Flowers, Pigeons, Chickens

August this year brought abundant flowers, so many that one Sunday I brought four vases of them to church. This one contained four colors of Daylilies and Blue Sea Holly (looks a bit like thistles):

Yellow Heliopsis, red Echinacea, blue Delphinium and red/green leafy branches from a Ninebark bush:

All wildflowers from alongside the road: Pink Joe-Pye-Weed, yellow Goldenrod and Purple Loosestrife:

White Tree Hydrangeas, multicolored Sunflowers and pink and red Yarrow:

Meanwhile, the little hens were living comfortable lives in their coop inside the barn:

They all get along well together and I never see any fighting. They have no rooster, but I sometimes hear crowing coming from their coop. I looked it up and learned that sometimes, in the absence of a rooster, one hen will become more masculine and began crowing:

It was me, and I keep everybody on their toes!

Egg production is way down, which is fine with me. This day I had only two small eggs, one pink and one green. Soon, as we head toward winter, there will be none:

The white fantail pigeons in the adjoining room are multiplying at a fast clip:

This mother had a nest on the floor with a six day old baby:

A nest up on a shelf had two recently hatched babies. The parents are on them so much that I haven't been able to get another photo since this one:

Spring Now In High Gear

My north field is filled with Bobolinks and Meadowlarks this year, but especially Bobolinks. They sit on fence posts and telephone wires, singing their loud, happy, bubbling song. This photo is from the internet because I couldn't get a good close-up:

I could, however, get a video of a male singing on a fence post. That's my north field behind him, and the tree in bloom in a Shadbush. The Bobolink is facing the camera and you can see the flash of gold from the back of his head every time he looks to the side or toward the ground:


 One of the Plum trees and the Apricot tree both burst into bloom:

 The Apricot tree, planted six years ago, has never bloomed before. I'm hoping to taste my own apricots this year:

 The Plum tree has bloomed before but never borne fruit because it is not in blossom at the same time as the other Plum tree. This year, however, its flowers coincided with the Plum trees across the road. Maybe there is hope yet:

I collected the last of the Daffodil flowers, put them in a vase and brought them to church:

And while I was at it, I clipped off some PJM Rhododendron branches, put them in a vase and brought them to church also:

The fantail pigeons are nesting but so far there have been no babies (except one dead one):

The bantam hens are laying eggs, but (I am happy to say) at a much slower rate than in the past:

They seem happy and content in their room inside the barn:

I have only 11 birds left and don't plan to get any more when they are gone:

The Great Egg-scapade

It was a chilly, rainy, spring afternoon and the dogs, cats and I were lounging around and doing nothing much:

 But I had accumulated three dozen eggs (well, 35 to be exact), and decided to clean them out of my refrigerator:

 So I cracked all 35 of them into a nonstick pan:

 I scrambled them and distributed them into six dog bowls:

 I put Seamus into the laundry room with his own bowl because he, like me, needs to limit the quantity he eats. I put the other five bowls down on the kitchen floor. To my surprise, Daisy and Caspar marched right in and began helping themselves:

 At first, the dogs were unsure of what that odd, gooey stuff was - but they soon figured it out:

 In the other part of the kitchen, Jack, Bugsy, Sammy and Daisy helped themselves to scrambled eggs (note the accumulation of cat toys by the door on the right):

 Miraculously, all my animals eat together without conflict, sharing and waiting their turn, though having plenty of bowls surely helps keep the peace:

 Bugsy and Sammy moved over to taste some of Fergus' eggs. He didn't growl, but he accelerated his eating speed:

 And then they all lay down and burped while I washed dishes:

 You didn't see Seamus formerly because he was alone in the laundry room, but the other dogs and cats hadn't been able to eat all of their eggs, so Seamus did the cleanup after I let him into the kitchen. Then he too lay down and burped:

 Daisy, Seamus, Daphne and Jack all joined me in the computer room while I put this post together. It seemed to me that this had been a great success, but that night all the dogs vomited and had diarrhea. It was a horrible mess. I will try again in the future, but only with a much smaller quantity of eggs: