It's Not a Dull Post. Really.

If you'll look past the handsome swaggar of the rooster in the foreground, the reason for this snapshot will surface in the background.

I spent most of the day putting the fence back up, which meant that after a week of imprisonment in the coop, these girls and their men could waddle about and dig up my newly sown flowerbeds again.  How exciting!  How infuriating!  

Since I spent the better part of last summer muttering-- nay, shouting-- curses of doom on the chickens when they unearthed and pecked-to-death my flowers, I'd planned on using our ragtag fencing to enclose the chickens instead of the garden this year.

They lucked out.  To my chagrin, I realized the bunnies that noncholantly hop through the dewdrops of our yard each sunrise morning would wreak more destruction on the vegetables than the chickens would on the flowers, so I traded a garden full of non-nibbled vegetables, Lord willing, for flowerbeds ruined by chickens in search of a dust bath.   

 

We only have six hens left, too.  Late winter brought death to five by a weasel, based on the kill pattern, and early spring brought two vanishing acts and a carpet of feathers thanks to hawks that circled above.  None of the hens have shown signs of broodiness this spring, so it's time to either buy some new chicks for the bathtub or... lose the chickens for the sake of the flowerbeds.   Votes?