Addendum

The Nut-Eaters have taken over the asylum!  Swinging back around the doorway after cleaning the sleeping room in the barn, I surprised two squirrels in the milking room.  These two twerpy-doodles had the moxie (ask your mother...she'll remember what it means), the temerity, the unmitigated gall to stand up on their hind legs and chitter at me for interrupting their breakfast!  Now, I try to be a gracious hostess and I don't mind giving a handout to those in need, but I don't think it's necessary to take lip from two scroungers on the dole!  It's one thing when you're a Lilliputian not to show fear in the presence of Gulliver, but it's another thing entirely to take him (or her) on face to face.  It's too much, I say!

A couple of the toms were hanging out in the chicken pen as I came back up to the house, the others were accompanying their special friends as they pecked and scratched free range.  As I think of it, this is not a bad set up.  It's as if the Mafia Boys have assumed a protector's role, taking their goomahs under their wing(s), as it were. 

I'd write more, but the hummingbirds are banging on the window to let me know their feeders are low.  If my life were a Salvador Dali painting, it wouldn't be eyes or melting clocks...it would be gaping mouths everywhere.  Good grief.