Recently, I went out to the backyard for something and was greeted with an unexpected visitor just hanging out on our lawn. The second I came out the door he booked it, making haste for the wall. But instead of hopping it and running off, he just hung out. Watching me. But more importantly, watching our chickens.

This is the third time I’ve seen a hawk in our Long Beach, California backyard. They want chicken for lunch soooo bad, guys. Every sighting has been when it’s started getting cold, so I’m guessing they spot our girls and try to get at em because food’s getting a little scarce… in the balmy 60 degree winter? I dunno. But move along, buddy. You’ll get no chicken tenders here.

Yesterday Josh walks into our office and says what no chicken owner wants to hear:

“We’re missing a chicken.”

Ummmm WHAT?!?! How are we missing a chicken?! I mean, last fall I saw a hawk hanging around our backyard cuz he was looking for a chicken dinner, but that was because our dog was in the other room and couldn’t tell us something was up. And none of the neighborhood cats messes with our chickens! Where could Judy Plume have gone?!?!

Josh went back out to the yard and searched for another 20 minutes. And then he noticed the box under our lemon tree.

The sturdy one that sits on its side as an option for places for our chickens to lay their eggs.

The one that was now sitting overturned.

“Nooooo….,” he thought, “she’s not under there.”

But oh yes. Yes she was. With 2 eggs, which leads us to believe she’d been stuck under there for 2 days. Josh let her out and she hightailed it for the water bowls, where she spent the next 10 minutes drinking, poor girl!

Moral of the story? A chicken in the hand is worth 2 eggs in the cardboard box you find her in 2 days after she’s gone missing.

AAAAAAA!!!!

Our chickens have officially started laying eggs!! Josh found the first one hiding behind a bush in the backyard yesterday morning, and throughout the day two more eggs turned up behind a rosebush! We prompty cooked up the eggs  into omelettes for breakfast this morning, and they were super-delicious!

Click here to check out some pics - taste test between our homegrown eggs and storebought eggs coming soon!

We’ve started seeing awesome results from some of our backyard garden! Corn, jalepenos, onions, tomatoes, garlic – it’s all there and accounted for!

I say awesome results from some of our backyard garden because other crops have not faired as well… Chickens, I’m looking in your direction when I say our strawberries and broccoli have met an unfortunate, pecked-at-looking end. We planted artichokes, too, but while the plants have done well we haven’t seen any actual artichokes! It seems like our yellow tomato plant that’s right next to it may be leaching all the good nutrients from the soil, because it’s grown like a monster.

Our buddy Jay has pumpkins starting at his house and he has to thin em out soon, so we’re hoping to snag a few seedlings from him – here’s hopin’ we can have homegrown pumpkins by Halloween!

last night, i let our dogs out for the last time before bed at around 10:30. and as i was letting them in, i thought to myself “self, you should go outside and close that chicken coop door.” and the exact same time i thought it, i walked into the bedroom and crawled into bed.

zzzzzz…..

around 4am, the dogs and i were awoken by a chicken-y sounding ruckus coming from the backyard. “OH SHIT!!” i thought to myself, putting on my glasses and runnin to see what the hell was going on, jimmy runnin in front of me to regulate any backyard cat intruders. it was dark, so i couldn’t really see what the eff was up, but i saw one lone chicken kinda hanging out near the patio. the rest were tucked safely into their nesting boxes. and jimmy starts barking like crazy over by our little patch of corn. he’s cornered himself a possum!

OH SNAPS!!! i thought… what do i do, what do i do… if jimmy engages with this thing who knows what the hell kinda diseases he’ll pick up. what do i do… and i spot the hose lyin near me. it’s good on two levels – if i spray the hose jimmy will back off because he hates most watery things, and hopefully it’ll scare the possum away to boot. so i set that thing to FULL STUN, and i started lettin that possum have it. he took off into our corn patch looking for cover, and found none since i just walked over and sprayed directly at him from my side of the little fence. there’s a big ol’ star jasmine plant in that patch, too, and as i was spraying i saw that plant start rustling something fierce, like our freaky little middle of the night visitor was making a hasty getaway!

i ushered the stunned chicken (one of the Doublemint Twins) on the patio back into the coop and went back to bed. she’s got a tiny bit of a limp this morning, but she may have just landed wrong coming out of the coop. we’ll keep an eye on her, but i’m pretty sure she’ll be all right!

here’s what i wanna know – why aren’t possums ever cute when you see em in real life? they’re never all kitten/puppy/fluffy “hi i’m adorable pick me up and love me!” like this possum here:

"Forest Green Possum" by A Cagey Bee

no. possums are never cute like that. it’s one of the harsh rules of nature. when you run into a possum at 4am, they always look more like this:

if anyone knows why that is, i think you should share with the class. also, i can’t be completely sure my possum last night was wearing a top hat. i was pretty tired when i was chasing him off, so he might have actually been wearing a monocle, not a snappy hat.

last night, i let our dogs out for the last time before bed at around 10:30. and as i was letting them in, i thought to myself “self, you should go outside and close that chicken coop door.” and the exact same time i thought it, i walked into the bedroom and crawled into bed.

zzzzzz…..

around 4am, the dogs and i were awoken by a chicken-y sounding ruckus coming from the backyard. “OH SHIT!!” i thought to myself, putting on my glasses and runnin to see what the hell was going on, jimmy runnin in front of me to regulate any backyard cat intruders. it was dark, so i couldn’t really see what the eff was up, but i saw one lone chicken kinda hanging out near the patio. the rest were tucked safely into their nesting boxes. and jimmy starts barking like crazy over by our little patch of corn. he’s cornered himself a possum!

OH SNAPS!!! i thought… what do i do, what do i do… if jimmy engages with this thing who knows what the hell kinda diseases he’ll pick up. what do i do… and i spot the hose lyin near me. it’s good on two levels – if i spray the hose jimmy will back off because he hates most watery things, and hopefully it’ll scare the possum away to boot. so i set that thing to FULL STUN, and i started lettin that possum have it. he took off into our corn patch looking for cover, and found none since i just walked over and sprayed directly at him from my side of the little fence. there’s a big ol’ star jasmine plant in that patch, too, and as i was spraying i saw that plant start rustling something fierce, like our freaky little middle of the night visitor was making a hasty getaway!

i ushered the stunned chicken (one of the Doublemint Twins) on the patio back into the coop and went back to bed. she’s got a tiny bit of a limp this morning, but she may have just landed wrong coming out of the coop. we’ll keep an eye on her, but i’m pretty sure she’ll be all right!

here’s what i wanna know – why aren’t possums ever cute when you see em in real life? they’re never all kitten/puppy/fluffy “hi i’m adorable pick me up and love me!” like this possum here:

"Forest Green Possum" by A Cagey Bee

no. possums are never cute like that. it’s one of the harsh rules of nature. when you run into a possum at 4am, they always look more like this:

if anyone knows why that is, i think you should share with the class. also, i can’t be completely sure my possum last night was wearing a top hat. i was pretty tired when i was chasing him off, so he might have actually been wearing a monocle, not a snappy hat.

Our flock of chickens were nice enough to pause for photos yesterday! (Mostly because I was nice enough to put out that tray of food while they were runnin’ around the backyard…)

One of the Doublemint Twins high-tails it for her car – no paparazzi please!

Lady Cluckington proves the science fact that if you get down on their level and take iPhone pictures, chickens kinda look like monsters.

Big Momma investigates my camera while Old Yeller gets to chowin’ down on some scratch.

Lady Cluckington models the latest in “how the eff do you tell your chickens apart” accessories – we have different colored cable ties on their legs!

Incidentally… if we ended up with any dudes in this batch of hens we suspect this one may be Lord Cluckington and not a Lady… her/his waddle keeps getting bigger and redder – time will tell. And if he/she starts crowing at 4am on a Saturday he/she is outta here!