Our town, in addition to an obscene real estate market and fantastic weather, also boasts small-town amenities like the annual parade, plus a series of free concerts at the beach in the summer. Tonight the children and I, plus Thing 2's lovely godmother, walked to the cove, met some friends, ate a potluck and listened to the concert.
After a leisurely stroll home and snacks for the middle Things, it was bedtime for them and also for the chickens. Thing 1 had accepted an invitation from her good friend, Suzee's son, to sleep over. I think a new computer game might have been used as a lure. Thing 1 usually does chicken cooping duty, but I pulled on my boots and trudged to the back yard to tuck them in, beyond the reach of any raccoons as might stroll through the yard.
To sweeten the deal, a handful of grass tossed into the coop often helps persuade the ladies to cluck their way in. All but the Buff Orpington, "Goldie." No, she studiously looks as though roosting is the thing furthest from her mind while all the others are whooshing up onto their perches and uttering little chirps of contentment. By the time she deicdes that she really does want to be up on the perches with the others, she and I have gone through a few rounds of "Gotcha!" where she runs away as I make ineffectual lunges at her. So she's in no mood to take advice from me.
Instead of considering the one side of the coop which contains the opening, or "door," she runs frantically around the other three sides, cheeping pathetically and looking through the mesh up at the four other hens who have figured out this difficult routine. If I wait patiently for her to come around the corner to the dreaded door side, then ease the door open so she can just slip in, she sees through my ruse and runs away -- around the back of the coop, which is set just close enough to the two walls so that chasing her around it is miserable, but possible.
Finally, after twenty or thirty three-quarter laps around the coop, she overshoots and manages to let her momentum carry her into the door and right up on a perch.
Idiot.
Having 1/3 of the final "Cabaret" sleeve done and ready for me to finish helps take the edge off, though.
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6 comments:
Mwahaha! I can just see you running around in the dark after hens.
You must be plased to have Cabaret so close to being finished.
Does Thing 1 do this every night? Fight with the chickens?
That lady bird better watch herself! I'm sure every night terror of putting her to bed makes her look a little more like raccoon food.
If patience is a virtue, you must be very virtuous!
My wool/silk is still sitting idle. I have had no inspriation whatsoever.
This is why I have no problem eating chicken.
Yes, leaving her outside to be eaten by predators seems like a fine idea when I'm putting them away.
Thing 1 does do chicken duty nearly every night. She also does most of the dog feeding (although I am poop patrol -- yippee). She's a big help. She told me that she doesn't waste time. When she's putting them in bed, she goes in the pen and grabs Goldie first, then deals with the pleasant birds after. I'm going to try her method.
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