Fair is fowl, and fowl is fair

To quote The Bard, loosely.  See, I remember something from that Shakespeare class I took in college.

I know you all are absolutely on the edge of your seats, dying to hear about my flock of chickens.  I love my little flock (often referred to around here as "the girls"), they are so incredibly entertaining, and their eggs are enormous and yummy.  OK, so I tend to be kind of easily amused, but it would take a real grumpy curmudgeon to not at least chuckle at these pea-headed cartoony birds.  Yesterday I let them out, and scattered some corn on the ground to their evident excitement.  Dorothy kept bouncing 2-3 feet straight up into the air to get to the source of the coveted corn, legs trailing behind and little beady eyes intent on the cup as she snagged a kernel on each bounce.  I laughed out loud.

Left to right in the photo above, they are Ruth, Ethel, Dorothy, Martha, and Clara...named after my grandmothers and various aged late aunts.  There was a Gladys as well, but she disappeared sometime in the early fall when I was traveling.  She was the mean one, pecked all the others, so I'm not completely convinced that they didn't do her in when no one was looking.  I've had them since last June, and they roost in a rather classy periwinkle blue coop at the end of my driveway.  They have the run of the yard, and often can be found hanging out under my housemates' bird feeder.  I got 3 lovely eggs today.

Martha killed and ate a mouse once.  I witnessed this and am not making it up.