What is wrong with spring this year?! I haven't seen such a crappy March since I've been here. It's not even the snow, that's not a big deal here, it's the cold. I'm tired of being cold, and I've got things to do outside. This is what spring is like in Michigan, and I moved down here to get away from that.
My poor daffs have been frozen and snowed on so many times. They've been blooming since the middle of February!
This is also the first time in 9 years I've had spring fever. For me, the main symptoms of spring fever are depression and sometimes unreasonable pissed-offness. In MI, you get teased and denied spring weather well into May, and it's rough on the mood. Here, reliably good weather comes early enough that I don't have time to get depressed about it. Or at least it did until this year. I get through February by believing that March will be much better, but here it is the end of March and it still looks and feels like February. I am not content these days.
In other news.
Buffy hatched these little pretties on Sunday. At first, there was 5, and then I found another later that day. I can take a guess about colors. The solid blondies are probably buff and/or white. The lightest patterned chick (top right) might be white, too, but I hope not. One of Buffy's last year started out a lot like that and then became pure white.
The 2 darker patterned ones might not be Buffy's. The hens share nests. I think they're birchens. There's 2 birchen hens and the only roos are birchen and red. Red is the alpha roo, but I've seen Bert hit on a hen when Red wasn't looking.
This is Buffy and her last clutch last year. Sadly, none survived to maturity.
The other hens are sharing the other boxes and there have been PILES of eggs since early February! What happens to them all? It's been so freezing cold, any eggs that I don't see hens sitting on for any length of time get tossed over the fence into the field for the crows. Yeah, the crows eat them. A friend mentioned that she tossed "bad" eggs out into the yard for the crows. Shortly after that, I saw my crows carrying off the eggs they found over there. I suppose I could eat some of those eggs, but again, they've probably been frozen. I'll only eat eggs I find fresh and I can't tell which those are when several new eggs appear in each nest every day. When it gets to be too many, I toss them. How many is too many? I have chucked close to 2 dozen at a time, leaving 4 or so to keep the hens laying in the box. That's a PILE!
Buffy is still sitting on 6 eggs that haven't hatched yet. I'm not sure if they're bad, or if they're younger. I did move some from the pile in another box to her clutch. I'm also thinking about moving some more that way since she's my proven broody. At this time, there's always 2 hens hunkered down in that other box at the same time and they get quite pissed if I try to see what's going on under them. Buffy doesn't get as angry about it.
I also learned another thing about hens. They talk to their babies. The day I discovered Buffy's had hatched, she was softly clucking. A sound I hadn't heard any other time. Sure enough, when I gently picked her up, there were chicks under her. So now I know how to tell eggs have hatched. I had also jotted a note about when I expected them to hatch based on when she went broody. I was spot on, BTW.
In rabbit news, not much new. I have to get pictures of Daydreamer's 2 little boys. They are about 5 weeks old now. The keeper is a nicely broken silver marten. Not crazy about the fact that he's a silver marten, but I'll see how he grows up. The other is an otter "hotot". That's what I call it when they only have color on the eyes and ears. He's the one with the type of course! He's way too cute for something I really can't use. I'm almost tempted to keep him for a pet, except that I can't justify keeping bunnies for that reason. I'll see how I feel about it when someone hits me up for a pet when he's ready to go. Been getting the usual Easter bunny inquiries, but I have nothing else available.
Baroquen's 3 are doing well and they are all nicely broken black otters. The other doe that was due right after her failed, but she actually did pretty well for a 1st-timer. The kits weren't mangled or stretched which is a good sign for success in the future. Next litters are due in about 2 weeks. Sure hope the weather gets better by then!
