A wet hen.

This chicken doesn't have a name because she is yet to distinguish herself (sorry, chicken). But maybe after today--she escaped for the sole purpose, apparently, of standing in the torrential rain--we'll give her a title.

Here's Randy retrieving her from the field, where she was waltzing around in the pouring rain:

And here she is looking rather irritated (either with herself for mussing or feathers or Randy for forcing her to suffer the indignities of retrieval):

Chicken-y doorstop.

A neighbor gave this to my mom a few days ago upon discovering that we have chickens and eggs:

I love it.

A Halloween potato.

Here's a potato that we dug up a few days ago that looks like, well, a finger:

Certain members of the family are totally grossed out by this potato, but I appreciate that nature has given me a Halloween decoration. (It is currently hanging out by a plastic cauldron in the kitchen.)

Meet Allegra.

This is a picture of Allegra being awesome:

Lily the pumpkin cat.

Today's eggs.

Sixteen eggs today!

Meet Lily.

This is Lily, our young adult cat. (We recently realized that she' really too big to be a kitten anymore.) And that's Alan.

Further proof that we have more than chickens.

I walked around with the camera today (it's really a surprisingly fun thing to do) and took a bunch of pictures.

Here's one of our horses, Alex, staring at me through a window into the stall, probably wondering why I'm wandering around and spooking everyone with my crazy flash. I am not skilled enough with photo magicks to fix her eyes, so she is just going to have to keep on looking like a freak. (Sorry, Alex.)

This is the front of the pack house, which we've turned into kind of a workshop (saws, storage, etc.). Like most of the buildings around here it's having an identity crisis because we're re-doing everything at once.

I think this sign is from an old laundromat:

Here's an old print that has somehow found its way into the pack house/workshop. It's hanging out on the ladder that's built in to the inside wall:

This is our mule, Ruby, and her ears. Ruby is actually a championship mule; she won some kind of endurance race that's held out west where horses and mules compete to see who is the best at being a survivor.

(Those trashcans are not normally there.)

Baxter and Pigeon.

A couple of pictures of Baxter and Pigeon (our Border Collie mix) being rascals.

Our dog Baxter.

This is Baxter, our Australian shepherd:

He is an exceptionally excellent dog, and his eye makeup is always perfect.

Chicken pictures.

I took the camera with me while I was gathering eggs.

The look a chicken gives you when you are invading her privacy:

One lonely egg:

EGGERS

Here is a lovely picture I took of the six million eggs we got out of the chicken coop the other day. We have a dozen chickens, and all of them are very enterprising.

Perpetually escaping chicken.

Pretty much every time we look out the kitchen window, this chicken--today I named her "Fraulein"--has escaped, and is happily eating every grub in our backyard. Now, it's just fine with me (and everyone else) that she's eating the grubs--but unfortunately there are also some dogs and cats that probably wouldn't say no to eating her. So you see, Fraulein, it is for your own good that we keep throwing you right back in the enclosure every time you get loose.

For the record, said "enclosure" is of a perfectly respectable and humane size. I suspect Fraulein just has a problem with authority.