Guineas

The guinea with the broken leg got out of her pen in the barn, and has been hopping around on one leg ever since. Poor girl, she can't get around very good, so the other four guineas spend a lot of time hanging out with her in and around the barnyard.
Sometimes they go under the trees nearby and I wonder where the wounded one is... until I see that she is laying down resting in the middle of their group. They surround her and just hang out. Sometimes 3 of them leave to go forage, but the one male that is her partner ALWAYS stays with her.
He chases the chickens away and stands guard while she eats and drinks. He does not try to eat or drink anything himself. He just keeps watch and can hold off a surprisingly LARGE number of chickens!
We got our huge list nearly done in two days instead of four, thanks to Mooky and Erinn! They have worked so hard. Today we plan to butcher more chickens, and continue work on creating some kind of gluten free gingerbread that doesn't fall to pieces then you work with it. Mooky made some yesterday that tasted great, but wasn't sturdy enough.
A couple days ago, a 6 point buck came up near the house when I was shaking a can of corn for the goats. Surprised me! I actually went and got the gun since we really need more deer meat, and I had every opportunity to shoot him because he came within 40 feet of me several times. However, that is NOT normal wild deer behaviour and all I could of was that it was someone's pet deer and I couldn't shoot him. He had to be half tame to come up when he heard the corn in the bucket.... I was telling Kris all about it and he agreed that that was really weird and he wouldn't have shot him either. I have not actually ever shot a deer! And I don't really want to, but we do need the meat, and it would have been a perfect opportunity. We just don't see very many deer on our land because they avoid the goats. We see them all around though!