You Can Run...

No sooner are the doors opened to the chicken coop than the hens and Nicolas come tumbling out, scrambling for the scratch thrown down in their yard.  (Turkeys hang around on the outside of the pen, waiting for me to step out so they can fly over to join their small feathered friends.)  I swear there are days when Ginger must be waiting with legs clamped together.  Instead of going for breakfast, she immediately jumps the fence and runs away.  The next step on my morning list is to put alfalfa in the cart to take to the goat pen.  Ginger has found her hidey-hole in the feed barn, tucked away in a corner and hidden (she thinks) under the sled used to haul feed when there's snow on the ground.  That's where she's chosen to lay her eggs, and yesterday was one of those days she couldn't wait a minute longer.  As I stepped closer to take her picture, she backed up, fluffed her feathers out, and growled a warning.  "A little privacy here, if you please!"  I turned away and pretended I hadn't seen her.  I'm just glad she's chosen one place and one place (hopefully) only.  Saves me from having to go on a daily egg hunt for my little free-range runaway.

The view from Inga's window in the goat barn was too pretty to resist.  Robert's vineyard is bursting with reds, greens, and golds of fall color.  Catching sight of this makes raking and shoveling goat poop from the stalls a lot more pleasant.  Come really cold weather and rainy days (!!), the window openings will be covered over.  Oh well, by then the leaves will have dropped and the view will be barren.  But the poop will go on and on.

I usually concentrate on sunrise and sunset, but the sky at mid afternoon was gorgeous.  Chill, but not cold enough to light a fire, Bess (she had the duty) and I went out to the deck to enjoy the sporadic sunshine.

It's a good thing I hadn't waited.  After putting the goats to bed, I started tucking in the chickens.  Ginger, who normally greets me and rushes to be first in the gate to the big pen, did not appear.  Maybe she's on the other side of the coop.  I got the feed bucket for nighty-night snacks.  Still no Ginger.  Thinking she might have gone broody, I checked her hidey-hole.  Empty and the egg abandoned.  I started getting worried.  Shutting the door to the Taj for the Silkies, I heard a rusting in the leaves to the west, over by the fence line.  There was my little red-headed girl, scratching away for one last goody in the fading light.  Bessie, who was again my escort, was more than ready to herd Ginger home, but responded well to "Leave it!"  ("Good girl, Bess!")  Ginger looked around as if surprised to see how fast the sun was fading and came running.  I'd have had no time to take a day's-end photo.  All present and accounted for, doors closed against the darkness, Bessie Anne and I went back to the house.

It was a good day.