Yesterday, we had friends over and the women folk cooked in the kitchen and brought out drinks while the men worked on the chicken coop remodel. With nearly 50 chickens, we need a bigger coop than the one that the 22 chickens are in, so we're converting the metal three-sided shed to a four-sided shed with a door that the chickens can spread out in. Right now, we've got everyone mushed together and the only way they're not beating the crap out of each other is that the big girls go out and take dirt baths during the day, while the babies, who we just raised and who just got their feathers, linger in the coop, too chicken to go outside with the big girls.

I've got the half dozen babies in the livingroom and I'm training Tweetie to let me pick him up and pet him without him screeching his little chicken alarm system while I do it. He usually gets a good whiff of me and gets warm in my hands and falls to sleep while I pet him with my pinkie. I guess I make a good momma chicken.

Once we get the girls transferred to their new digs, we're keeping out about a half dozen badly defeathered birds and dosing them up on antibiotics because they look like shit and we don't know why. Most of the birds look okay, but about 5-6 look like shit, so we're going to separate them and let them heal and regrow their feathers. We don't know if they're sick or not, but a couple have really bright red chicken butts, so we think they may be sick.

Tomorrow, I also start putting in my garden. Mike tilled the garden for me today, so tomorrow I slather up in spf45, put on my straw hat, and jeans, and garden. That's how skin cancer candidates garden at 5000 ft. It makes me feel old and decrepid, I tell ya.

Wait! I am old and decrepid -- too late.