Henpecked.

Since the raccoon attack, Bob has been making a steady recovery; that is, until the hens curiously started pecking at his newly acquired bald spot creating one particularly deep wound.  Currently we have Bob convalescing in a makeshift hospital (aka, big cardboard box), until his wound fully heals and his feathers grow in.  Meanwhile the rest of the flock seems to be managing without their helm fairly well.  So far Little Roy has not asserted any rooster authority, but Violet, the oldest hen, has taken charge despite her small size and seems to have things well in wing.

Bob in our chicken hospital.

Violet leading the procession.

The favorite hang out.

This beautiful black Australorp was just a tiny chick a few months ago!

Little Roy isn't so little anymore.

No trace of cute fuzz balls here, just beautiful young birds.

The Nevada County Fair!

Can you tell they are excited?

Cute goats!

Super cute goats!

Visiting with a proud chicken owner (and the chicken too!)

Tilt-a-Whirl!

Left! . . . Right! . . . Spin!!!

Hurricane!!!

While the rest of us took a much needed breather, these two went on a second time!

Bumper Cars!!!

During the magic show, one of our party was chosen to play the lovely assistant.

Setting the scene . . .

Ta Da!!!  How did he do that?

We also saw some not-so-typical county fair critters.

More rides!!!

The Scrambler became the day's hands-down favorite ride.

Mom with a friends prize-winning pink collection.

I found WALL-E panning for gold!!!

After countless games of Pirate Fluxx, it didn't surprise me when the girls excitedly announced they had discovered a pirate ship.

A Long Overdue Update.

On the 8^th a friend/blogger e-mailed saying she hoped all was well and that she missed my posts.  Here was my response . . .

Honestly I have not been posting because I have been so busy.  Since Speck died I have been dealing with a whole lot of chicken drama.  My teenagers (specifically the red sex-links) have been hiding nests around the yard; we found one nest with twelve eggs, and another with sixteen!  Also, they have been running in my veggie garden and taking dirt baths between my rows of corn.  All those issues seem small compared to the raccoon attack last Wednesday (Aug 3^rd).  

Dad let the chickens out of the coop at 7am, around 7:12am I woke up and while brushing my teeth I heard chickens running around the front yard (a not approved chicken zone); in the twelve minutes they had been outside a raccoon had killed one chicken and Bob had a pretty serious gash in his back.  We locked the chickens in, scouted for the enemy and found nothing.  Late that afternoon we let the chickens out again figuring a nocturnal creature would not return during the day.  Putting the chickens away that evening we discovered Little Hen was missing, a search revealed a pile of black feathers near where the original attack had occurred.  Currently we have a trap out for the raccoon (though he seems to have moved away), and are keeping the chickens confined to their pen.

On the bright side the sex-links now lay in the nesting boxes.  Bob looks like he will make a full recovery; no matter how annoying he can be, he has proved himself a very good rooster.  In addition to the chicken issues taking up my time, my garden has really taken off.  So far I have only harvested three varieties of squash (by the bucket full!) and several batches of radishes, but I hope to be picking tomatoes soon! 

Right now we have Trisha from abitmorethanajournal.blogspot.com along with her two girls here visiting; Lydia and Rachel have been having so much fun!  All of us will be at the fair on Wednesday, will we see you there?????  We will definitely look for all your entries!

So that is why I have not been blogging, I do plan on getting back to it before it gathers too much dust.  

I hope to see you at the fair!!!  

Elizabeth :) 

So here I am, back with duster in hand.  Since the letter above, life has been slowly resuming a normal pace around here.  Our guests have returned home, the raccoon has not been seen in over a week, and the chickens have been let out to roam the yard again.  The only one greatly affected is Bob; he has a significant limp which he will probably have the rest of his life.  He still gets around, but I do not believe he could ward off another animal attack; fortunately, little Roy is coming up the pike and will hopefully grow into as good a rooster as Bob has proven to be.

Whew!  I think that was a fairly good “dusting.”  I should have some Nevada County Fair pictures up next time.  TTFN!