Stumpy's Great Escape

The first chore of the day is to tend to the Silkie chicks.  As I was putting in fresh water and feed yesterday, I evidently didn't close the door to the laundry room when I went in.  Usually Stumpy oversees my tasks, but I glanced behind me and there she was, stumping down the hall.  I had my hands full at the moment, but thought it was okay...I knew she was headed toward the front door.  Finished with the chicks, I went to look for Stumpy...and couldn't find her.  Bessie Anne, ever watchful for "her" chickens, ratted her out.  Evidently Stumpy flipped a U in the hall and decided to check out the guest room.  There she was, hopping up and down on the bed.  Perhaps she is tired of sharing her quarters with the kindergartners and wanted a room of her own again. 

The sun came out in the morning and, after milking was done, I grabbed a book and went out to sit on the deck, joining the blue-belly lizards that were doing push-ups on the railing.  I am reading The Peacocks of Baboquivari, loaned to me by Arden.  It's a day-to-day account of an ornithologist who spent six months alone in the hill country of Arizona studying the bird life in that area.  If she'd had electricity in her little cabin, Erma Fisk could have been a blogger.  One paragraph caught my eye:  "If this account deals chiefly and interminably with weather it is because when you live in the country weather is what controls your life."  So I'm not the only one who notes the weather daily, whining and applauding appropriately.  It's the first thing I check in the morning and the last thing I note before going to bed.

The sparrows who used to join me in the milking room have moved on, their place taken by a bold California blue jay (scrub jay).  This bird showed up one morning, perched on the half-open Dutch door, and did a number of fly-bys overhead, making me consider that perhaps a hat would save me from a "birding."  Not content with sharing the grain thrown down for the mice, this robber baron found the full bucket of feed up on the shelf.  Now he shows up every morning for breakfast and helps himself, sitting companionably at the doorway for a few minutes before heading off to do whatever it is birds do during the day.