Summer's turn

So it begins, with the guineas.What have we here?  A pile of chicks trying to perch like grownups on the coop, next to mom.But look closer.  Who's that IN the greenhouse?  I don't know how the F they got in there, maybe the gap above the screendoor?, but there were three little guineas on the door header on the wrong side.  Frantic!I get involved, scare them off the door, thinking they'll come out the open door after they're on the ground.  Nyoooo!  Mom is on the ground now too, so they run towards her and out of my sight behind the cucumbers.Mom can see them running back and forth through the plastic and starts pecking at them.  Naughty!  Get out of there!  Chicks:  We can't, we can't!  The plastic is like the skin of a drum,  and her pecking it is frightening the daylights out of the chicks.  Boom!  Boom!  It's frightening me too.HW swings around outside to get Mom to cease and desist, I undo the wiggle wire on that corner, and after rattling the cucumber vines, the chicks come popping out the hole and it's all over but the storytelling. The wild Oreos and their fluffy stepmom no longer slip under the fence into Pigland but are content in the partially desertified former Pigland.  They tower over mom now.  One is coming into slate shingle colouring, and the other has developed coppery neck feathers.The light is shortening, and it's that glorious time of year when when the chickens feel like going to bed lines up with when I want to go to bed.  Midsummer is awful.  The chickens outlast me every day.  I'll be so tired I'm struggling to stay awake long enough to close them up, because they're out there hopping around!  Not a care in the world!  SO not ready for bed.  Today, I'm like, What?  Are you guys seriously all in bed at 8:20!?  I could weep with joy.Inside the greenhouse Brown Bonnet is proudly bringing up 7 chicks.These chicks have a different start because instead of chickery time, when they first emerged I lifted her box out of the fence because she was sharing, and trusted mama not to lose any chicks in the jungle.Funny, the first three days, she barely went two feet from the box.  Now she's using half of the tomato aisle as the chicks increase in ability.  Soon they will be anywhere, and I'll think twice about slinging buckets of water.At night they all go back in the box to sleep, which is adorable.  They are going to be so wild, never getting the daily airlift touching.  Someone's always got to peek out.Or two someones.Or three.