Sunday, September 19, 2010

A Question of Gender

Being who I am, I have a fondness for the saying, "I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken."  It may be that I made an error in guessing the gender of the Silkies.  I am totally unfamiliar with this breed of chicken, and do not recognize their secondary sex characteristics.  From the few pictures I have of Silkies, it appears that the roosters wear their combs closer to the beak than the laying breeds, and Waylon's comb was much bigger from the git-go than the others.  However, if the three "girls" really are all females, only one seems to be laying eggs.  Because "she" still waits and does the come-hither squat, I do think that Yuki is the producer.  Satomi and Keiko wear their black busbies low over their eyes, and it's really hard to tell about the comb.  Ah, well...all are welcome.

As it became light, I saw that we'd had a sprinkle of rain during the night.  And then the light changed.  For a brief moment, everything I could see took on a gorgeous pink glow.  This is one of those "Come see!" sunrises that needs to be shared.  More rain is promised/threatened for today (opinion will vary, depending on whether you're a grape grower).  I, personally, would be very grateful to have a good rain settle down the dust from all the digging of late.

Back to the Silkies.  The single egg I pick up every other day or so remains small.  It seems very strange to gather perhaps six and a half eggs in the evening.  It will take some calculations to adjust a recipe that calls for two large eggs to eight or ten Silkie eggs.  I would like to give credit where credit is due for production, and rather than have "A Boy Named Sue," I should like to call everyone by their right name.  Time will tell.

3 comments:

Kathryn said...

Oh my, that spectacular sunrise makes me wish my body were an early riser!! And as for the Silkies, do we know for sure that Yuki, Satomi, and Keiko are definitely female names??? The gentleman who lives down the street, whom we call Harry, is really Hiroshi, and if you told me that you had a Silike named Hiroshi, I'd have to guess if it were male or female. So, maybe you have actually picked unisex Japanese names that would translate to something like Kelly, Terry, and Bo (and not Sue)! At least it makes for a good argument.

Bo said...

I have a great-niece named Yuki, and female friends named Satomi and Keiko, so am sure about those. Waylon gave me pause, and I checked with the Matsumoto clan re. male names, but Waylon insisted that was his name...and so it was.

Kathryn said...

Oh well....may Waylon RIP, and if the 2 "girls" need their names changed, maybe there are male equivalents to Satomi and Keiko...or you can just have "ladyboys" like in Thailand...that's close to Japan, right?