We get up early. We want to see how the chicks survived their night in the coop. We walk over to the barn with trepidation.
Well now, it all seems great! The coop is large. They are on one side, the others are on the other. We open the door, Happy and the big girls scoot out. A nothing worry! Now we can watch the little chicks venture out to enjoy their first taste of freedom.
They love exploring!
Unfortunately, Dance, who has watched them for nine and a half weeks inside the farmhouse and outside, from behind the play pen fence, now sees that she has free access to them. She prowls, ready to pounce.
She wont stop. She watches their every movement, scooting low, eyes focused intently on the little girls. Twice she tries to leap toward them and twice I shout at her, distracting her focus at the last minute. Ed says she probably is just playing, in the way she plays with a pen that rolls on the floor. But it doesn't seem like play to me and after nearly an hour of watching, we admit defeat: we can't leave them to test her hunting instincts. Into the pen they go.
We will wait another week and try again. Perhaps as they grow, the cats will treat them as they treat the other chickens -- ignore, keep their distance. For now, we're stuck with still tending to the young chicks. Inside the house at night, in the play pen during the day. Uff!!
Breakfast, in the kitchen, because we're so focused on the chickens that the pleasure of the porch would be lost on us.
What follows is a morning of many many phone calls (all having to do with my mother's move in two weeks) and many many plantings. A call comes in, I take it, I plant, one, two flowers, another call comes in, I water the plants (it is so beastly dry out there!), put in some more, take the next call and then the next. I do this all the way until early afternoon: phone in my pants pocket, shovel in hand, pausing, starting, pausing again.
You'd think that this would keep me from enjoying all that's growing around me, but it doesn't. I am intensely focused on all my plants now. I study their progress. I know them by heart (at least I know the old ones -- the new ones still require a map and a list for cross referencing). Too, we're nearing the time when the farmette in her entirety is at her best. The greens aren't tired, the garden isn't crowded or dried up yet - it all looks so fresh and beautiful!
I pick up Snowdrop at school. Always the happy run...
We drive to the farmhouse and for once she doesn't want to talk about school. She wants to talk about the COVID vaccination program and masks. She is trying to figure out when she can be in line for a shot. I tell her that they are just testing it on kids who have turned 6. Maybe the fall? She sighs with relief. I don't turn seven until winter! I would be able to get it in the Fall! (One forgets how literal kids can be.)
(playing in the "magic meadow"...)
Much as she loves the farmette, today she is eager to return home early: the kids are now sleeping in a bunk bed combo in one room (to make space for their soon to be born sibling). She can't wait to play on her top bed.
Evening. Just a few more plants to put in, really, just a few more! 33 total today. And almost that many phone calls.
