Rat Sighting!

I saw the rat. It was fat. It jumped easily, and then strolled down the stairs. The chickens were making a racket at the time. That's why I went out there, and the rat jumped out of the coop and hid. I set the live trap, right where it has been sitting for a long time. I expect it to get knocked by something other than a rat, but hopefully that big wad of peanut butter will be irresistible to the rat.

I have some photos I recently uploaded. I have yet to figure out how I can organize my things on the web. I started a site with google. I am hoping that each photo I uploaded to google-owned sites would magically appear in their picasa program. Here they are just in case:

Oregon grape, or mehonium

One morning I got three eggs. Did I post this? This is the only blue egg I have gotten to date. I thought it could have been reduced egg production due to excessive heat. Obviously that is no longer the case. It could be the rat issue. But anyway, wasn't this a beautiful morning in terms of eggs?

Ben and Kayleigh jammed out in a duet of piano and guitar. It was rather melancholy in tone, but went on and on, beautifully. I was afraid taking photos would disrupt it, but they even played through the flash. I love the view out that window.

Finally, I took a photo of my beloved border collie, sleeping.

home again, home again

I was pleased to return to the chickens being just fine. They were not roosting in the rhododendron near the house, nor in the coop, for awhile. I took that to mean they missed us.

A day or two later, I checked the coop and saw a rat sauntering slowly out the back door. Eeeeuw! So, I placed the poison in the bait station and replaced the chicken feeder with the bait station. Since then, the chickens have been using the coop. I have opened the door on Red Cheep, who scurried out of there, alarmed. Just this morning I opened the door on Yellow Cheep (formerly known as Black Cheep), who just sat there as I calmly closed the door back up. Later I went out and found three eggs! And one of them was blue!

I am happy to know they are starting to lay, and using the coop. While I was gone there were no eggs for my beloved chicken checker. I was concerned that they were laying in the garden somewhere. Now I am just curious who is laying what. There was one small brown egg, one large brown egg, and one large blue egg.