Monday, September 12, 2016

Monday

Who knew chickens could keep secrets?!

We had resigned ourselves to the fact that only old Butter reliably (or fairly reliably) delivers an egg. The rest? Well, Scotch is probably too old. Henny -- she seemed to have turned into a brooder who sat on one egg forever hoping it would hatch and then appeared to just give up on the whole project. Java -- well, she's our big hen who takes up a lot of space in the coop, producing nothing in return.  (She's the only one that spreads herself nicely inside each evening; the other three have to be gathered from their high perches up in trees and forced inside. I kid you not.)

We feed our cheepers, we give them space to roam, they appear to be happy, but this summer, we have few eggs to show for our efforts.

That is until at breakfast...


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... I say to Ed: you know, Henny is hiding her eggs. Right at this time, when Snowdrop was here yesterday and we went to give the girls some bread, Henny was nowhere to be seen. She was clearly sitting on eggs. Somewhere.

Ed goes out to investigate.

Henny daintily prances out of the garage.

It doesn't take long to find a stack of eight green eggs there. We're quite sure there are such piles elsewhere.

We've got a chicken who is an egg illusionist. Or an egg con artist. Or just simply sneaky.


Let's switch focus. Here's a report on the garden: the front bed is looking good still...


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... as is the bed just before the porch.


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The rest of the beds mostly have that early fall look -- so clearly evidenced in this photo of Snowdrop's run through them upon her arrival after school.


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I don't have to guess where she's heading. Yep, for the tomatoes.


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Though she is content to take her haul and do her munching inside.


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She always seems tired after all her hours at school, but once in the house, she gets her second and third winds. Dance! With pinwheel!


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After her nap, she sets up snack time for her best friend animals. Snowdrop is terribly invested in making sure all her stuffies eat a good bit of yogurt.


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But as Ed goes out to do some work outside, she, too, must go outside.


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We pick weeds, she picks flowers.


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And her pinwheel spins and the winds blow bugs away.


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Happy. Yes, the girl is correct, I think, in describing herself thus.