Parma .. well they are producing eggs yet, other wise I could send you some eggs. Let's see .. I could send you a big bag of Three Cool Chicks Gardening Gold .. otherwise known as a big bag of chicken poop. :D *LOL* Or .. you could hold out for eggs. ;) Most people think Clover is the prettiest. I think my favorite looks wise is Olive, I love her dark head and fuzzy face. I think Hazel has the nicest personality, she's very sweet. Clover just cracks me up, she's a total nut .. she comes out with some of the strangest sounds you've ever heard and is such a drama queen! I'll hear her out there griping about something and I always have to go see .. she makes a huge fuss out of nothing, but it's pretty amusing! Pam .. chickens are fairly easy to raise. When they are babies they have a greater chance of disease and it's not all that uncommon to lose a couple. We started out with four and lost one on Easter morning, not a great way to start the day! Most people feed them medicated feed to start off with to help stave off infection or disease, then switch them over to non-medicated about 8 weeks in once they have a better immune system. Basically when they are small chicks you keep them warm with a heat lamp, feed them good chick grower feed, keep their brooder ( ours was made out of a cardboard box ) very clean and make sure they have fresh water. We started ours out in the house since it was spring and still chilly .. they need to be kept very warm for several weeks until their feathers come in, you decrease the temp by each week as they grow. We moved ours out into their hen house at 10 weeks old with their heat lamp for nights, but we live in NC and it had warmed up a lot by then. You continue to feed them grower feed and baby grit until they start to lay eggs. Grit is ground stone bought at the feed store, since chickens don't have teeth they need this to help digest/grind their food. Then you switch them over to layer formula food and adult grit. The layer formula has more calcium in it and helps them form their eggs. Other than that they can have most fresh fruit and veggies as treat, they also like plain yogurt a lot .. mine love clipping from my herbs garden too. There are guidelines on the internet for how much room the chickens actually need, but most of the time the guidelines run too small. Ideally they need a fair amount of room for their coop, but not huge .. the girls coop ( house ) is 6' x 8' .. that's pretty large by most standards for three chickens. Their run ( yard ) is 8' x 10' and they are pretty comfortable in that. They have the full run of both during the day, at night they go into their coop when it start to get dusky out. I shut the door between the coop and the run when they go to bed, just for extra protection against predators although their run is built like fort knox. *LOL* We have dogs, so we can't let them free range, but if you can .. that's the best for them as long as the are protected from predators. Since we live in NC we don't get into the 20's but a handful of times a year, 10 F is maybe a once a year thing. So at night to start off with I'll leave their heat lamp on, if it's going to dip colder .. I'll probably plug in an electric heater for them, but that will only be a few times a year here. An adult bird fully feathered can do 30's - 40's no problem, but I'll still probably supplment their heat some. In the summer they can over heat in our climate, if it's going to get above 90F .. I plug in a fan for them just to move the air and make sure they have lots of fresh, cold water. I clean their whole coop and run once a week, with a quick, couple second spot scoop under the roost every day ( the poopiest part ). I then put down new wood shavings. Also before putting down new bedding I put down stall dry, which is made out of demetrius earth. It helps keep the fly population down and makes their run and coop fresh .. it doesn't stink out there and chickens poop can be very smelly, the stuff is great. When I clean out their run/coop and bring the wood shaving poop mixture over to my composting bins and chuck it right in. :) All in all it's not very hard to take care of them .. much easier than dogs and cat .. I have five dogs and one cat.

It helped tremendously. For me, and I suspect for many others, nothing will motivate you as much as presenting your work to others. Reading my work in front of others is both scary and exciting, and hearing it in a radically different context than my own kitchen is more helpful than I could have imagined. On another note, I have had a sad event recently - my brother died at the age of 45 after a sudden short illness. All of you mothers out there will understand that this was devastating to my mom. At the age of 77, she did not expect to experience the death of an adult child. Coming so close after this event, she was absolutely thrilled at this modest happening. I got my love of poetry and literature from her, both in my genes and in my upbringing - she read us poetry and had us memorizing it as soon as we could talk. So I am very, very happy that this gave her a bit of brightness in this sorrowful time.

Hi Pat. Wrens like to make an enclosed nest with the hole that's hardly visible. The opening to the nest is on the far side and the wren is sitting down inside it.

"Deer chew on them regularly." Hoo boy!! I wish that was the case here! Horsetails are a serious weed in my area and very difficult to control or remove. And we have a large deer population......but local deer don't care a fig about the horsetails. Nor do they browse on English ivy, as others from the east coast have mentioned and that too is a seriously invasive weed species in my locale. Now if we could only train our local deer to have east coast appetites, life could be good and the seriousness of some weed issues could be lessened :-) Our deer just seem to much prefer garden plants to any weeds they may find......