The marvels of modern transportation enabled 75 chickens, hatched yesterday morning in Iowa, to arrive on the farm today. They are learning how to eat and drink and are exploring their new home -- a five-foot diameter kiddie pool.

They are a mix of breeds from the country's leading rare poultry breeder, Murray McMurray. When they're older, say, late June, they'll begin laying a variety of colored eggs. White and brown, of course, but also green, blue, pink, and purple. And shades in between. Except for those the experts mis-judged... they'll become roosters. Even experts have a 95% accuracy rate at best when sexing just-hatched chickens.

After a couple of months, they'll move in with our older ten hens and rooster into a day-range home we're building for them. The lumber for that is mostly in a pile, so I'll save the description of that for another time.