A Chook & a Book.

 So we have had our chooks for several weeks now & their distinct personalities are emerging day by day.  This is ODD's Nugget.  She is one of my regular layers just now, putting forth a pale pinkish brown, good sized egg most days.  She s my alpha.  When she goes into the nesting box all her handmaidens follow to escort her in state while she goes about the serious business of putting forth the day's egg.  When she is done, she announces the fact with the minimum of fuss & is royally escorted back into the coop.

Meanwhile Namaste is my largest chook, my noisiest chook & my best layer.  She announces the fact she is about her business loudly as she marches in solitary splendour up the ramp & into the hutch, cackling away at various points along the way.  When done, she proudly announces the fact long & loud as she marches back into the pen.  I get a large brown egg from her every day.

Despite a somewhat shonky start my little flock is starting to meld into one contented group who are now dust bathing in one large feathery mop.  I am greeted in the mornings by all 5 beaks pecking rapidly at their perspex window because they know jolly well I have brought the morning offering.  I make them wait, preferring to deposit their greens & top up their feeder in peace, if not quiet, before opening the hutch & letting them loose.

And they are learning the boundaries of where they are allowed.  Down the hill & in the bushes is fine.  My gardens are not ~ & if they venture there I turn the hose on them. Two of my rocks now have their full, bright red combs so are close to laying.  They are the sweetest, gentlest birds with incredibly soft, silky feathers ~ & as a friend says: You've never seen such pretty chickens!

Meanwhile the sad story of tooth fillings & sun cancer removals goes on so I am traipsing back & forth to the mainland twice a week & having run out of reading material reverted to an old, old favourite: The Friendly Persuasion.  I love the solid sense of place Jessamyn West manages & characters so real you can't imagine that somewhere, at some time, they didn't really exist.
She is also one of the few authors who can make me laugh out loud.

So I was sniggering my way through her short story, Yes, We'll Gather @ the River when This sentence leaped out at me: She held the eggs @ some distance from her, smiling down on them in what she didn't mis~doubt was a two~faced way, since she had forty Barred Rocks of her own all laying like a mill race, till Jess had said he'd cackle if he had to face another floating island or custard pie. And  for the first time I saw in my mind's eye what she was describing.  I must have read that sentence dozens of times over the years but this time I saw!  Because she is describing Barred Plymouth Rocks just like the 3 I have outside right now & immediately the whole picture came more alive because I know how Rocks are & what contented, happy birds they are.  Besides, it gives me something of a giggle to know that I have that in common with Eliza Birdwell, besides the preaching of course.  Besides the preaching.