The New Fall Line

Nighttime temps in the forties have prompted the chickens to finally get dressed.  They've been running around in bikinis for months, barely enough feathers for decency.  Unfortunately, the fall styles are a work in progress.  Tzar Nicholas has grown a ruff of beautiful, long, golden feathers, but his neck is still bare underneath and it looks like a bad comb-over.  Both Nicholas and Mad King George have covered their bums with fluff, nowhere close to the proud rooster tail feathers of last year, but certainly better than the naked look they've been sporting.  The girls look like a flock of two-legged porcupines, studded with pin feathers; definitely the "spike" style of punk rockers.

Fall takes on different meanings.  Going down the driveway on a short run to town yesterday, I thought something looked different in the landscape.  Oh crum.  A huge branch had fallen from the tallest oak in the woods down by the road.  That branch would make a good-sized tree by itself.  Of course it fell across the barbed wire fence by the front pasture.  That won't make Tree Guy's job any easier.  He must think of this place as job security.