Maude - The Surprise Rooster

It can be very difficult to tell a rooster from a hen until they are almost fully grown.  There are certain types of chickens that have been developed to make it easy to tell (the males will have something different about their color from the females) but for the most part it's pretty much a guess...  When we bought our 4 chickens we didn't know anything about them and just took the word of the lady selling them that they were all pullets (young hens) and not cockerels (young roosters).  Things were fine for months and I came to have a favorite hen - Maude.  She had more personality than the others and, even though she was the smallest, was clearly the leader.  Maude loved adventure and had no fear of striking out on her own to explore new territory.  Looking back it should have been obvious but it never crossed my mind that Maude was fooling us until one morning I heard someone in the coop honking instead of the normal peeping and clucking.  I was very worried at first that it wouldn't work out having a single rooster with just three hens but, so far, everything has been fine.  I thought about changing his name but nothing else would do - he was just Maude and no other name would do.  Here is his transformation:

Polyphemus Moth (It has eyes on its wings!)

The latest silk moth to make an appearance on the garage door was a small Polyphemus moth.  I've only seen a couple of these and the last one was probably twice as big.  It was still exciting to see another of this moth though.  It doesn't have as bright of colors as some but the "eyes" on its wings are pretty cool!

The Driveway

Living out in the middle of the woods has its advantages.  One would be that you have a beautiful private wooded driveway to enjoy.  Of course it's a different story in the winter after a big snow melt when it turns into a soggy mess...  Last fall I started taking regular pics of a portion of the driveway (usually with my iPhone camera but sometimes with my Olympus point and shoot).  I'm hoping to get a full year of pics to see changes from all seasons.  Link to my driveway gallery:  The Daily Driveway

A few driveway shots:

Oct. 28, 2010

Nov. 22, 2010

Dec. 13, 2010

Jan. 27, 2011

Feb. 25, 2011

March 14, 2011

April 27, 2011

Moths

Last spring I became part owner of 4 chickens.  One of the changes that came with keeping a chicken coop was to leave the garage floodlights on at night so it would be easy to look out the window and check on the coop.  Right off I noticed that there were tons of bugs on the garage door the next morning.  No surprise considering that it was one of the only lights around out in the middle of the woods.  The next thing I noticed was that mixed in with the many beetles, flies, etc. were tons of moths.  Most of these moths looked "normal" but some stood out as new to me and, after I started paying attention, were really beautiful!  Eventually I started snapping photos of the most impressive moths and it became a hobby - particularly getting shots of the wild silkworm moths.  There's a gallery I've set up with my various moth photos at:  Moth Gallery

Just this week the moths have returned so there are many moth photos in my future (and many moth posts).  Here are some I took this morning of a very beautiful Cecropia Silk Moth: