RIP: Charlotte and George

We named the chicks after our favorite 18th and 19th female British novelists, Charlotte Bronte and George Elliot. (I wasn't the one so cruel to name a chicken "George.") Unfortunately, we had a tragedy last week when some predatory mammal (very impressively) broke through the chicken coop and ate them. Naturally, we were upset, and felt responsible for not taking proper precautions. But whatever. Lesson learned.

The other night, I was walking up the hill to the coop to lock up the three big girls for the night when I saw a brown mammal--about the size of a squirrel--loping toward the coop, perhaps interested in another easy meal. We have reason to believe that it was a weasel--the very one who killed Charlotte and George.

So we bought this trap to catch it. (Because we're both softies when it comes to killing animals, if we catch it we plan on driving the weasel several miles away and releasing it.)

All the other birds on the property are doing well. This little one flew straight into the window when I was reading on the porch. I picked it up and it looked in my eyes with uncommon calmness. It was as if it was having a zen-like moment of transcendence when everything in the world makes sense. And then it flew off and almost flew right into the back of my head. And then it flew off for good.

Here I am with my dear Patience. (Ridiculous idea: How 'bout a blog written from the perspective of a chicken? Kind of like The Call of the Wild, but a chicken... "Ruth pecked my ass, I chased a bug, I laid a huge egg today"--that sorta thing. No? You think it's a stupid idea? What? You think it's the stupidest thing you've ever heard? Well too bad--I started one up.)

Here's the asparagus bed growing nicely. We also planted strawberries inside, too.

Here's the garden. We've eaten broccoli, cauliflower, snap peas, spinach and onion so far. Oh, and David made coleslaw from our first cabbage yesterday. We used rebar for stakes, which will hopefully hold up drooping tomato plants.