Where my girls at?

   Let me introduce the ladies of the Rusty Roof ( which is what we call our little slice of heaven ). Up top we have Mercedes ( foreground ) and Dagmar or Dags as we like to call her. They are both Americaunas but of different shades, sizes and temperament. Mercedes is a very sweet chicken, very personable and she likes to be picked up and held. Dagmar on the other hand is somewhat of a brute. She is built like a brick house, an amazon chicken you could say. Whenever we approach her she looks at us sideways and makes some low threatening clucks and runs, she is not a "people chicken." Her legs are THICK and strong and make the other chickens legs look like sticks in comparison.  And how about those beards! Fantastic! They both lay pretty blue green eggs but Dags' are a bit more green than Mercedes'.

   This is an up close shot of Sissy our Silver Laced Wyndotte. The "lace" part of her heirloom breed's name comes from the pattern that her black and white feathers produce. Husband thinks she is the head hen and he's probably right, but then again he is a sucker for a pretty face. She lays light brown eggs and I think she is our most reliable layer.

   This is our Maran, Jolene, who lays beautiful dark brown eggs. She has this great archetypal hen figure, thick and solid. Of course, when you pick any of the chickens they feel a bit scrawny under all those feathers! We feed them a layer mash and augment it with scratch, crushed oyster shells and all the worms and bugs and slugs and vegetation they can get on their forays into the yard. It makes you wonder what they are feeding the giant chickens one buys at the grocery store.

   And here is the reason we allegedly invested in these glorious urban fowl. The EGGS! They have the most amazing creamy yellow-orange yolks that make store bought eggs look anemic by comparison. We are now getting four a day fairly reliably and how many a day and who laid and who didn't is one of the daily topics of discussion between Husband and I.

   Who could resist this face? Ruby is getting more comfortable with us and the house every week. We signed up for the free dog training class that came with her adoption fee from the Humane Society, and she is doing well. Although, I think these classes are really people training and she is only as "good" as we are. What I'm attempting to admit is that we could be practicing more. Oh well, she is doing better than when we first got her. That says something right?
    Below is a shot of the pet bed I made to fit in her kennel. Super simple project and it looks so chic! I just cut out two rectangles of polar fleece to fit the inside of the kennel plus an inch and half  for seam allowance and bouffiness, sewed it all around leaving an opening for stuffing. I then just laid the sewed up piece on top of some extra lofty polyester quilt batting and cut to fit and stuffed it in there. I sewed up the opening and using an extra big needle took some yarn and tied it through all the layers. Et Voila! I made one for our cat Stella too and put it in her favorite warm place. We have us some happy manimals, I must say.