I’m selecting photographs for the HenCam 2014 calendar. I have a year’s worth of photographs, and yet there are very few that are good enough to make the cut. Why? you ask. The chickens are beautiful and the goats are charming. You must have thousands to choose from!

I do have many, many photographs. There are pictures of Beatrix hogging the camera.

There are photos of goats with dirty noses.

There are photos of a rabbit NOT staying still for the camera.

But, I’ve manage to select a dozen images and Steve is doing the technical stuff necessary to turn them into a computer file and get it printed. I’ll let you know when it’s ready!

NOTE: this contest is closed! Which is a good thing as I got very, very hungry reading the entries. Joan is the lucky winner!

MyOwlBarn.com is one of those retro and stylish blogs that posts a daily serving of eye candy. Recently, it showed off photos from a ridiculously silly book, aptly titled Funny Food. It’s by husband and wife duo, Bill & Claire Wurtzel (© 2012 Welcome Enterprises, Inc.) The book is based on breakfasts that Bill has made for Claire over the years. The love comes through.

I contacted the publisher to tell her how wonderful I thought it was to have a book with a fried egg bird on the cover. We agreed that there should be a giveaway here on HenCam. Because, really, I know that all of you will jump at the chance to win a book with art like this:

(If you try making egg people yourself, would you take a photo and email it to me? Please?)

To win a copy of Funny Food, leave a comment here and tell me about your favorite breakfast. One entry per person. For additional chances to win, tell your friends on your social media of choice (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) then come back here and tell me that you’ve spread the word. On Sunday, October 27, I’ll pick a winner using a random number program (so telling me about an elaborate breakfast won’t increase your chances to win, but it will make me happy.) I’ll contact the winner via email (and announce it on Facebook and here.) Unfortunately, this contest is only open to addresses within the United States.

Even if you don’t win, you can have a piece of Funny Food art for yourself. Go here for free, downloadable posters.

The girls are grateful for the pumpkins and thank their HenCam friends who have provided them. The hens got a new pumpkin this morning. Yay! says Misty.

Even Grand Old Buffy toddled over to have a go at the squash. I love this flock. Everyone let her have her space to enjoy the treat.

They are thankful from the tips of their beaks to the bottoms of their (very full) bellies.

This has been the most beautiful fall that I can remember. Possibly, I say that every autumn. But, this year it does seem extra-special. Maybe it’s because the weather has perfect and the blue skies set off the colors. Or maybe it’s been that I’ve been seeing it from the back of a horse. Still, some years the colors are dull. Some years the trees change, but a storm blows through, ripping the leaves off of the branches so that the show of color is only fleeting. A couple of years ago we had a snowstorm right before Halloween and no one could get out of their houses to go trick or treating.

This year, though, the beauty is here, and instead of being fleeting, it gets more and more stunning as the days pass. This is a tree in my front yard.

Here it is a week later.

What makes this so gorgeous are the layers of color. Look closely and you see patterns in bright green, shocks of orange, and that glowing yellow. All against a dark trunk and blue sky. I mean, really. Really.

Even those of us who have lived in New England for decades find ourselves stopping our cars and gaping at the light coming through a tree, or the sight of hayfield with luminescent oranges and yellows ringing a green swath of grass with a pale mist hovering over all. Where is the photo of that scene you ask? I’m not a tourist. I think, “I’ll pop over to the store to pick up a gallon of milk” and then I end up parked on the side of the road, staring.

The goats are delighted. Some of the leaves are delicious. Some aren’t, but they’re all interesting to snuffle through.

Here in my town, the horse paddocks are rocky. But, right now they are being carpeted with sweet-smelling pine needles. The horses like that, although they do get a bit sticky from the pine tar.

It’s so beautiful that it seems superfluous to decorate the house for the season. This is all that I’ve put on the front porch.

It’ll be there until the hens need another pumpkin to busy themselves with. When it’s gone, it won’t matter. There’s beauty all around.

Nancy Drew should be one of the best layers of my flock. She’s a Black Star, which is a hybrid designed to lay brown eggs day in and day out.

She does go into the nesting box.

She even lays eggs. Once a week I collect a perfect brown egg. I know it’s hers because she’s the only one of the group that lays an egg that color. But, most days she lays soft-shelled eggs that look and feel like water balloons. If I don’t find an egg, it’s likely because Nancy Drew, or one of the other hens, has eaten it. Soft eggs break easily and the chickens find them irresistibly delicious. That sort of egg eating can lead to the bad habit of egg-breaking and eating, but it hasn’t happened. Her eggs are so unlike the hard-shelled ones laid by everyone else that I don’t think that the hens have made the connection.

It can be hard on a hen to lay a soft-shelled egg. They’re squishy and don’t slip out easily like smooth, correctly formed eggs. I worry about her. Sometimes soft eggs are caused by a poor diet. But, I know that’s not the case here. Not only do I feed the girls exactly the right foods, but the other hens lay perfect eggs, and so I know that this is a problem unique to Nancy Drew. I don’t know what her issue is, but it isn’t something that I can fix. A hen having laying difficulty is not that unusual. Commercial flocks have plenty of these, but five out of hundreds don’t stand out. However, in a flock of only six layers, one hen that isn’t doing her job is obvious. If I was a homesteader, depending on my animals for food, then she’d be going into the stew pot. Luckily for Nancy, I don’t need to eat her. But, she will earn her keep. She has a nice, classic, steady, chicken personality. Nancy will be my next school visit hen.