The Shell of the Day

Gardening is sort of betwixt and between at Dun Hagan at the moment. We're in that place just before our first really cold weather of the year (for Florida) where the cold tender things are gamely hanging on and the cold hardy plantings are just starting to take off. The sycamore tree behind the house finally decided to start dropping its leaves about the first of the month so I spent an hour last Sunday raking up wheelbarrows full for use in the hen yard. The leaves are so big they don't make good mulch for the wind blowing them off. Naturally as soon as I had the area cleaned up it we had a windy night so that the next day you couldn't tell I'd raked at all. This weekend I'll round those up too for the chickens.

Speaking of which the Maran pullets have finally started to lay, two of them at least. The one surviving Silkie hen is laying now as well. I was becoming a bit exasperated with the Marans for taking so long, but it seems that in the short day part of the year the lesser light hours can have that affect on pullets.

The photo here is of the house eggs that I took tonight. There's no doubt about the ones the Marans laid with them being nearly the color of milk chocolate! The small pale cream colored eggs are from the Silkie. The green eggs are from the Easter Egger hens Snowball and Marshmallow. The rest are from the regular laying flock.

So far, so good.

.....Alan.