Explosive cyclogenesis coming

We've had an unusually mild fall so far, and even the rains haven't been so bad -- they've come in bursts, followed by days of relative dryness. But now the weather forecasters are warning that cold is on its way, and possibly snow as well.

I've put off rigging up a system to keep the chickens warm 'til now. A 40-watt light bulb in one of those caged outdoor/shop fixtures is now sitting by the door. Greg is going to try to affix it to the roof of the chicken coop tomorrow, while I'm at work. I hope it's enough to keep the chickens warm.

One of my coworkers with chickens is going to leave his birds as is -- he pointed me to a discussion on backyardchicken.com in which the author said he just let his birds adapt to cold weather and thought it made them hardier.

I don't know enough about meteorology to completely understand what the National Weather Service is talking about in its forecast discussion, but it sounds dramatic and interesting!

MODELS ARE ALL CONVERGING ON EXPLOSIVE CYCLOGENESIS ALONG THIS OLD BOUNDARY AS NORTHERN STREAM ENERGY DROPS SE ONTO THIS BOUNDARY. ALL GLOBAL AND MESO MODELS DROP SURFACE PRESSURES WITH THIS DEVELOPING SYSTEM FROM AROUND 1024 MB AT THIS TIME...TO BETWEEN 978 AND 985 MB AS THE LOW MOVES INLAND ALONG THE CENTRAL WA COAST 00Z FRI. THAT IS NEARLY 40 MB IN ABOUT 30 HRS!

But wait, there's more:

THERE IS STILL A GREAT DEAL OF UNCERTAINTY IN THIS VERY DIFFICULT WEATHER FORECAST SITUATION. JUST A DEGREE OR TWO TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCE...AND A SLIGHT TRACK SHIFT OF THE LOW CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE ON HIGH WIND OR NOT ALONG THE COAST AND IN THE STRAIT...AND IN THE POSSIBILITY OF LOWLAND SNOW LATE FRI AFTERNOON AND FRI NIGHT OVER PORTIONS OF THE INTERIOR LOWLANDS.

I love snow.

Asheville chickens

My parents live in Asheville, N.C., and while they don't have room for chickens (they live in a condo), they report that the city is considering a chicken ordinance to allow people to raise chickens in their back yards. The current ordinance is apparently too restrictive.

The girls, all grown up

Well, I think I can say that my chickens are all fully mature now, seven months after we brought home the little fluffballs from the Issaquah Grange. All three are producing at least an egg every other day, and the egg bin in the refrigerator is regularly full of a dozen eggs at all times.

Here's a photo of the three. Gertrude the bantie is in front, with Wilma just behind her and blue-egg-laying Mathilda in the back. I must say, it's hard to take pictures of chickens -- their bodies move in a herky-jerky motion, and it's hard to get them to stand still.

Three egg-laying chickens

Mathilda, our Americana (or is that Auracana?) has finally joined the egg-laying crowd, and, as promised, she lays blue-green eggs! They're very pretty, and just as good to eat. Here's the first egg, as we found it in the nest, alongside the golf ball and one of Gertrude's little eggs.

Elliott locks Lauren in the coop

Darn kids!

Gertrude lays an egg

Gertrude the bantie laid her first egg on Friday, and followed it up with an egg Sunday. They're very cute eggs, if it's possible for an egg to be cute -- small, and with a hint of light beige in the shell. In this picture, the top egg is Wilma's and the bottom egg is Gertrude's.

She has an entirely different nesting habit from Wilma. When she wants to lay an egg, she kicks ALL of the nesting material out of the box first. It's a bit messy.

One chicken to go! Mathilda might not begin laying until the spring. She is the biggest bird of the three, and I wonder if her eggs will be larger, too.

Pumpkin pie with fresh eggs

A new experience: Skipping the egg rack at the grocery store as I gather the ingredients for a pumpkin pie. I know Wilma has laid four eggs in the last four days, so I don't need to stock up at the store!

If you need an egg for a dish, just wait a few hours -- Wilma will produce.

We think that Gertrude, the bantie, will be the next chicken to start laying -- indeed, I'm checking both nesting boxes every day now, in hopes that she'll lay an egg soon. Her comb and wattles have come in now, and they're different from Wilma's. The comb is much shorter and lies closer to her head, and a bit of it sticks up in the back -- it looks like the jaunty hat that Robin Hood wore.

Since one chicken is named after my paternal grandmother, I probably should have named one of the others after my maternal grandmother, Helen. But Helen seemed too elegant and regal for a chicken, so I cast about and finally settled on Gertrude, who was one of my grandmother's best friends. It sounds like a good name for a chicken.

Last weekend we went out to a pumpkin farm in Snohomish to pick pumpkins for Halloween. There was a lot of corn lying around in the field -- it looked like they had picked most of it and then run over it with a tractor to make a parking spot for all the cars -- but there was plenty of less-than-grocery-quality corn still lying around, clearly going to waste. We picked a bunch up and have been feeding the chickens an ear of fresh corn a day. Of course they love it.