Chickens for scale
I told you this rose was about to explode (here it is in color.
Positively the last chicken post of the week. Have a good weekend!
June 5, 2026 — 5:55 pm
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Simple answer
I tease Uncle B that he has an advanced degree in Edwardian lesbians. It started innocently enough with an interest in Vita Sackville-West, because of her fabulous garden, but he soon stumbled over Vita’s longtime love interest Violet Trefusis.
Which, Violet being no better than she should have been, led to an entire network of rich Edwardian lesbians, including Winneretta Singer, heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune. Not directly connected but of the same ilk was Dolly Wilde, Oscar Wilde’s niece.
So the answer is, many of my hens are named for Edwardian lesbian socialites – including Vita and Violet, Colette and Winneretta and Dolly. But not Spoon or Popo.
I asked ChatGPT to give me an image of Edwardian lesbians, and it created an image then said, “We’re so sorry, but the image we created may violate our content policies. If you think we got it wrong, please retry or edit your prompt.” I told it I didn’t want anything sexual, and it gave me this.
Which makes me wonder what the first image was.
June 4, 2026 — 5:12 pm
Comments: 1
And the other one
And this is Dolly – my first ever silkie! Silkies are so called because – well, just look at her! I’ve never seen anything so poofy and pettable in my life.
Google tells me they’re famously friendly chickens – like, lap chickens – but she’s still new and scared. She’s a buff color.
Silkies have lovely ‘fur’ and black or very dark flesh, bones and meat. Their ears are blue. They have an extra toe on each foot that you have to keep an eye on. I have to watch her in the rain – their feathers don’t repel moisture, so they get wet and cold.
She’s definitely the odd chicken out. She get along with the others fine, but often trails behind. The internet tells me that’s pretty normal for a silkie, but it probably would have been kinder to get two pekins or two silkies. Chickens are desperately racist.
June 3, 2026 — 4:50 pm
Comments: 3
Sam’s new lady
Meet Winnaretta, Sam’s new love interest. They hit it off instantly (they both get along with the other chicken, too, but we’ll talk about her tomorrow).
This is my absolute favorite color of bantam – gold partridge. I’ve only had one before, Vita chicken, and she was a gorgeous beast, but luckless. The only time my flock has had a bird at the very bottom of the pecking order. They all picked on her something awful. I tried to help her, but she was even scareder of me.
Vita’s sister won Best in Show that year. But poor Vita was all kinds of loser.
I once referred to her as a beautiful chicken and got cruelly laughed at. But just look at this lovely creature!
What surprises me is that Winnaretta is a bold little bird with an occasional attack of the zoomies. Quite the opposite of poor plump sad Vita.
June 2, 2026 — 4:45 pm
Comments: 4
I couldn’t take it any more
Now that Albert is gone, Sam is a loose end. They were frenemies, but at least it was company. Sam has been pecking around the garden calling out to a flock that is no more. He’s a very sociable bird and probably has a year left in him.
I had meant to take a break from chicken keeping, but I couldn’t take this. I phoned around until I found a chicken keeper I knew would have birds. Expensive birds, but birds nonetheless. I bought two.
We were barely out of the car before Sam ran up to the carrier in a state of great excitement. Why yes, I am going to tease the chicken reveal for days.
June 1, 2026 — 6:54 pm
Comments: 6
Albert has joined the Choir Eternal
He’s been looking sorry for himself for the last few days. If I scrambled him an egg, he’d perk up for a while, but this morning he was dead in a heap in the chicken run.
Farewell, Bertus! Not my favorite chicken – I have scars from his young aggressive days.
That leaves Sam, hatched on the 4th of July 2019. That makes him a pretty elderly boy, but I feel bad for him. He’s a very sociable chicken and I forever hear him chattering to a flock that is no longer there.
I was going to give chickens a rest for a while, but I’m going to call around tomorrow and see if I can find him a couple of girls. Let him go out with a bang.
Good weekend, everyone!
May 29, 2026 — 5:56 pm
Comments: 4
They’re not that rare, apparently
Nor are they blue, apparently.
There are two definitions of blue moon: “A seasonal Blue Moon is the third Full Moon of an astronomical season that has four Full Moons. A monthly Blue Moon is the second Full Moon in a calendar month with two Full Moons.”
To have a monthly blue moon, the first one has to occur at the very beginning of the month, because the whole moon cycle takes 29.5 days.
This post was longer, but my server burped and lost it. We’re having…issues.
May 28, 2026 — 3:16 pm
Comments: 2
There it is…
I’ve been waiting for this! Someone uncovered a manuscript – actually, just a piece of paper stuck in a book – with details of 22 peasant survivors of the Black Death.
The WHO says survivors are 30% to 60% for bubonic plague (though the pneumonic form is 100% fatal if untreated). That’s got to be a lot of people who were sick and got better; I’ve always been curious why we hear so little about them.
According to this document, the quickest recovery was a week and the longest nine weeks, but they all came back to working the land.
Picture is Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Triumph of Death (and not AI slop for once).
May 27, 2026 — 7:48 pm
Comments: 1
And under that was…bubblewrap?
Early Sunday morning – as I lay tucked up in my weaselly bed – there was an almighty bang. We dashed out to discover – the front of the kitchen had fallen off!
This isn’t an old part of the house. It’s part of extension put on in the 1970s. The front of it was some godawful ugly tile and we’ve talked about replacing it for ages.
Under the tile is chipboard. And under the chipboard, as the builder inspected it, is…bubblewrap? Was that even a thing in the Seventies? I shudder to think what’s under the bubblewrap. There’s a LOT that needs doing in the kitchen, so here we go!
Weasel gets a new kitchen!
May 26, 2026 — 5:57 pm
Comments: 8
…don’t…move
Record breaking warm for May. It was 81. There is a general panic.
Idiots.
First time I’ve felt properly warm outside since last August. I’m’a go outside and sit in the breeze with a G&T.
May 25, 2026 — 6:56 pm
Comments: 5