Well, here are some of the newest crop: seven Buff Orpington chicks purchased the other day at the local co-op. (Wait, there’s a pun in there somewhere …) Are they hens? Roosters? We don’t know, and probably won’t until fall, when they’re mostly grown up. Then, may the best rooster win. The rest will end up in the freezer, once it gets cold enough to butcher them.

But we’re not thinking about that here. We’re thinking about sweet little baby chicks, with a tiny soft “peep-peep-peep”s and their pale yellow fuzz so delicate you can’t tell when you brush it with your fingers. Great big splayed feet? Check. Little bright eyes and frowning chicken beak? Check. Tiny little wing feathers snuggled into the fluff? Check. Healthy and bright-eyed? Non-check. Jess reported this afternoon that one of the birds is ill, standing there with its eyes closed and head down. Sad! But I don’t how to nurse a sick chick. I don’t know if you can.

Currently they’re housed in this cat-carrier box Jess found at the free pile, with a light bulb plugged in for heat. She took one of the chicks down to the poultry yard yesterday to see what would happen. Chick: “PEEEEEEEP peep peep peep peep! Where did you go?” while running around frantically. Hens eyed it with their suspicious little eyes. (None of them is feeling broody, and we were told they might try to kill a chick they didn’t hatch.) Rooster leapt backwards, exclaiming “Great Scott! What is THAT!” in roosterese. Jess brought the chick back up to the house. We’ll keep them in the laundry room for six weeks, until the weather is warmer and drier and the chicks have more feathers to keep them warm. Then maybe they’ll be big enough to defend themselves.

Cats will stay in the kitchen meanwhile. If you don’t have mice, what’s the use of cats in country? Besides eating expensive cat food, scratching all available wood trim, and throwing up everywhere, I mean. The other night we heard an owl hoot outsdie. “Hoo hoo HOO hoo HOOOO.” Straight out of the movies. Jess said, “So-and-so’s cat was gotten by an owl the other day.” I said, “Well, we can only hope.” We’d rather have pets that lay eggs. By next year, anyway.