These Eggs are Ready for Easter!

My friend Kim has a flock of around 40 pastured hens on her property in Happy Valley, a diverse collection of heritage breeds like Ameraucanas, Wyandottes, Buff Orpingtons, among others. The variety and diversity shows in the magnificent color of the eggs she collects each morning, don't you think?

Puppies at Play

I've been bombarded with inquiries about Kitty's puppies, how they're doing, what they look like, etc., etc. Since I spent about four hours puppy-sitting yesterday, it was a prime opportunity to observe their activities, which consisted of play, sleep, eat, repeat.

Napping.

Occasionally these were interrupted by squatting in the wood chips at one end of their pen, but pretty much the previously mentioned three activities predominated. As you can see, they're looking less like guinea pigs and more like puppies, and are just beginning to chew on anything that catches their fancy. (My next visit is going to require close-toed shoes.)

More napping.

By the way, the sound in the background is a radio station. Kim Shira, the owner of Coedwig Cardigans, believes it's important to acclimate puppies to normal household sounds from the time they're very young. To that end she has a radio playing occasionally, as well as tapes that feature sirens, thunderstorms, traffic and other outside noises so they won't tend to be as reactive later.

You've got to admire someone who loves the breed as much as she does, and who's as conscientious as she is about how they're brought up.