Back in November, I wrote a post about the new chicken pen: a fenced-in space at the bottom corner of our hillside that we gave over to the hens. It continues to be a great space for them to wander around, peck in the dirt, take dust baths and dig like crazy with their long claws. In fact, they have been such aggressive scratchers and diggers that they completely eliminated all the weeds and ground cover previously growing in that section of the backyard. The only things that survived were some bigger bushes and one little pine tree we planted many years ago.

This poses a bit of a problem because, as I mentioned, our backyard is on a hill. Plus, it I'm not in love with the idea of 1/6 of my yard being a giant dirt patch. So, we planted some bushes over the last several months.

The key to their survival is that they must be enclosed in a circle of fencing. If not, they are immediately defoliated, dug up and destroyed by the hens. In fact, we went away for a couple of days several months ago, and while we were gone the fencing circles around some small rosemary plants were knocked off. When we got back, there was no sign of those bushes--not even a stick or a root ball.

We also noticed that some plants are tastier to chickens than others. They don't seem interested in eating sage leaves. That's good news, because there are many lovely varieties of sage, and most require very little water to thrive. So, they are a perfect choice for our chicken landscape.

At the moment, the whole area looks pretty scrubby. Most low-water-use plants start off pretty slowly, and we're at the start of summer, so it should look that way for a while. But, I expect in another year they'll bush out and fill in the space.

This coming Fall I also want to plant a small tree, maybe a Crepe Myrtle, to add a little extra attraction and some additional shade to the space. Just because it's a chicken free range zone doesn't mean it can't be kind of pretty.

In positive chicken landscaping news, the Vanilla Trumpet Vine I planted a few years ago on one side of the run has really filled in. It's covering a good part of two sides of the run and bloomed really nicely last month. So, that worked out well.
When I originally got it five years ago, I thought the vine would have purple flowers for some reason. It turns out they are kind of a creamy white--vanilla-colored, I guess, which makes sense. They smell good, too.

Well, I'm afraid Linda continues to live at the bottom of the pecking order. I've started calling her "Baldy," because she's still got a red featherless spot on her head where the other girls were picking at her during the worst of the bullying. It seems to have healed up okay, which is a relief, but I'm not sure if the feathers will ever fill back in. I hope so.

The new chicken pen has definitely helped with the aggression problem I was having since it allows all the hens plenty of space during the day. But, at night Linda still sleeps out on a perch in the run. Somehow, Doris, the White Rock, finally managed to get an invitation to sleep inside the coop. I'm not sure if it was bravery or some recent broodiness that caused her to sit in the nesting box for several days. Whatever it was, Doris made it into the cool group, leaving Linda all alone. Poor Baldy.

Since the climate is pretty mild in Southern California, I don't think it's that big of a deal that Linda has to sleep outdoors every night. BUT, we've recently had some raccoons lurking around. The other night Dakota even caught one hanging out right outside the coop. So, I think I may need to figure out a way to help Linda get inside at night. Do they make anti-bullying pamphlets for chickens?

Does anyone have any idea what kind of insect makes this chrysalis? I found it growing on a dead branch of a Copper Canyon Daisy bush a couple of weeks ago. It's a little bigger than a quarter in size and kind of golden brown and scaly.

Anyone seen one of these before and know what kind of butterfly or moth might come out? I'm very curious.

We got pretty crafty with my son's birthday party this year. He chose "camping" for his theme, and his father and I wholeheartedly signed off on his choice. The party itself was at our local park, which provided an excellent backdrop for our campsite decor.

Dakota did most of the projects, honestly, although I helped out where I could. My primary contribution was the campfire cake, adapted from one I saw on Pinterest (of course). It's a regular cake, but I melted red, orange and yellow lifesavers to make candy "flames" and then used chocolate cookie sticks (Pocky) to make the logs. I am not a very adept cake decorator, but this technique was easy enough for me to master.

Dakota made some simple wood A-frame tents, and I attached flat sheets with sewed-on elastic loops. They turned out very cute, although I admit that the kids spent most of their time playing inside Dakota's old blue boy scout tent.

You can also see a cardboard "campfire" to the right there. Several of our partygoers had a fun time adding real sticks to the fire and adorably sitting around it on camping chairs.

And we combined our talents to make a bean bag toss game. Dakota built the wood part and I made the beanbags on the sewing machine. They're full of split peas.

So, overall, it was a successfully home made party, not counting the pinata. While I could have attempted to make one myself, I elected to head down to Los Angeles' Pinata District (Downtown just past the Flower District) to let my son pick one from the thousands available. That was a fun excursion of its own, and it reminded me of when I was a kid and my dad would take us down to the local pinata store before our birthday parties every year.

When you have one nesting box and five hens, sometimes they have to share. Luckily, Janice and Doris don't seem to mind laying side-by-side, or at least they seemed perfectly content when I found them like this a couple of weekends ago.