Here in all their glory are my chookies...
The two black hens are Silver Cuckoo Marans and lay "Large" very dark brown eggs, sometimes referred to as chocolate brown eggs. Their names are Crooked Beak and Henny-Penny. The feather-footed "bantams" were adopted from Horse Plus Humane Society before they experienced the dog attack. I wasn't planning to get a rooster...but this fellow is pretty mellow and certainly serves his purpose by herding his ladies in when it's night-fall. His "crow" is so quiet and mellow that it's no trouble at all. We rarely hear it, so we know the neighbors aren't annoyed by it either. We call him "Roo" and the hen hasn't found her name yet. We also haven't had any eggs from her that we're aware of. Since her comb is such a pale pink, I doubt that she's laying right now. That's ok. The other two girls are keeping us well supplied right now. They have a support light in their hen house, partially for heat, and so we continue to have eggs. Don't worry...they both took a good vacation during the summer months. We didn't get eggs for about 2 months. They have an area the size of a horse stall to hang out in...we don't pressure them to conform to nesting boxes. They have them, but select their favorite spots to leave their cackle-berries!
Here's an example of how the topography of my land changes with just a bit of rain... The shot above is in the summer...nice and dry...
This shot is after the first Fall rain...a little mucky, but not desperately bad. This drained off quickly and dried out because the sun came out. And then December came...and with it...R A I N... The rain has caused us to scramble a bit. The mud, combined with a couple of freezing nights (which causes the soil to spread and accept more water even more deeply) has happily turned to severe muck...not good for a horse's feet. Last Saturday morning, I made the executive decision that Willow had to be moved, while we had a break in the weather. 
Fabulous decision! Within mere days, the rain came in and decided to stay...for days and days and days on end... Her paddock now looks like this...
It's as though the stream jumps its banks here, and actually runs through the paddock. It got deeper and you could actually see the current within half an hour of taking this picture.
Her lovely spot beneath the trees is completely under water right now. She would easily be belly deep if she walked to the usual bank.
Here you can see the water flowing downstream, coming over the bottom of the fence panel. We get quite a bit of run-off. Fortunately, it does run off...
Bruce has already been out with Willow this morning, making sure the new area is draining. She's gotten it pretty sloppy up there as well, but it's better packed up there. That land has been grazed by cattle in the past, and is more compacted than down by the house. It's still muddy, but only right down close where she comes in to see us and eat. Farther up, it's solid, draining well, and she can get out of the muck.
Although you can't see the top of the mesa, there's a thousand foot mesa just outside my backyard. Makes for nice scenery, but it also makes for some nasty wetness too. That's one reason we use raised beds. I don't have to wait as long for the ground to dry out.
I can see I'm going to be investing a few hundred $$ more in rock for the paddocks. So, I'm off to search out the best price on drain rock in the county! The storms are backed up one after the other. At best we'll get a few hours of cloudy, windy weather between rains. Oh what fun it is to slosh!! Merry Christmas!
