Events, rain, and chickens.

The rain finally came as it always done, and I swear the plants have perked up overnight. That's probably hyperbole, but it definitely feels like it even if it is a psychological thing.

Before I get back to that and focus on the homestead for the rest of the post, I'm going to touch on a couple things. First things first. The Lady of the House is having an art show near us, so if you're in our area and come we'd love to see you.

The other thing is, we're getting so close to the line where we can put the down payment on the furnace, and we're getting close to the end of the donation matching period on our GoFundMe. If you have been thinking of donating, now would be a great time.

So, back into the garden from everything else going on. Most of our squash plants aren't doing well. I accidentally mowed over one with the weed eater while making the yard look more suburban than it had, and killed the most healthy one very thoroughly. Of the remaining plants, the one Left is the only one that looks even vaguely like it's going to be able to produce. That said, it already has a couple squash set, and is popping more flowers out constantly which is a great thing to see. The others, well, they're getting flowers, but their leaves aren't doing well so I don't expect much from them in terms of production.

On the chicken front, our chickens have been declining to go into the coop lately which has been inconvenient, and we've lost a couple of them I suspect due in no small part to them not being safe at night. This morning I came out, and found our red hen looking unfortunate with only one tail feather. I'm guessing a hawk hit her, but it could be something else. I have a photo of the wound below, though it was hard to get a good shot with my cell phone with one hand, while holding her.
I know it's hard to see, but it was still bleeding when we found her. With poultry bleeding is a big deal, since they don't have a lot of blood they can afford to lose. Because of that I was holding on tight and the Lady of the House was getting the corn starch. Fortunately she seems to be fine, and I was going to be putting her into the chicken coop for the day, and trying to shoo her surviving friend in. The problem is, when she saw me going there she kicked free and was VERY offended. If she's that strong, we'll let her be out with her friend. My main disappointment today is that I failed to have the Lady of the House get a photo of me wearing a lot of the corn starch after she kicked free. Just imagine most of that excessive amount of corn starch all over me. It was pretty funny looking. Here's hoping that she does fine, and that we can get her and her friend to the Lady of the House's father's house this weekend.