The chickens have landed

So it seems we have chickens. Eighteen of them, to be precise, in a big box in the living room. They're supposed to out in the garden shed, but there's a wasp problem out there at the moment. The resident chicken-fancier is out there right now trying to put things in order so my living room won't smell like a chicken coop.

My husband will gladly tell you that he hung out with a lot of cute chicks in his youth. His family owned a hatchery and then a feed-and-garden-supply store that sold chicks in the spring, so my husband spent a lot of time in the chick room and raised a flock of his own in his teens.

These chicks are a retirement project, even though he is still marginally employed. He has diligently built a rolling chicken coop and a chicken run, but the chicks can't be put out there until they're a good bit bigger. For now they'll live in the shed, with food and water and a warming lamp. At some point the flock may be expanded to include guineas, which are beautiful and noisy and eat bugs like nobody's business. 

I've been asked what we're going to name the chickens but I can't give them names until I can tell them apart. Right now they're just lumps of fuzz scuttling about and cheeping in a big smelly box in my living room, but at some point they may be named for friends and colleagues or some of my favorite baseball players or fictional characters. I'm accepting suggestions. Meanwhile, all they have to say for themselves is "cheep!"