Chickens are definitely the bottom of the food chain. Pretty much everyone eats chicken. And yet, they pick the funniest times to be bold. I was supposed to be helping with the new chicken house, but I got distracted by a flash of feathers in the back of the truck…

One of our scrubby red pullets had hopped up in the bed of the truck to check things out.

She just wandered around clucking under her breath and twisting almost up-side-down to see under the toolbox. I reckon she was looking for treats, or straw seeds, or who knows what.

I supposed she was disappointed.

So she hopped down and headed over by the tractor. A few minutes later I heard some scratching around and when to check on her. She had hopped up on the mower deck was the scratching through the grass clippings.

Clearly they think they own the place around here! {smile}

Chickens are funny. Sometimes they’ll walk right up and hop over the dog napping on the porch, and sometimes she’ll sneeze too loud and they’ll scatter like a hawk just swooped down on the them. They’ll cluster right up to you, pecking on your boots, if you’ve got leftovers to share with them…but if you reach down to pet one of them they’ll screech and flap away like you’re trying to catch them for the cook pot (which never happens to the layers around here!).

Gail Damerow hits on a lot of this in her book Chickens in Your Backyard. It’s a great beginner guide if you’re thinking about chickens, but I really enjoy the way she sprinkles the book with real-life chicken adventures. I could sit and watch our ladies carry on out in the yard for hours! Hopefully the Fall weather this week will let me spend more time doing just that.

Happy Monday!

See where I’m sharing this week…