Yesterday for a pre-dinner cocktail I made a Queen’s Berries Martini.  I got the idea from a recent email from Outside Oslo.  We have all the ingredients including frozen raspberries and blueberries (from last year I am trying to use up).  Except we did not have Lillet Blanc.  The best I could do was Lillet Rose from our local grocery store.  So here are the ingredients all assembled with the berries soaking in the vodka.

And here it is.  Isn’t is pretty? It was quite strong so I did add some extra Lillet to tone it down a little.

So this morning all the chicks were still alive.  I figured out from the below photo that all of the ones who were killed were indeed from the younger batch of chicks that I had released on July 2.  Based on the photos I determined that we lost one Columbian Wyandotte, one Rhode Island Red and two Barred Rocks.  It is all so sad.  I was especially enjoying watching the Barred Rocks growing up, watching their gorgeous fine barring on their necks.

So I decided that since the older “chicks” were doing fine that I would release them again.  I did grab one of the surviving Barred Rocks and tossed him in with the younger chicks.  The older chicks were really enjoying being outside again, poking around in the weeds and mixing with the full-grown chickens.

And here are the captive chicks.  I added the second Barred Rock after this photo.  So they will remain in captivity for a while longer until they are bigger and hopefully smarter.