growing up

One thing to be said about chicks is they grow up overnight. One day they're fluffy babies that fit in the palm of your hand; the next they're bigger than pigeons and they still sit in the palm of your hand, but their feet fill your entire palm. Chicken feet are strange and wonderful. Their toenails are long and sharp, their skin dry and scaley--and they're WARM. At about eight weeks, they have started to sound like real chickens. They're like teenagers whose voices are changing. Sometimes they say "peep" and sometimes it's "bawk!". They've started to look like real chickens. They peck constantly and LOVE cottage cheese and kale. The other day it was 80 degrees outside, so we took them outside for the first time. They tentatively walked around the yard, pecking and scratching and gobbled up some earthworms. Speaking of earth worms, I was recently reading in a magazine that the earthworm enzymes are able to render PCB's in soil non-toxic. Once again, earthworms save the world. Back to the chickens. Every time they got scared, they would run back to us and jump on our laps. I would say that we are officially part of their flock. Can't wait for them to be old enough to be outside all the time. They seem to love it. And our office is getting pretty stinky...