This past winter, what with the snow and the day-after-day freezing temperatures, I fielded numerous queries about feather pecking, hen-on-hen aggression and red butts. My flock was not immune. The girls were inside for longer stretches than usual, and although my coops are generous in size, the hens saw too much of each other.  The usable space in the outside run shrunk to standing room only between towering piles of snow. Communal social activities, like dust  bathing in the sun, were limited to a tub, which was not as inviting, and certainly not the relief that a thorough group dust bath in the summer can be. You know how it is. Imagine a class of kindergartners who all get along well enough. They’re active and busy and supervised. At recess, they run outside and distance themselves from each other with individual, energetic activities. Now, take those same children and confine them in the classroom. Close the windows and shrink the room by half. How will those tots behave? That’s what happened to our flocks.

Over the long winter, Nancy Drew and Beulah pecked each other’s neck feathers out. Veronica offered up her neck for picking, so that it was plucked bare. Owly encouraged the other hens to eat the feathers at the base of her tail, so that they became shredded. I did what I could. The girls got greens to eat, extra roosts out of the muck and snow, and hard winter squashes to peck at. Still, by the end of the winter they were a motley crew. (Of course, there are always exceptions. Twiggy took no part in this mayhem, and remained as sleekly feathered as always.)

Now that the snow has melted, the hens once again have plenty of space in their yard. They get out a few times a week to free-range, and so their diet has become varied with bugs and dirt and growing things. As I expected, the feather pecking has subsided.

The two Red Stars, Nancy Drew and Beulah, have stopped plucking feathers off of their flock mates.

Veronica’s neck is barely visible through her feathers.

Owly will continue to look moth-eaten until she molts and grows new feathers. But there are no bare red patches of skin, so  we all ignore it. We have better things to do.

I begin planting my vegetable garden early in the spring. This year, what with the frozen ground, and then the cold rain, I started the “plant after the last chance of frost” seeds late. They were slow to germinate. I planted more. I sow in succession, so that the harvest is spread out. Every year, I hope to have tender lettuce over the course of the summer, and every year, I find that I’ve been too eager in March. I have salad for lunch and dinner. I will be handing over romaine to friends. The chickens will get some.

Each salad is different. I add herbs, nasturtiums,

and young kale. Is there anything prettier that kale after it rains?

Every now and then, over the last two months, I’ve added a plant, and tucked in more seeds. An eggplant, A pepper. Sunflowers. Patty pan squash. Yellow squash. Zucchini. Peas. Black turtle beans. Carrots. Cucumbers. Chard. Tomatoes, of course. The kitchen garden is full.

But my pumpkin patch remained a mess. Filling the fenced area were weeds, turf, compost and matted, dead plants from last fall. It would have been backbreaking work to dig it all under and prepare the ground. Fortunately, I have a neighbor that was willing to let me borrow his rototiller. I gave him a dozen eggs in exchange. Rototillers are essential for this sort of work, but it is still difficult. Luckily, I have a strong teenage son who was willing to push this noisy, stinky and temperamental machine around and around until the soil became fluffy.

He got paid. He deserved it. Scooter anointed the garden, and then I planted.

In went the hard squashes, one hill of each: acorn, butternut, buttercup, pumpkin and delicata. I also put in a hill of watermelon. You never know, the summer might be warm enough to get a crop. It’s worth trying.

This is the water, weed and wait phase of vegetable gardening. It seems like a lull, but there’s still plenty to do. I’ve got at least an hour of work out there today. Weeds grow as fast as the vegetables. Carrots need thinning. Etcetera, etcetera. The rest of the property calls for attention, too. There are weeds to pull up around the pond. I’ve made a jug of iced tea. It’s chilling in the fridge. I’ll pull up a chair this afternoon.

Phoebe has now been with us for one year! Before Phoebe, there was Candy, the Empress of the Hen Yard. Phoebe is an entirely different bunny. Whereas Candy had her own hutch, and, like a doorman at a nightclub, let only a few select hens in, Phoebe has no interest in living the high life. There is a hutch. The chickens use it for a nesting box.

There are times to force an issue, and times not to. This was a not to. I had my son build a box to put under her house. That’s where she has her hay, and where she takes her daytime naps.

Phoebe prefers to sleep inside with the flock; she likes it under their nesting boxes. In the heat of the summer, she sprawls out on the cool concrete. Her rabbit pellets are there, which she eats, but she also likes to nibble on chicken feed.

Whereas Candy was a bunny with a wicked sense of humor (she’d gallop through the flock just to see them startle), Phoebe is a calming presence. Betsy seeks her out, and then she relaxes enough to preen.

The sticks in the chicken pen are there for Phoebe. Rabbits need to chew on wood to keep their teeth the right length. Phoebe prefers apple twigs.

Although chickens go right into the coop at dusk to roost, that time of day is when rabbits play. To keep Phoebe safe from predators, she has to have an early bedtime along with the hens. Candy was trained to go into her hutch by being given a nighttime snack of dried banana chips. Phoebe likes those enough, but with the warmer weather, they aren’t enough of a reward. Now that I’ve switched to carrots (a whole carrot, thank-you) Phoebe hops right into the coop when she sees the evening routine happening.

Also, now that it is summer, Phoebe is enjoying a daily dig, and so I take a moment everyday to check the perimeter of the yard to make sure that she hasn’t gone deeper than the fence which is buried 8-inches below ground. I fill in her more ambitious excavations. Keeping a rabbit out with the hens is very good for the bunny, so much fun for us to watch, but it does keep me on my toes.

If you’d like to contribute to Phoebe’s bedtime carrot stash, click on the box on the right (in the sidebar). Thank you for supporting what goes on at Little Pond Farm!

At night, when we close up the barns, we count the hens to make sure that everyone has come inside. Last night, Steve went into the Big Barn and counted… three. Out of eleven hens.

It was fully dark out. This was very, very strange. Where were the girls? They were pressed together on the outside roost.

My hens are not allowed to sleep outside. Raccoons rip off hawk netting. Fisher cats shred chicken wire. Weasels slip through two-inch gaps to come hunting chickens. No, outside roosts are never, ever a safe place to be at night. Chickens know this. Hens put themselves to bed. As soon as dusk begins to fall, they trot into the coop, chortle and coo, and nestle in next to their best friends on the ladders leaning against the wall.

Chickens have exceptionally good vision in the daytime, but can’t see a thing at night. They know that they are literally “sitting ducks” if caught out in the dark. And so, they go to bed early. They are never out after nightfall. So, what were my girls doing huddled on that roost? A light drizzle was falling. It wasn’t because they wanted to enjoy the summer weather.

Chickens avoid roosting inside only if there is something wrong with the coop, or if there is something threatening in there.

When it is very hot, hens avoid stifling temperatures, and so they’ll find a cooler place to roost. If that is the case, improve your coop’s ventilation and possibly add a fan. That wasn’t the issue last night.

Sometimes, without you realizing it, the coop becomes infested with mites. These usually come out of the woodwork at night and attack the flock. That wasn’t the case here, either.

Predators can scare chickens away from their roosts. Snakes take up residence. An opossum decides to nap in a nesting box. A bobcat has been pacing by the door. Again, that wasn’t why my hens were outside.

Sometimes, the design of the coop keeps the hens from going inside. One popular blueprint, available on-line, of a coop on stilts, has the ramp going into the coop from the center of the floor. Sited in the shade, the area below the coop becomes too dark for the hens to see their way inside, and so they can become stuck out in their pen all night. I’ve advised a couple of people who have had this exact issue, to cut a door on the side of the coop, and the problem was immediately solved. My girls can easily see their way inside. What was going on?

The answer was obvious. That morning I had put a new feeder inside the of the coop. Grandpa’s Feeders had asked me to try one of their models. The hens step on a lever to open it up. This prevents sparrows from getting to the feed. I have a sparrow problem, and this sounded like a good idea. My hens didn’t agree.

I put the feeder out-of-the-way (or so I thought!) in the corner of the coop. For the first week it is kept in the open position so that the hens learn to step up to eat. Obviously, my girls had no intention of stepping anywhere near it. In fact, that piece of metal was so terrifying that once they were outside, they daren’t come back in. Not even at night to go to bed.

One by one, I carried the girls inside.

This morning, after the sun rose, the hens had more time to eye the contraption.

They didn’t like what they saw and stayed safely at a distance, talking heatedly about the intruder.

I, on the other hand, think that the feeder is well-made and would be delighted if I could stop providing sparrows with laying hen pellets. I left the feeder in the corner and opened up the big door so that the girls could hurry out past it.

At some point the Gems will figure out that there is food in there. Maybe. You can guess, but you never really know what chickens are thinking.

I tend to take Lily on walks through the same stretch of woodland.

It never gets boring. It never feels the same. This week the ferns are up and lush. It’s like walking through a prehistoric landscape. As much as I like seeing the green and growing, my favorite things in the woods are the fallen logs. They become old friends, as I watch them change, host moss and lichen, and slowly disintegrate back into the forest.

If I were a textile designer, I could make a career out of creating designs inspired by lichen.

It’s a shame, then, that many homeowners, as soon as they see a tree with damage, call a company to have it removed.

If a tree is hanging over your roof and threatening your home, it should be taken down. But, if the dead wood is in a place where it can fall apart, embrace the mess.

I think that it adds to the texture of the landscape.

Yes, a dead tree hosts insects. Don’t be put off by the ants and creepy crawlies. Those are fodder for birds.

Leave the unsightly tree and you just might find that you have a spectacular visitor.

Pileated woodpecker