The keets turned eleven weeks old on Tuesday.

Their favorite thing is eating grass—in fact, the only time they will willingly approach me is when I extend a fistful of greenery their way. Things got a little tough during the drought we recently had. All the grass on the farm dried up and blew away with the dust. I haven’t mown for more than a month, and haven’t even assembled the new mower I bought to replace my other that I killed by running over a gnarly big tree root that was hidden in the grass. Back when we had grass! I even saw an ad on CraigsList that a farmer was selling his entire herd of cattle (15 head) because there was nothing for them to eat in the field.

And then last week we got a few storms that dumped a couple of much-needed inches. The pasture greened up, and things started growing again.

The keets continue to exercise their loud new voices, and each time I hear them all launch into a cacophonous chorus, I am glad I built their coop relatively far from the house!

Their wattles continue to grow, and they are sprouting bony protrusions that will become the “helmets” on each bird’s head.

One reason that I am including so many guinea photos, other than that I find them neat, is that I have had such a hard time finding good-quality images of guineas in all stages of their development. I hope that I can do a service to any other birdkeeper who’d like to know what they are getting into!

In other birdwatching news, I have really been enjoying the hummingbirds as they come to feed on the back porch. They never cease to amaze me with their crazy flying and admirable aggressiveness as they chase each another around the sky.