Chicken sitting, and an accidental week off.

I had no intentions of taking a week+ off blogging, but I had a real week from hell. A book deadline, two books released, other time-sensitive obligations, and a side serving of serious stress which led to far too many nights working past midnight, so I’m just coming up for air now and seeing what else really needs to be done.

The bees got reduced on time, they’re happy. The chickens, though, are under siege. A predator grabbed a chick. A chick!!! How dare they!? Right out of the inner chicken zone. “Luckily” it was one of Velvet’s, so they both have two left – each still has a sibling. Only chicks are so sad. All the birds were so upset by this nearly all of them decided to sleep somewhere else, which is a story for another day.

So I changed my habits. I have to do a substantial amount of work daily on my computer, and this cat/fox/mink isn’t bold enough to attack while I’m outside with them, so now I bring my internet with me and work outside in the afternoon:

It’s cold, the wind blows my papers around, my fingers freeze, but it works. No casualties since I started playing sentinel. The smallest coop is a perfect size on the perimeter of Chickenland.

It is a wonder Nosey hasn’t hopped up there with me yet. What’s really nice is being furniture in the midst of the chicken society, and watching them operate once they forget about me. Serene, relaxed scratching, grooming, resting, and a constant murmur of communication. It’s very quiet. They have a nice casual circuit of exploration. Looking for new bugs, I suppose. Even the Brahmas drift by together.

Usually I’m the disturbance they’re responding to, squawking, running to, running away, announcing, but it’s a very slow pace of life in chicken world when I’m not doing anything noteworthy.

Except for the chicks. They still zoom around.