Last week, the girls and I stopped in at my aunt's farm for a quick visit. We were bringing her dinner, giving her a night off during her week of wedding prep for her son's wedding reception that would be held at their farm.
I'll have to bring her dinner more often.
When we drove home, the car doors barely shut. Though we only showed up with a casserole and bread, we came home with a quart of blueberries, two dozen eggs, a bale of straw, and five hens.
It felt like an episode straight out of the beverly hillbillies--chickens squawking, straw flying out the car windows, barefoot kids munching on blueberries, and the smell, oh we won't talk about the smell.....
So five new girls came to join little old Henny Penny. Who suddenly thinks she's top dog around here--and puts on quite a show when the food comes out. But I'm sure she'll settle down, eventually.
The new girls are a somewhat scrappy-looking bunch. Blondie back there was broody at her old digs, and took a lot of pecking while she guarded her "nest". The others lost a few feathers during their couple days in confinement, as they learned the ropes of their new digs.
And Elizabeth, the apparent self-proclaimed chicken farmer, always manages to keep things interesting.
On the second day of the chickens' arrival, when we were still keeping them penned so that they would settle into their new home--Elizabeth was found out in the chicken coop. We were getting ready to leave for dinner and when she came over from the coop, I assumed she was checking nesting boxes for eggs.
Little did I know, Miss Smartypants was opening the door and letting all the new hens have a premature taste of freedom. Catching them that evening, as dusk fell and fox-hour arrived was quite "interesting". There were brooms and hammers and possibly even a few four letter words involved....possibly.
The new girls still haven't learned the ropes of getting their picture taken. They didn't grow up in front of the lens, like Henny Penny. They don't know that when I cluck at them, they're supposed to pose and hold still. But since they're already giving us eggs, and we're counting again, I'll let it slide.
