# 266 - Injured Chicken Growing Strong!

The garden is growing and I have the best gift a garden can give...VINE-RIPENED TOMATOES! This week, I'll be stocking up on my kitchen staples to go with the fresh tomatoes, staples such as mozzarella and avocados.

Along with abundant Sweet Basil growing in the garden, my bowl will be full of delightful, flavorful goodness.

To top it off, the rescued chicks are doing great. We adopted them just after Easter. I'm always amazed at how big and fast chicks grow; I think they're beautiful. I giggle to myself cause I don't think I would have ever suspected that I would have developed this city-altered mindset of looking at a chicken and thinking about how beautiful it is...but that's where I am in life!

And the guy holding that chicken is pretty darn handsome, not that I'm fiercely partial or anything like that!

First vine-ripened tomato of the season.

Deputy Dave's thumb is the greenest of green you can find. We can't wait to get moved to our acreage and have much more room to grow all the things we'd love to plant! But, the house showings are going slow with the dull economy. It's still hard out there for buyers. If the buyers can't buy, the sellers can't sell. Few buyers means minimal movement in the market...that's where so many Americans are finding themselves these days. Hopefully, summer will be the season for more movement in the housing industry. Texas had never really been "seasonal" in the housing market, until the recession hit, then, things changed.

Back to the chickens...the rescued "Easter" chick are doing great. Their feathering has a lot of brown in the mix, so luxurious! "Beaker" is still living with an under-bite due to the terrible injury from our Yorkie biting off the top beak, nearly to the skin, but the chicken lived through it all and is growing strong! A good part of the upper beak seems to have done a great job of self-repair during the healing process and even looks to be growing, yet still shorter than the bottom beak. Frankly, I am grateful that we didn't rush to put the chick out of its misery because the extra work with feeding and watering the chick, by hand, through the worst days after the injury have paid off. If it turns out to be a hen, I bet we'll get some awesome eggs as a reward to the "never-say-die" attitude we embraced.

We even let the chicks run around the backyard, willy-nilly, and they've made great friends with the big girls. One of the full-grown hens is eager to keep the newbies in line, but the chicks quickly found their way inside the big-house for some exploration, and they clearly love the freedom of being in the yard. I understand. Freedom is a treasure.

The picture below shows the chicks wandering into the big chicken tractor. Those two chicks are thick as family, sticking together...it's adorable. I have no idea as to what kind of chickens they will turn out to be nor do I have an idea of whether or not we have roosters. Regardless, we can't ever get rid of "Beaker."

Good news is...the chicks are almost big enough to get their big-britches ticket to enable them to run around the yard full-time, and even better, the Yorkie seems to be accustomed to them. Belle the Yorkie doesn't leer at the chicks in a predatory manner anymore. Also, Big Mama, a veteran hen around here, seems to be taking over guardianship duties of these two chicks. It's a good day when the big chickens don't try to kill the chicks.

We've had the chicks sleeping outside in their own quarters for a couple of weeks now, so they've been acclimating to the weather while still in a safe zone until they can become fully acquainted with the older chickens. It's been working.

For Mother's Day, I was served an awesome breakfast in bed by Deputy Dave. He's a man who has captured my heart so completely since I was a young girl. I'm glad he was the man who made me a Momma two times over! Our girls are grown, but I'll always be thankful to Deputy Dave for helping to give me two beautiful daughters.

I am a very blessed woman, even though I have crazy morning hair and a husband who ignores my protests as the camera appears out of thin air while I am saying, "I don't have on make-up and my hair is sticking everywhere."

CLICK!

Eggs, Bacon, Pineapple and Cantelope

Yes, Deputy Dave is still alive.