Cock a doodle doo!

This was one of many firsts that we've experienced this week at Windy Acres Farm. Our 7 week old Buff Orpington rooster is warbling his first crow. He beat the Black Australorp who started with a single sound yesterday. Mr. French's crow was definitely a very watered down version of the famous "cock a doodle doo". The boys are also beginning to spar. It looks like we may have as many as 4 roosters from this group of 17, possibly 5 if one of the Wyandottes turns out male. So far, everyone is getting along well.

Other firsts:

John and I can actually pet the lambs. We started giving them grasses through the fence, and they will now come when we call. The two boys love having the ears and noses scratched. The largest lamb, Napoleon, even comes up the fence to "hug" me and ask for more. Last night, we got them to eat grass from our hands inside the pen. This is another big conquest, usually they run from us.

Goldie, our Americauna/Easter Egger/Araucana pullet who was injured in a suspected hawk attack, ran up to me the other day and squatted for me to pick her up. This is the first time any of the chickens have done this because they wanted to. We have a few that like to be picked up, but it is usually not their idea, its ours.

Snakes! We've found two snakes, possibly poisonous (Copperhead?) in the past 4 days. The first one was curled up in the nest box (cat box top) that we use for the chickens. It looked like a blackened banana peel. I was looking inside for eggs and saw it. Charles came and "took care" of it. What is really scary is that John likes to pick these up when a chicken or duck is inside. He could easily have done that and might have been bitten. Last night, I was getting ready to put John to bed and Charles was watering trees. I heard him yelling and waving his arms. He said there was a snake (he said rattle) and wanted me to get his gun. I hate guns and don't want John any where near them, but here I was running with a loaded shotgun out the front door, through the chicken pen to give him the shotgun. He said he almost stepped on it. Pretty scary. He wasn't sure it was poisonous, possibly a Copperhead or maybe just a rat snake. It was bigger than the one on Sunday. Definitely scary. The scariest part is that both John and I were walking in this area a lot on Saturday and Sunday.

Tuffy has finally found the cat door from the kitchen to the breezeway. He's been going out there a few times this morning. So that's another first. He and Tiger also escaped last night during the ruckus with the snake. If John hadn't seen Tiger outside, we would not have known to look for Tuffy.

And the last first. Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the fire at the Biblical Arts Center. The Dallas Morning News had an article about what the future has in store. They plan to rebuild it. In a former life, the BAC was where I enjoyed the best job of my career. It always felt like a mission to create the exhibits and work with the artists there. Now the office that I worked from is probably nonexistant. It was right behind the large Miracle at Pentecost painting. Charles and I loved the place so much that we were married there on May 9, 1998.

This might not be considered a first, but was really sweet and cute. It was the first time we saw anything like this. One of our 7 week old goslings (Toulouse) was "kissing" or nipping the female lamb, Josephine, this morning. It looked so sweet. Well, Louis (Josephine's twin) got jealous and put a stop to it. But it was really neat while it was happening

Well, I guess that's all for now. Just thought I'd share.

Suze