Well, this is the story of Rupert the Runt. Rupert is a sad little hen-to-be who has literally been henpecked a lot. Her shoulders and mid-back are all bare and her sister hens are the apparent culprits. I took Rupert out of the general population and gave her her own place to live for a while, until she gets a lot bigger and feathered.

I had watched the other chickens picking on her and kicking her out of the food and water dishes with a well placed nudge or wing flip. She runs faster than all get out, but the reasons why are kind of sad. I picked her up and she was squawking a bit at first, and then I was gently petting her and she became quiet, kind of settled into my hand, and if pullets could purr, she'd have been purring.

Last night, the coyotes found the henhouse and were whooping it up at 2AM. I was worried about the chicks, so I asked Mike if he'd come out with me and just check on them. I was wearing my flannel nightgown and he put on his robe and we wandered out there and they were fine. While we didn't hear from the coyotes again, I had a hard time getting back to sleep. I got up with the kids and once Russell was off to school, I went back to bed and slept until 10. It was lovely and beautiful and wickedly delicious.

Today, my penance was that I got most of our bedroom painted. I mixed a dark goldenrod and a light yellow, which made a beautiful butterscotch. I only missed a small place and that's because the mirror doors are too heavy to lift by myself. Mike's going to help me move those tonight, and we'll finish it. The only thing that will be left is the red trim in the room, which I'll finish tomorrow. Then I'm going to start moving stuff in. I'm not worrying heavily about the bathrooms because they'll be fast, so I'm going to rip down the hall and into the livingroom, so we can get stuff moving. The hall will be quicker than spit, but the livingroom is going to take a lot of time to tape around everything. I'm hoping that we can get the livingroom taped this weekend, but I'm not holding my breath. Mike's birthday is this weekend, so I'm not sure how much we'll get done in light of him hitting yet another year in that decade that many of us no longer know: the twenties. Lucky bastard!