I'm dreaming of a white...Halloween?

This post is delayed, as I have been sick for the last week with a terrible, awful, cold.  It appears that I might survive it, though, so I'm rejoining the land of the living and blogging.

The girls are continuing to lay predominantly in the tree.  During this past week, we've been consistently getting 7-8 eggs a day, with at least five of those eggs being laid in the tree.  I don't mind getting the eggs out of the tree for now, so we've postponed the tree-blocking-off plans for now.  Once it gets colder, though, I think we will be trying to figure out some way to get them to all lay in the nest boxes so that the eggs don't freeze.  Now that the girls are laying, they are much hungrier!  They are going through their chicken feed much more quickly than before, and get supplemental table scraps and kitchen odds and ends every day.  A favorite from this week was leftover apple cinnamon baked oatmeal, which nearly caused a feeding frenzy.

Barred rock laying in the tree

Girls attacking leftover oatmeal

One of the girls in a nest box

My other nest box compliant chicken

We headed over to my parents' last weekend for the Miler's half marathon, but the race plans were thwarted by our random Halloween snowstorm.  Bullet and Lily had never seen snow before, so it took them a few minutes to get used to the white stuff outside when we took them out on Sunday morning.  Bullet was mostly excited by the snow, but Lily was a little intimidated, and tucked her tail firmly between her legs.  Luckily, their cousin Stoney quickly showed them that snow is for running in, jumping in, playing in, and eating.

Bullet says hello to the snow

So, we can chew on sticks in the snow?

Ok, snow is awesome!

My parents' apple tree

It was so strange to see snow covering trees that still had their leaves, and to see tufts of green grass poking through the snow in places.  I can't remember ever having a real snowstorm this early in the year before.  We lost power at home, but only for about 18 hours, unlike our poor friends in Connecticut who are still in the dark!  Now the snow has all melted and we're enjoying a warm fall day.  Such strange weather.  The girls were confused by the snow, but eventually figured out that it was okay to stand on.  They had to come to this realization every time they left the coop, so I have a feeling it will be a long winter for them.

During our visit, Taperman finally received his first dozen eggs.  Since the girls have been so productive, Mamie got a dozen too.  Taperman greatly enjoyed his first meal of eggs, and I think approves of the job the girls are doing.

Bullet had a terrible wildlife run-in on Friday night, when he had the misfortune of thinking that it would be a good idea to hunt a porcupine.  It wasn't.  Mike found him standing in the yard, pawing at his face.  Luckily, the porcupine didn't get him too badly, and he was very brave.  Our vet is wonderful, and she made him comfortable (with the aid of drugs, of course), while she and Mike pulled out the quills and talked human versus animal anesthesia.  Yesterday Bullet spent most of the day resting and moping around the house, but today he's back to normal.  We hope that he's learned to avoid porcupines.

Poor Bullet!