June 22, 2007 

slept most of the morning away and did not get out of bed until 10 am when "Blossom" was protesting she was hungry. I was a little late on the morning chores, but it looked like everyone forgave me. "Jackie" one of the milk goats is so funny. We have a huge pile of rails stacked in the barnyard to finish the fencing around it and she jumped like a horse in a steeplechase over them to get to the milking stand where her grain was waiting and "Blossom" nurses from her.

Still doing work on magazine stuff, but I will address envelopes tonight and tomorrow and give myself a bit of a break since they can't be mailed until Monday. We have Saturday Market tomorrow and I teach a class on Sunday, so today is a good day to take things slow. I may take a nap today too.

On our way to print the magazine yesterday, I made Amy stop and back up. I used to know every bird known to man and used to study them as a 4th grader on. I could tell you even what their eggs looked like and how many to a nest. I think I read Peterson's Field Guide for Birds forwards and backwards for years. But I knew I had never seen one of these guys before with their bright yellow heads. There were maybe 20-30 of them in a field not far from where the printing press lives. Amy evidently had more energy than I did last night and I found an email in my box this morning telling me she figured out what they were. It is a Yellow Headed Blackbird. 

The incubating eggs should start hatching out soon. Mary would like to candle them again tonight to see their progress. While I was up in the barns this morning, I decided to make sure all my older flock was well leg-banded and I put the 77 younger birds hatched on May 18th in with them. So far they seem to be all getting along well and they have enough room. I want to clean out the brooder room where they have been living and give it a few days rest before the new batch of chicks go into it. The Chantecler eggs should start hatching on June 27th and the turkey eggs on July 4th.