I am trying to decide about upcoming chicken butchering.  This is what is left of the 24 pack of pink, purple and blue leg bands that I put on the hayloft chickens upon their release.  So it looks like there were 6 roosters and 3 undecideds at that time as well as 8 hens.

But the hay loft roosters have been vicious.  Twice now I have found a hen terrified in the barn walls trying to get away from them.

So yesterday I caught 6 of them and put them in the weasel-proof pen.  It was traumatizing for them (and me).  I was hoping just to grab their legs while they were roosting for the night, but they were too wiley for that.  So I had to use a fishing net to catch them.  I caught 6, but one of the worst offenders is still on the loose.

The 2 remaining McMurray roosters are perfectly nice (after all of the predation).  I would love to keep them both but shouldn’t.  This, I believe, is a Columbia Wyandotte.  This breed is supposed to be docile.  So I am thinking of sending the Araucana father of these mean hay loft roosters to the butcher and keeping this guy instead.  There is also a perfectly docile orange rooster, but I already have an orange rooster.  It is so sad to kill a nice rooster just because of his color.  But I am trying to keep diversity in my flock as my hope is that I will no longer order hatchery chickens and just make my own.

I have decide yet again not to butcher the hens.  They are making little eggs for us so I am enchanted.

In other news, we have finished the HBO House of the Dragon.  It was not as good as Game of Thrones but still entertaining.  This is an amazing map of the region.

It turns out that pigs like leftover Piccalilli.

I am trying to train our Irish Dexter cow Marji to go into the llama stanchion.  I am hoping to milk her.  So far, so good.

We have rain!  After an amazingly prolonged drought.  This is the quickest in my 57 year life that the seasons have change so profoundly.  It seems like we went from the height of summer to the depths of winter in a day here.

I harvested all of the ripe squash as the rodents have started eating them.  Here are some of the pumpkins on the front step.

And here is the largest of them which I carved.

And here is Walda in a pasture of mostly dead grass.

And here is Harlen and Wendel on the same grass.  They camouflage better.

I am feeding those front step pumpkins to the chickens.  Here is the first one.

My work offered me tickets to a Mariners game versus a virtual chocolate experience. I chose the latter, but the chocolate never came.  It finally did yesterday, and Tom and I were able to enjoy a lovely chocolate experience.

And this evening we enjoyed Babci’s Ribs, and I also enjoyed Polish Beet Salad.  It is for A Taste of Old Colony History event tomorrow when I am working.  So I made the recipes early, and they are really good.

So that is the news from Schoonover Farm.