A Brutal Tragedy

I just heard that this morning, a friend of mine suffered a tragedy. Janet lives in the suburbs of Southern California like us, and has two backyard laying hens. She is the one who introduced me to the idea. We visited her home last summer and met her two beautiful birds, and shortly thereafter, got two of our own.

This morning, she heard a racket in her backyard, and arrived outside just in time to see about 40 crows attacking her chickens. They killed both of them, flying off with one and leaving the other in the yard.

I never knew crows hunted in packs, or could be so brutal. The scientific name for a large grouping of crows is a "murder of crows", and I guess this term bears some truth.

I am so sad for Janet and her family. What a horrific thing to happen. If you keep chickens in your yard, it seems it's not just coyotes and feral cats you have to watch out for.

Poultry Play Time

What happens when you mix a slide, two chickens, and a mischievous 9-year-old boy?

The birds were real troopers. William must have slid each one of them down the slide a half-dozen times, and they let him, without complaint. I guess everyone likes to play sometimes.

What in the World?

Remember those photos in kids' magazines, where you had to look at the close-up of something and figure out what it was?

Here is the garden version:

The first photo is of three tiny cherry tomatoes, so cute and round and ready to ripen.

The second is a fresno chili. If you look smack in the middle of the photo, you can see it. It's the oval shape that's same shade of green as all the leaves around it.

Tomatoes... chilis... I can see some salsa fresca in the future!