A Little Pick-Me-Up

Hello, duckies! How was your long weekend? Did everyone have a sufficiently patriotic Memorial Day? By which I mean, did you all sit around eating charred flesh and drinking large amounts of spirituous beverages? That's nice. I didn't. I thinned beets and carrots in the blazing sun and did laundry. And hauled around the giant infant, of course.

BUT. I don't have to go back to work in a cubicle today, and for this I am profoundly thankful. For all of you who DO have to go back to work in a cubicle (and for everyone else, as well), here's a little something to ease your pain:

CHIIIIIIICK!!!!!

That's right! We have added another baby to the Blackrock menagerie. You're looking at Poppy the Hen, puffed up to twice her normal size and clucking menacingly to inform me that I best keep the hell away from her precious chick or I will pay the consequences. Poppy did this all by her ownself, just sitting on down with her egg one day and getting up three weeks later to present the world with her baby.

The chick was actually born last week, but didn't venture outside (and therefore into good camera range) until just recently. But now it hops around quite happily after Poppy, pecking busily at tiny bugs and generally being all chicken-y.

And yes, there was only one egg Poppy hatched. She's starting off slowly.

Now everyone keep your fingers crossed that this chick turns out to be a girl. Because I could really use one more hen, but could really NOT use one more rooster. The rooster position is filled, and any subsequent boys must be, ahem, disposed of.

So! Please send happy female thoughts to this chick, and everyone have a lovely day!