One of these kids...

I've had this song running through my head whenever I go take a peek at the chicks:



What do you think?




I think one of these kids is a rooster, don't you? If so, he's the biggest scaredy-cat rooster I have ever met. The madam in the top photograph will let me pet her, has jumped out of the brooder and cruised around the laundry room floor (it's a good four-foot drop), and likes to check out the camera. The beauty below runs screeching away when I take the top off of the pen to change their water. This guy is the one whose grody legs and feet I showed you a couple of weeks ago. He's grown into them, though, and now I think he's pretty. Fickle, I know.

Last weekend it was 84 degrees, Dave framed the coop, and we were all set to finish it tomorrow. Today we woke up to snow, and it is hailing hard as I type this. So, it will wait another week. Here's how it looked earlier today:
We are going to put a gutter up on the metal roof and then attach a rain barrel - that way we'll have a way to catch and collect clean rainwater that can be used for the birds and for the garden. Normal roofs slough off material that isn't safe to ingest, so the water collected from our house's gutters can only go on the ornamental plants around the house. It's really exciting to get some permaculture stuff going in our own backyard.

Now we just have to wait for spring to come back.