Poultry, Peppers, and Parsley: Escapees, Tornadoes, and Fire...OH MY!!

Wow, what an exciting weekend it's been. I seriously could have done with a lot less excitement though. Especially since it spilled over into Monday. Let's see...where to begin...

Saturday started out quite nicely. Other than getting up earlier than necessary to meet a phantom trailer buyer (husband is selling his duck trailer) the day progressed well and uneventfully. I suppose the babies wouldn't think it was uneventful at all...I decided to put the babies in the halfway house to start mingling with the teenagers. They are getting way too big for their current living quarters. As soon as I put the two of them in there, the teenagers started harassing the littler ones. They were not happy with the infiltration of "babies". I suppose it's no different than when human teenagers are introduced to their toddler siblings and now must get along with them. The babies got really flustered and at one point, I came out to the coop and this is what I saw:

Really a pathetic attempt at an escape. Only their heads fit through there and then they were super angry when I tried to gently push their heads back through. The gentle approach did not work, so a little more force was required...and shockingly, not appreciated by either one. The one in the back of the photo was really stuck and REALLY angry. Not five minutes later, she had done the same thing. Ugh. No wonder the teenagers have so much fun tormenting them. After a second round of not-so-gentle head shoving, the two of them thought that cowering in a corner was a far better idea:

Later in the evening, I instructed the boy to capture the babies and return them to their tub. He did this and all was well until...

...Sunday morning. Husband got up first and I was roused out of bed by shouts coming from outside. It seems that in the boy's haste to return the babies to their tub and his desire to return to whatever tv show he was engrossed in, he forgot to close the top to the halfway house. Miscreants all over the place. Luckily they got scared and huddled up for protection, making it much easier to round them up and put them back in. The best part, was that Lady Gaga was still in the coop. When they all were back in, I'm pretty sure she was telling them something along the lines of, "So, I told you guys not to go outside. It's scary out there, isn't it?? And the humans don't appreciate your shenanigans." They all sat and listened to her. Funny.

As this was taking place, the sky started turning all sorts of shades of gray. It had been pretty sunny up until that point. Husband pointed to the north and we saw some gorgeous clouds and a funnel cloud! I ran inside and after several attempts at finding a functioning camera (one that had a charged battery and a memory card) I snapped several pictures of the sky. Pretty awesome. We watched the cloud form a skinny funnel and could see it twisting off in the distance. It finally dissipated, which was probably a good thing. Storm Warn 30 had no mention of this at all. They call themselves professionals...hah.

This was the sky...pretty fantastic looking, if you ask me.

Here is the shot of the funnel cloud. We traveled all the way through Kansas and never saw one...wanted to see one, but never did...probably best that way...since we had left our ruby slippers and dog at home.

So, Sunday it rained the rest of the day on and off. Loved it! The chickens seem to enjoy the rain as well. Makes for a lot of bug movement I guess. They happily wandered around the yard and sought shelter under the Blazer when it poured. Smart chickens!

Monday (that's today!) arrived and the weather is gorgeous! Overcast...cool...high humidity day according to the weather peeps. My new neighbor thought that it would be an ideal day to "shred" the dry grass. And really, in theory, it is a good day, if we didn't live in such a desert. It rained heavily the last 2 days and you would think the ground would be fairly damp still. You would think... I came home for lunch today and saw this:

Our house sits just on the other side of that 5th wheel in the bottom picture.

That's not a fun thing to come home to. The man in the lower picture, Roger, was shreding the grass with some really cool looking apparatus. Apparently he hit a rock with the blade and caused a spark. Poor Roger...he seemed a bit flustered when I got there and I think a day off and a stiff drink may be in order for him. Luckily we have a hose that's always hooked up for the tile guys working on the new construction next door. It happened to be on and they were paying attention to the events unfolding outside. They were much faster with that hose than CalFire. No offense to the fire guys, but we are pretty far away from any fire station and I guess it took a while for them to get there. It all worked out and the boy will be thrilled when we tell him that we no longer want him to mow around the property. Too dangerous.

In between all the hubbub, I managed to take some pictures of the garden and all the wonderful things growing! The weeds are not wonderful, but I will be annihilating those this weekend. The pea seeds have sprouted and are looking quite bushy already. There are blossoms on the peppers and the tomatoes. The squash have flowers as well...I am looking forward to harvesting something soon. Here are the pictures: