Well, it wasn’t a one off
It’s definitely the pekin, though it’s awfully hard for me to believe. She’s tiny. She’s laid an egg nearly every day since the first one.
As much as I love pekin eggs (they’re nearly all yolk!) this is not a good thing. Laying eggs is stressful on a hen and she’s not likely to have a long life, poor thing.
My first two chickens, one would go broody every summer and stop laying. I went through ructions with her every year. I bet she didn’t lay a dozen eggs in her life. She lived to be eight. The other one laid eggs regularly and dropped dead at three.
Let that be a lesson: don’t lay eggs!
July 7, 2026 — 5:59 pm
Comments: 1
Yes, yes…it’s a stupid Facebook meme
It’s the “what medieval owl are you today” meme from Facebook. It came across my feed earlier and I couldn’t find it when I went back to look. To my surprise, when I did an Images search, there are at least three variants. Plenty of weird Medieval owls to go around, I guess.
I’m fobbing you off with a meme because I’ve been in an all day conference about Sussex geology and I ain’t got nothing to say about it. Hope you had a wonderful Fourth! My neighbor on the corner made pie for the occasion, so I had that.
July 6, 2026 — 6:05 pm
Comments: 3
Happy birthdays all around!
Tomorrow is Sam’s 8th birthday (4th of July is why he’s called Sam). Everyone asked me today what I’m doing and the answer is…nothing. The Fourth was never a favorite of mine – it was hot wherever I lived and the last thing I wanted to do was stand over a grill.
Then there was the year I climbed up on the roof to watch the fireworks and the neighbors fired bottle rockets at me.
Have a good weekend. Doing anything special this 4th?
July 3, 2026 — 4:25 pm
Comments: 11
I did it first!
In London in 1997, life-sized plaster noses appeared all over London affixed to walls. They arrived without explanation or credit and, human beings being human beings, legends began to spring up around them.
They were all wrong. It wasn’t until 2011 that an artist named Rick Buckley took credit. They were all casts of his substantial hooter and they were placed directly beneath CCTV cameras. To protest CCTV cameras. You’d think someone would have noticed.
As it happens, way back in 1978, when I were in art school, I discovered an annoying fact. I wanted to learn real art skills – painting and sculpting and so on – and my teachers were all into thinky performance art. The only common ground I could find was surreal art: they’d let me do representational things if they were absurd.
I did a series of cartoons featuring a life-sized plasticine version of my own substantial nose. I really don’t remember anything about it except that I finished the project and had these…noses left over.
So I stuck them on things. As you do. And I don’t remember anything more about that except my fellow students were surprisingly tolerant of them and it was some time before the last one was stolen or destroyed.
I understand some of Buckley’s noses are still out there.
July 2, 2026 — 5:57 pm
Comments: 6
I simply don’t believe it
Sam the rooster was in the henhouse making a terrific noise this morning. To the point I finally checked him out. He was sitting on THIS! And no, I’m quite sure he didn’t lay it himself.
If the seller was right, these two ladies are now three months old. That simply can’t be. Point of lay is, on average, six months. Up to nine months for a silky. I asked around Facebook and nobody has ever heard of a hen laying before four months (and that’s a bit of a freak).
The obvious answer is that I misheard him or he was misinformed and one or both of them is actually four months old. But Winneretta, the little pekin, is the most likely culprit and she’s just over half the size of a full-grown bird.
I’m astonished. [insert thesaurus.com list of synonyms for ‘astonished’]
July 1, 2026 — 5:58 pm
Comments: 4