Chickens

I didn't know I had a hole in my heart until a flock of chickens filled it.

I love everything about these birds!  I love how they grew way too quickly from chicks to gangly teenagers.  I love their coop that Dave built and which we have painted to match our house. I love going to Renfrow Hardware in Matthews and getting chicken advice from the real farmers.

I love how the chickens put themselves to bed at night by going into their coop. I love how they still cuddle together in a corner of the coop when they sleep instead of roosting (which I hope they do eventually).

I love how we have (hopefully) finally figured out how to let them be Free Range and still protect them from the local hawks. I love how they explore and peck the backyard as a group.  I even love when Buffy gets distracted by something shiny, and when she notices the flock has moved away from her, she runs and jumps and half flies so she can catch them. I love how it still shocks me to see a multi-colored, speckled flock of birds in the rain garden, under the shrubs or meandering through the sweet potato vines. They are truly beautiful. I even love that they climb on our back porch and peer in our glass door to see what we are doing.

I love how they get excited when they see me walking towards them when they are in their run/pen and how they run towards me when I come outside and they are out exploring the yard. I love how they chase and eat crickets as if they are on a mission. I love how they eat nearly all our table scraps.  This is the stuff we would normally throw away, but now goes to the chickens to eventually feed us again as eggs.

I love how our children all have their favorite chickens and that neighbors will just stop on by to see how to see how they are doing. I love how the neighbor's dog has adopted them and how he sits at the fence by their coop, patiently and calmly watching them.  I love how Patches knows they are part of our herd and doesn't try to hurt them.  Try to herd them?  Yes.

And I love being on Egg Watch 2012.   I love that today, Angel, the Rhode Island Red, laid a beautiful speckled egg, which was her first.

 I really and truly love these chickens.