sad note about Prima

True to her moniker, Prima always hit the milestones first among the chicks. Both coming into this world, and her dramatic exit this weekend. On Saturday, I went outside to toss some treats to the chickens. At first, no one would come, then the older crowd jiggled their way across the lawn. Seeing this, the chicks followed suit cautiously. I could only count 9 chicks, and Bandit was missing as well. At last, a tattered Bandit emerged from under the big pine tree and reluctantly made her way across the lawn to join everyone else at the feast.

And I finally glanced about and saw what was left of dear prima, just a small trail of feathers.

Prima, up in the autumn olive tree, unwittingly enjoying her last few days of life

Hazel is Dante's current favorite -- she's the second of the incubator babies

Milling about in the yard, with the olive tree in the background. only the chicks are light enough to get out on the thin branches, and it drives the bigger chickens nuts that the little pipsqueaks get all the yummy berries.

Happy Birthday Nonni

The deck finally finished, we arrive in time for cake.

...sleepy Justin

the boys slept in the cowboy room, much to their sisters' dismay

the big boys played rod hockey

I finally let Nonno in the picture

courtin' froggies

Wow, we've been busy. Lots of photos to process to put up, but I'll start here at Nonni and Nonno's a few weeks ago.

Dante and Nonno hit the stream to catch what they can.

Success!

A very passive bullfrog

fierceness

Lulu gets in on some frog holdling

priceless

more critters

Nonno brought the kids a chrysalis he'd found, and look what came out:

a black swallowtail butterfly

and lurking in the bean teepee -- an eastern hognose snake.

critters and the pond

Lucia came flying into the house the other day shouting "Mommie, look what I found! My first salamander!" Having a brother who prides himself on stalking the wild anything, she doesn't get a chance to get her hands onto much of anything before he swoops in.

But under the hay bales in the front yard, she found this adorable yellow spotted salamander and moved fast to snatch it up before the stiff competition noticed it.

River found an earthworm, the biggest I think I've ever seen, which was obviously too large for the salamander to consume.

And off to Day Pond to enjoy some sand a a swim while the boys hunted various creatures in the water.

Like this poor baby pickerel, for instance, gasping for breath while we document his capture.

mingling in the yard

Well, it's happened. We finally got fed up with having ever-larger chicks and a full-grown chicken in the house. So this weekend, I hauled the shavings in the tub to the compost bin and put the Luna and the chicks to bed in the bottom of the coop. I shut the door to the top so the rest of the crew wouldn't come downstairs in the morning and harass them, and while there were lots of protesting peeps at the beginning of the night, they settled down to sleep by dark.

Also, during the day they've all been running about freely in the yard, and when we toss treats out, they all come together. Yes the bigger chickens peck the little ones (what a sad little squeak this elicits!) to warn them to back off, but the little ones sneak plenty anyway.

So I kept hearing noise from the part of the yard where Dante has set his trap for the racoon. Not his trap, in fact. He borrowed River's larger trap since the racoon seemed able to sneak the food out of his smaller trap without actually getting in it. Well, he's had no luck with the racoon yet, but look what he caught yesterday! Poor Bandit.

While they stick stay in her general vicinity, the chicks do allow more and more distance between themselves and Luna these days.

I was taking the pictures at dusk, so most of them came out blurry, but here's a relative close shot of one of the darker BLRW chicks.