A moment of silence, please.

RIP

Nutmeg 4/25/10-5/29/10

We were enjoying a lovely dinner out with the family on Saturday night at Der Dutchman. I thought, "We should really get back to the chicks to lock them up for the night..." Ben told me later that he thought the same thing. As we drove home at 9pm we watched the sun set. The dogs were barking wildly in the house when I came in and I let them out, as Ben and Z were slowly making their way from the car to the coop to put the chicks away for the night. The dogs tore up the hill straight to the coop, barking wildly. Z came down to tell me that a chickie was dead. I gave him a hug and was thankful it wasn't more as our friends with the incubator lost all of their chickens just a week ago. Z cried and cried after we put him to bed that night. Ben and I had heavy hearts too. The next morning after I watered the garden, I went to see which one it was, and I only counted nine chicks. We had eleven.

We think a raccoon got into the coop. Mean old coon just killed 'em and didn't even eat them. Thankfully our naked dogs ran up and scared him away before he got more of our birds. Also, we're thankful it was likely two roosters (sorry Nutmeg!). You only need one rooster and we were thinking we had 2-3. Now time will tell if we have any. Currently, none are apparent roosters.

Thankfully, we still have:

Gwen (who, like her mother, is not very photogenic)

Mutsu and Ping (the fiesty duo)

and Z's special Wing-Wing who is adventurous and sweet,

along with five other no-namers, that used to be six (may he or she also rest in peace). These pictures were taken last Monday when we put them outside for the first time. They absolutely loved it. It was like watching prisoners set free. They would jump and run and play. They love their new coop that Ben built with a ramp to take them into the yard. The fence is only for honest chickens, Ben likes to say, because it doesn't keep them in as much as tell them where their boundaries are. He's been training them to come to him when he calls. We're pretty sure they think he's their mommy. Silly birds! I'm the mommy!

We had a lovely weekend with family. How special to have my grandparents from TN here, aunt and uncle from NJ, cousins from PA, NJ and MD, as well as my parents from Germany. Such a good time we had, I hope to share pictures soon. Happy Memorial Day!