We've gotten used to getting about three eggs a day; two light brown ones from the Barred Rocks, and one dark brown one from one of the Rhode Island Reds. There's usually one in early morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening! (I just check every time I walk by.) So far they've all been laid in the same nesting box.

But just now when I went out to collect, there was a dark brown one in the usual nesting box, and a blue one in the other nesting box! So one of our Easter Eggers has started laying!

I realize that in this picture the egg looks sort of a dirty white. But trust me, it's a bluish greenish. Entirely different from the other eggs we've been getting. This is exciting!

There are lots of bluish flowers in the garden, complimenting the newest egg.

spirea

'Jean's Purple Passion' salvia

some sort of salvia I can't remember the name of

artichoke

salvia ulignosa Bog Sage

There's plenty of other interesting, non-blue things to share with you, as well. The delicata squash is blooming and forming fruit.

Blackberries are starting to ripen!

One of the plants in the woodland garden out front has bloomed, and I can't remember what it is. Some sort of unusual variety of monkey flower?

It's fun to see what happens each day - it seems like there's always something new to examine.

There's always something to see on my hikes, too. I went out in the hills and collected more steer manure to add to the compost. While I was shoveling, I came across this little guy, and we were nowhere near water.

Smaller than my thumb!

I wonder how he survives the heat?

Speaking of compost, I made a decision about the straw situation. I've been using straw in the hen house and changing it once a week. As the chickens get older, the poo is becoming quite prolific. That means I change the straw more often, and the straw in my compost bins is not breaking down very quickly, so I started to realize that we were going to run out of room in the compost bins. I decided to change the hen house over from straw to sand. I've done that, and it's quite easy to maintain - it's play sand (which you can get for about $5 a bag at any hardware store), and I just go in every morning with a kitty litter scoop and scoop the poop into a bucket, which I then dump into the compost. Most of the poop is located right underneath the branch where the chickens roost. So far it's working great. I still use straw in the nesting boxes (because, comfort!) and I still use the deep litter system in the run, which is working great.

I wonder what I'll find tomorrow in the garden to show you?

Update at 8:30 pm! Just found a native California Bluebell blooming in the new pollinator garden, to add to our collection of blue.