Chickens!

Harvey, our only brown egg layer and the one who waits to leave the coop until I have pet her.

Ethel, who greets me at the door of the coop with an earful of clucks every day.

Marty, the glutton. She follows me wherever I go, waiting for me to unearth a worm or sprinkle some cracked corn from my pocket.

And who is that cream little one in the back? You can barely see her, but that is Gretchen's little rump up in the to right hand corner. The fact that she would not let me take her picture is so very Gretchen. All our chickens love to be held and have their feathers stroked, but not Gretchen, she fluffs up and tries to peck at my toes!

Just about a year ago one of my dreams came true. For years I told David that we would some day own chickens, I know he was thinking, "Yeah, right... someday..." and hoping that I would drop it. Well, I never did and after lots of research, a chicken keeping class at Pistils Nursery, and two long weekends designing and building our own coop, we had our very own little flock, and we have never looked back.

The girls offer us endless entertainment, weather we are climbing on the roof to rescue Harvey or laying on the hammock watching what I call farm television as they prance around the yard. And the eggs, oh the eggs. Once you go fresh, from free roaming hens, you will never go back. Because we have banties, which lay super small eggs, it takes us 12 eggs to make a scramble for the two of us on Saturday mornings (12 eggs! that is something I think we will always find funny). They say that three banty eggs equal one large egg and I have found great success using that ratio in a great many recipes.

So with spring right upon us, I would suggest you build yourself up a little coop and settle in for some farm television!