The chicks are fast growing into chickens, sprouting real feathers.

Some of them have been given names.

Like this one.

Edie named this one Ozzy, after her favorite rock star, mostly because of the black lines around her eyes.

That was before we saw the mohawk too.

Ozzy is quite vocal of a chicken and lives up to her name.

She is our punk rock chicken for sure, because of course we have a punk rock chicken.

Cuddles aka Rosebud aka Rose aka Ruby. 

She’s the neighborhood kids favorite and so everyone has a different name for her (Li has a new name for her almost daily), also the smallest and sweetest of the chickens.

She’s now sprouting feathers on her legs and feet.

She was grey as a chick, but her feathers seem to be coming in more white as she gets bigger.

This is Butters.

There is some concern Butters may actually be a rooster, given her(his?) size and aggressiveness, although I noticed when I was down there today she’s not as aggressive as she had been.  She has been the biggest chick since they were about 3 days old and along with Ozzy, was one of the first one named.

Brian’s named this one Kramer, after the TV character.

She’s a little Krameresque I’ll admit.

Most of them have funky plummage on top, even if they aren’t named.

The chickens are a major source of entertainment for the kiddos around here.  We have been throwing scraps from the compost bucket into their yard and covering it with leaves, hoping to attract some bugs.  (And growing some nice fertilizer while we’re at it.)

In other news, the squirrels have not attempted to enter the house in a few days.  That doesn’t mean I’m leaving the back door open when I leave the house, but I at least feel comfortable leaving it open when I’m not in the kitchen.  I noticed today however, that they have fairly well stripped my tomato plants of fruit over the last 48 hours, so I guess it’s let them have their way in our house or it’s my garden.  We’re still not entirely sure about a dog, but if I’m going to have tomatoes ever again, I am clearly going to have a build a fence.  Either way, looks like my next major digging project is going to be a fence.