Rubber boots.

Never thought I'd see the day when I would be buying a pair of rubber boots-- plain black shiny ones at that. They're just gardening boots, and I was really hoping to find a bright color, but black was all they had in my size, so that's what I bought. I really need them for walking around the yards, especially after a rain. And I've been wearing them when I clean out the Coopacabana... don't have to worry about them, and I just hose the boots off when I'm done.

My husband bought rubber boots as well.... his are a bit higher than mine, and not as shiny. He used his boots yesterday when he rented a pump from Lowe's to pump out some of the water in the pond. For all the weeks that the pond was totally dry, he never thought he would have to pump some of the water out and send it flowing into the shallow creek-bed. Our neighbor suggested the pump-- to save the dam from collapsing. Too much rain all at once was the problem, he said. So there was my husband, in the dark last night, letting the pump do its thing. Had it been up to me, I would have just let Nature take its course. If the piled-up dirt (the dam) had let go, then the pond would have just filled up again with the next heavy rains, and there's bound to be more. The thought of renting a pump after each heavy rain sounds just ridiculous to me. If the dam is going to collapse in the same spot each time, then let the silly pile of dirt slide, let the water run into the creek, and then call the Dirt Works company and let them dig out that side of the pond and make it just a little bit bigger. But no one asked my opinion, and I didn't offer it.

The chickens went right into the coop last night, just as easy as pie..... along with the two Guinea hens as well. I was determined not to be chasing those Guinea hens all around the yard last night, like we did the night before. Our neighbor B has a couple of Guinea hens as well, along with all of her chickens. She stopped by the pond last night to ask my husband how the pump was working, and they got to talking about the chickens. B says that her Guinea hens are noisy and skittish, quite unlike her chickens. Ours are the same way. The chickens seem to be very calm, unless the Guinea hens get scared of something and start squawking, then the chickens start their own little clucking, and we have a feathered symphony out there.

The red hen, Dolly, is positively my favorite. She will answer me when I call her, she will follow me from the coop to the house or from the house to the coop, whichever way the food is going. She will eat out of my hand, and she let me pick her up the other day. I think I was more nervous than she was, and I guess it takes practice, to pick them up just right so their feathers aren't squashed and their nails can't scratch you.

Every time I look at the feet of our chickens, I remember my grandmother using chicken feet to make broth for soup. She would wash them and soak them to get them cleaner-than-clean, then into the pot they went with vegetables. When everything was boiled to her liking, she would strain everything into another pot, toss out the feet and those vegetables, then start with fresh vegetables and bits of chicken and noodles and before you knew it, there was a huge pot of delicious soup simmering. All those years ago when I was a kid, and I went to the butcher with her and she bought a pound or two of chicken feet, never did I think that those feet were once attached to a chicken who walked around a yard searching for crickets.

The chickens like to rest underneath the Cottage during the afternoon, and I was hoping that they wouldn't start laying eggs under there. If they do, there's no way for us to get them. Even with a flashlight, you can barely see four feet into the darkness. I guess I could fish the eggs out with a rake, but I'd have to get down on the ground to do that-- too close to the fire ants and heaven only knows what else is in that grass.

I checked the nesting boxes after lunch today, and there were two eggs in one box-- the bottom right nesting box, which seems to be the favorite spot for egg-laying. There was one brown egg, most likely from Dolly, and one very pale blue/green egg, probably from Henny Penny. Audrey also will lay blue/green eggs, but I've never seen her in the nesting boxes, and I don't know if any of the blue/green eggs have been from her. Dolly is still the champ egg-layer, with one brown egg every day. Jaye has given us one egg, smaller than Dolly's, and Edie is still too young to be thinking about eggs.

I don't know if the Guinea Hens will give us eggs..... they're such silly birds. If anyone is going to be laying eggs underneath that Cottage, I'll bet it will be those two Guinea hens. Those eggs will be quite small, I'm sure, maybe less than half the size as those we've gotten from the chickens. Thirteen eggs so far..... I've been keeping a list of the dates, and the number of eggs. Not for any particular reason-- just out of curiosity.

Curiosity scrambled the egg. (Don't know where that came from... just popped into my mind, so there it is.)