You’ll recall my talking about the adolescent guinea injured in the transfer from the shop to guinea tower. I mentioned that it seemed to me it would be kinder to put it out of its misery, such was the severity of what appeared to be a neck/spinal chord injury. Well, now we’re not sure which guinea it was, not because all three have their heads tilted back so they look backwards but that they all appear normal. Granted, a healthy guinea is goofy, but I’m just amazed that the injured one recovered with apparently no ill effects. Joyce isn’t quite ready to turn them loose but she’s getting close. Meanwhile, the three older guineas have taken to spending their nights outside guinea tower. The last few nights they’ve been no where to be found at dusk when it’s bedtime. A couple of evenings Joyce and I went around the place with flashlights to try to round them up since in our experience a guinea out over night is an x-guinea. I’ve stopped looking and I think Joyce has too. I’m content to let them take their chances but Joyce will probably want to round them up if she can.
Ersatz miracle of the week: purslane. With the moisture last week came a new outbreak of purslane. Plucking by the root is fairly easy when the ground is moist and we’ve been doing a lot of that. But the big news is that Kari has read some stuff that says purslane is not only good for you, it is one of the top things people should eat but don’t. Joyce has been feeding it to the new chickens and they seem to relish it. Kari has used it in salad and who knows what else. Joyce said she saw a recipe for purslane popsicles (with lime juice). Kari has put purslane in the girls’ smoothies. No one is contemplating cultivating purslane, at least I hope they’re not, but it doesn’t hurt that some is winding up on the dinner table just so long as it is removed root and branch from SA.
At long last the new chickens have been transferred from the shop to what was previously the dog run that later housed the guineas that Chris killed and ate. Joyce got only two varieties this time hoping they might not peck each other so much. She got an even mix of black ones and gold ones. The latter are called Americana, I believe, but I don’t know what the black ones are called. Anyway, these are the two varieties that seemed to do less or no pecking. They are quite handsome together. She and Chris didn’t get a rooster with the chicks but have since acquired one of the same variety as John Henry. Rojo, that’s his name, is young but still older than the new chickens and a very handsome fellow, too. It will be interesting when he and JH start crowing at each other across half the length of SA.
We were blessed with some nice rain Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, about an inch. Greened the place back up nicely and kicked the weeds I into high gear. I think with all the weed pulling, before long I’ll be able to walk on all fours.
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