compared to that bunny, the new puppy, Scooter, is no trouble at all. He’s got the best, sweetest, temperament.

Snowball laid an egg today! She is my only bantam hen, and the only one who lays white eggs. Here is a photo:

The large, roundish one on the left was laid by the Buff Orpingtons, Buffy. The one in the middle is, of course, Snowball’s, (it’s whiter than it looks in this photo) and the blue one on the right was laid by Perrie, the Araucana mix.

I will not be cooking with Snowball’s egg. It will be saved for a photo shoot for a children’s book, called, appropriately, Snowball Lays an Egg. It is a silly work of fiction in which Snowball has decided not to lay her eggs in the coop. I won’t give the story totally away, but I will tell you that she will be posed in tableaus filled with vintage chicken items and that in each photo, her egg will be hidden somewhere on the page.

How will I get her to pose for the camera? In the next few weeks, I’ll be training Snowball to stand on a post-it note. Yes, this is easy to do with chickens! They are so food motivated. I’ll be using clicker training. (This is the same technique used to train dolphins to jump through hoops.) You’ll be hearing more about this in the future.

It takes about 25 hours for a hen to produce an egg. The process starts in the ovary, when an ovum gets layered with yolk. Then it is released into the oviduct. As it travels down, it gets coated with egg white, wrapped in a membrane, and sealed in a shell. Usually, a hen produces a uniform product, although it can be unique to the hen. Ginger, for example, lays eggs that are pointy on both ends!

Sometimes, though, something goes awry. Yesterday, someone, I think one of the Australorps, laid a teeny-tiny egg. Here’s a picture of the eggs collected on Thursday. Note the small dark one in the center:

Sometimes, small eggs don’t have yolks. But this one did.

My little puppy, Scooter, who at 12 weeks old is only 5 pounds, ate that egg for breakfast.

(Notice the blood spot. Sometimes a speck of blood attaches to the egg as it makes it’s way down the oviduct. Unsightly, but edible.)