Chicken Love and Seedlings

Well, it happened.  I have  a chicken in love with me.  I spent a great
deal of time holding her when she was very young--she was flighty
and very much a "nervous nellie"  Now she is in love with me.  Makes
ga-ga eyes at me.  If am in the bedroom, she stays in the front yard where
she belongs.  If I go to the sunroom, over the fence she sails with the greatest
of ease.  Mr. Natural says he saw her flying dead out and over six feet
high.  Then she climbs the steps to the deck and announces herself.  She
has even laid her eggs downstairs beneath the deck.  She loves to be petted
and will close her eyes in pleasure when I pet her.  She makes these cooing
noises when I pet her that turns me to mush.  Why didn't someone warn me
that chickens were not lifestock, but pets.  They have us both just as
enamoured of them as they are of us.  Vacation?  I really want to go
on one, but what about the chickens?  It used to be the cat--until we
folded.  Now she goes with us.  Oceanfront rooms mandatory.  Daisycat
can sit and watch the ocean and the gulls hours on end.

Back to the chickens:  They forage in the front yard, and call for frequent
snacks.  They get grapes, blueberries, fig newtons, and freeze dried  mealy
worms. (And they are hand fed). Best fed chickens around--but
anything but natural.  Pampered like pets.  (They also get calcium  and grit
along with their laying mash feed.)

Mr. Natural and I woke up at around 0400 this morning.  He was talking
about how he used to be--"I was trouble--born to raise hell"  And we both
said at the same time, "Now I'm a chicken keeper."  "I've always wanted
me a flock."  We were both laughing ourselves silly.  Then he said, "these
chickens don't have to catch worms, not with as many as you give them."
True words.  

The seedlings sprouted quickly and shot us just as fast.  Yesterday, I trans-
planted 11 plants--6 squash (3 different varieties) and 5 tomato plants
(also 3 different varieities).  But these plants have to survive Blondie, who
refuses to lay in the laying boxes, but on the downstairs porch beneath the
sunroom. 

While I was planting, a hummingbird lit at the nectar feeder.  Beside it, a
downy woodpecker on the suet.  At the bird feeder was a fufted titmouse,
a young nuthatch, and a chickadee.  A young bluejay lit on the railing
eating sunflower seeds.  The rabbits in the yard dont even run when we
walk by.

Well, Blondie has been to the deck 3 times.  She's proclaimed to have laid
an egg--maybe she did upstairs, but not on the bench downstairs.

All for now.

Kate Thorn