This is what happens when you don't put foundation in the frames counting on your bees to do the right thing.

Also, more bee pics:

Martha spent a few lonely days following me around the yard and hiding whenever I would disappear into the house. There was a steady undercurrent of near panic in her actions. No longer did she patrol the fence row or turn the compost pile seeking insects, her existence had become two extremes -- hiding or seeking reassurance from me.

The afternoon she climbed the stairs to the deck and perched herself on my forearm cooing with calm I contacted Spencer -- my partner in the chicken buy -- and asked him if I could buy one of the chickens back from him. Considering Martha's lonely state he was delighted to sell a chicken back to me and the following evening he delivered a Speckled Sussex. With the addition of Abigail, Martha is once again a member of a flock.

For the next few days I began to fear that Martha's paranoia was contagious. The two of them spent a lot of time hiding under the bushes at the end of the garden and Martha still required a lot of reassurance from me (with Abigail trailing along certainly puzzled by all this attention paid to a human) but the last two days has seen the pair ranging through the garden once again doing their scratch, scratch, peck, peck dance.

Through the early morning mist and my sleep shrouded eyes the scene of devastation was apparent. Chickens strewn about the yard, unmoving feet and wings in disarray. An impossible state for any living chicken. Still in my skivvies I rushed into the yard blinking furiously to clear the sleep from my eyes.

The chickens had been living outdoors in the cage for almost two weeks under the roof of the incomplete chicken tractor. There hadn't been any problems. The chickens had greeted me with unbounded eagerness to be let out to begin the chicken busy work that chickens do. Rushing to the garden and climbing the unturned portions of the compost pile to begin their endless scratch, scratch, peck, peck dance.

The moisture in the air was close, almost fog. It would probably rain soon. I cursorily surveyed the carnage. One. Two. Three. Dead. I approached the cage hoping it still contained the remaining five. I searched my memory, did I leave the cage unlatched last night? The cage sat haphazardly askew, wedged between the two by fours that formed the tractor's floor. Empty. The heavy cardboard wired to two sides, providing wind protection, shredded, pieces scattered about. Where were the others?

As I began to survey the edges of the yard a black shape came charging towards me from the bushes about 75 feet away. One of the Wyandottes trailing frightened chicken chirps paused about ten feet away and began excitedly calling for the rest of the flock. Expectantly I shifted my vision to the tree line hoping to see them emerge running full tilt velociraptor style towards us. Heather called from the kitchen door, "I think I see something in the street."

Four. It was lying on the asphalt at the edge of the street wings splayed out head apparently chewed. I looked both ways down the street half expecting to see more bodies. I grasped the dead one by a cold foot and carried it to the back, the Wyandotte trailed me still calling for the flock. I began searching the periphery of the yard, calling every once and again. The Wyandotte seemed to have given up and was just following me now.

Five. I was weeding the garden and checking for sprouting seeds. It was lying just beyond the edge, I almost stepped on it. It was sometime after noon. The Wyandotte -- now named Martha after the first First Lady -- seemed to view me as the only remaining member of her flock. She panics when I am not in view and if she can't find me hides in the bushes that I saw her emerge from that morning. I wonder if it is possible for a chicken to die of loneliness. The two missing chickens have not appeared so I may have an opportunity to find out.

[with apologies to Ogden Edsel]

When it comes to chicken housing one has many design and style decisions to make and aside from some very basic needs -- todays chicken can thrive almost anywhere -- your chicken house can be as whimsical or as functional as you like.

I've looked at hundreds of chicken housing designs on the intarweb and in books but the single greatest source of ideas while designing my own chicken housing has been Chicken Coops: 45 Building Plans for Housing Your Flock. Aimed at the urban chicken owner the book reaches far beyond this arena to bring working designs from the down right temporary to housing for 700 broiler chickens on working farms. I find that this is a great approach because it reinforces the basic requirements of food, water, protection and shade and illustrates the different ways other owners have implemented them.

Plans in the book are by no means complete but each design includes several sketches with measurements, a bit of background on the builders' requirements and sketches of interesting design details. The final section of the book includes color pictures of most of the designs featured in the book. I found the measurements to be helpful to give an idea of scale, I think the single most voiced question by a new chicken owner is, "How big [or how small] does my chicken coop need to be?" A valid and important question. It was my first question and while this book doesn't explore the more technical details* it gives an excellent idea of the possibilities.

Be sure to spend plenty of time designing your structure, I found that my design changed through mock-up and implementation (and I've even found a couple of design changes I'd like to make if I only had a time machine).

*[For a concise discussion of technical space requirements you should check out Building Chicken Coops: Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin A-224]

I think grits, so-called polenta by my more refined cousins, is the forgotten staple in the backpack pantry. It is quick to prepare, filling and is a great boost on a chilly morning. I grew up on the stuff on cold winter mornings always spiked with copious amounts of brown sugar or maple syrup.

I individually pack:

• 1/4 cup grits (I prefer Bob's Red Mill Corn Grits)
• 1 tblsp. sugar
• pinch of salt

Then to prepare I add the contents to a small cook-in bag, add 3/4 cup boiling water and wait a couple of minutes. Taste can be improved by adding a tablespoon of butter (or the appropriate amount of butter powder) but you'll need soap for the cleanup.

One can substitute brown sugar or maple syrup for the sugar -- and it really adds to the flavor -- but these items would require separate packaging and thus more weight.

The flock had a mighty culling Monday evening. Spencer came to pick up his share of chickens and opted to take 8 chicks rather than 4. So now we're down to half our original size. This is a good thing as I was looking at building two chicken tractors to house 11 chickens and now (depending on the figures) I may be able to get away with building only one. Still, I was a bit sad to see them go.

I guess now we can begin naming them (as soon as they start becoming more distinctive).

February 20, 2010 1PM: Snow. No, more like ice pellets, is falling. There isn't much accumulation on the ground yet. I turn the leaf litter with my foot looking for rocks and twigs, it's mostly damp sycamore leaves that fell the previous Autumn. Setup is easy, the single pole slides smoothly through its sleeve until it reaches the carbon fiber ridge support. With a gentle twist the aluminum pole continues its journey creating a smooth arch. A gust of wind tries to carry off the unfinished construct and I have to grapple with it until I get two stakes in the ground on the end where I'm standing. The remaining stakes are placed, guy lines are tightened and the bathtub sides are clipped up.

February 20, 2010 11PM: The rate of the ice pellets has increased building a diminutive wall around my tent. Wind gusts push on the tent causing the fabric to make snapping sounds. A stray breeze enters, piercingly cold. I strip down to my skivvies and slip quickly into my mummy bag. It's going to be a bitch if I have to take a leak in the middle of the night.

February 21, 2010 3AM: Something disturbed the thousands of geese resting on the oxbow lake nearby. The resulting cacophony and a full bladder end my slumber abruptly. I extricate just one arm from the mummy bag and delicately touch the ceiling of the tent with my fingers. No condensation there. Color me impressed. I quickly finish extracting myself from the mummy bag, surge from the tent and sprint to the nearest tree. If one keeps moving the cold isn't so bad, it's the wind that really bites.

March 27, 2010 Noon: "Mud, mud everywhere and oh my boots did sink," I played with the Rime as I searched for a dry, solid place to set up the Rainbow. This area had 6-8 inches of snow on it the previous Saturday all of it had melted and that was the problem. At the treeline I found a place, not too wet and not too muddy, out of the potential runoff of any rain storms which were looking more and more likely. Pitching was a breeze and shortly I was exploring the nearby forest.

You may tentatively mark your calendars for:

The date isn't set in stone but most of the kcgeeks I've spoken with so far are favoring this date (the only other dates I have available are July 17th and July 24th -- busy summer this year).

The guidelines remain about the same as every other beer tasting. If you aren't a home brewer go to your local specialty beer purveyor and pick up something interesting to bring along. And if you drink soda plan on bringing your own supply. I look to have Twelfth-night Stout, Slush-hearted v6 (feat Pacman yeast) and a keg of Septimus ab Septum on hand.

We plan to start after noon and end -- well, you know how these things go. I'll be smoking up a nice pork butt in the Franken-smoker so bring along a side dish to share.

Vanman's Challenge: Vanman challenges you to bring an Indian or Asian dish for a kcgeek Iron Chef shootout.

Manuel Noriega is back in the news after 20 years with his extradition to France to face a new trial on money laundering charges. Mr. Noreiga largely fell off the collective radar because by the end of the same year he was taken into custody the United States would find a new enemy, Sadam Hussein (for the first time).

If one were old enough to remember the highly televised corralling and capture it was the the US Army's PSYOPS team from Ft. Bragg with their blasting of American pop and rock songs at the church Noreiga was holed up in through loudspeakers that captured headlines.

With some idle curiosity and a bit of research I found an after action report supplement with a list of songs requested by the US troops to be played for the [dis]pleasure of Mr. Noriega.

Behold on page 210 of the U.S. SOUTHCOM Public Affairs After Action Report Supplement, "Operation Just Cause" the first ever Rickroll:

US ARMY PSYOPS: Making internet memes before there were internet memes

Baby chickens arrived via the USPS this morning. The delivery was rather early today, I wonder if the endless cheep cheeping coming from the 10 by 10 box was annoying. Perhaps that was why she arrived so early. But she had a smile on her face and in her voice when I answered the door. "You have chickens!", she laughed.

Indeed I did. I was surprised that 15 chicks could fit in the package. More surprising (and a little comical) was that all of the chicks could fit themselves in one corner of the small box when I reached in to grab the first one. I was prepared -- brooding cage, feed and water dispensers designed for chicks, necessary because sometimes chicks will fall asleep while drinking and drown, and a heat lamp that had been endlessly adjusted until the proper temperature was reached.

Grab a chick, dunk its beak carefully in the water -- this is their first drink ever and you need to play mother hen and show them what's what. Grab another, dunk the beak, grab, dunk, grab...the grabbing was easy at first but the last couple of chicks had become experts in evasion by the time it came for their grabbing. Sweep, grab, grab, dunk.

They took to the water it was, literally, the best water they had ever tasted. Within a few minutes they had located the chick feed and deciphered its use and a few moments later most had bedded down under the heat lamp and were asleep. Tiny, tiny chickens.