Poultry portraits

I'm always disappointed with my poultry pictures. Chickens are just stinkin' hard to photograph.

They move astonishingly fast, so my attempts are usually blurry.

They're very short, so unless I get down to their level, it's hard to make eye contact.

And speaking of eyes, they are constantly blinking, and chicken eyelids are just plain gross.

Anyway, seeing as how they continue to provide me with the most delicious eggs,

yesterday I was determined to take a few decent poultry portraits.

Mrs. Hughes shut up long enough to look me in the eye. 

Oh, how this girl can talk.

But see what I mean about the eyelid? Ewww.

Ten is very beautiful, but she doesn't have much of a comb.

Perhaps it will grow with time.

Sweet Peach. She's the lone survivor of the Lonesome Dove girls, 

three identical Buff Orpingtons who arrived at the ranch six years ago. 

I had to paint their toenails different colors in order to tell them apart.

She forgave me...eventually.

Hoity toity Lady Mary. Since the finale of Downton Abbey two weeks ago, 

I've gone back to the beginning and am binge watching every season

because I'm not ready to say goodbye to the characters.

My Lady Mary's comb flops to the right.

Lady Edith's comb flops to the left.

I don't think this is a reflection of their politics,

but one never knows.

Eleven is a bit of a mystery. Her tail feathers refuse to grow out.

Johnny swears he has nothing to do with it, but I'm not sure I can believe him.

In any event, he was quite fed up with the whole poultry photo shoot at this point

and was determined to disrupt it. I will share those photographs with you tomorrow.