Storms

 We have had some pretty fierce weather here for the last three days. Some pretty violent thunderstorms, torrential downpours. Hail at times. High winds. Tornado warnings. Lots of severe weather warnings. Coming back from Pleasantville tonight, a 20 min drive, we had five alerts. The worst of today's storms passed slightly south of us, so we were spared the brunt of it. 

If you have Facebook, you can link to some of today's weather. 

https://www.facebook.com/share/1H5CQt9ZHw/

The weird thing is that the storms have been rolling through in waves, multiple storms over the course of a day. Last night we were awakened at least four times by crazy loud cracks of thunder, once by a prolonged lightning flash.

Still...we have been lucky compared to a lot of folks. 

The chicken coop Levi built for us is solid and good. The chickens seem to know when things are going to turn and they scurry in. I keep food and water inside, because some days they spend more time inside than out. It doesn't seem to bother them.

Ignore the mess in the foreground. I swept the coop out, put fresh chips down. The picture was taken before I raked.

When we get a break in the weather, I turn them lose to get some free range time. They love finding earthworms in the water logged ground. 

I put them in the run when I go inside because I still worry about the cats, but so far, the cats seem afraid of them. 

What the fresh hell is this, Mother?

So I am pretty sure they will be able to eventually free range as I hoped. 

Possum (in the picture above) still doesn't want to come inside. I take her supper out to the greenhouse to keep her food dish from flooding. Tonight, I got caught out there when a storm moved in. The rain pounded down so hard I could not see the house but I had been drying seeds from the wild flowers and put them in empty pill bottles I have stashed down there for that purpose. I labeled the ironweed and the echinacea.

Eventually the rain let up and I scooted back to the house, stopping to close up the chickens for the night. It was so dark they were calmly roosting.

Tiger Kitten still comes in for the night. I feel bad for poor Phantom, the big old feral who has been coming to be fed. The storms have been so bad that he did not come to the house to eat last night. Today he darted to the house between storms and stood gazing pitifully through the sliding door. He ran when I slid the door open to put food in his dish. He always does, but tonight he was hungry enough that he stayed very close. I talked to him and he listened keeping steady eye contact. As soon as the door shut, he was on the porch gobbling supper. 

He is the one I worry about the most with the chickens. He is a hunter. I am pretty sure that he is the reason that Tiger sleeps in at night and Possum holes up in the greenhouse. (Phantom is too large to get access to bother her.) He is fierce. I think that the chickens are too large for him to mess with but I am not going to take a chance. 

Today I baked 4 loaves of zucchini bread and a pan of zucchini brownies.