Now I remember....

.... why I've been letting the cats sleep in the TV room at night--- because they wake me up at 4:30 in the morning if I don't. And that's what happened just a little while ago. The little cat-clock inside ShadowBaby's brain goes off and tells him it's time to start a new day. And that's what he did--- he walked from the bottom of the bed to the top of the bed, sat down on my pillow and put his nose right next to my nose. Hey there, sleepyhead... are you awake? Time to get up... there's a can of cat food downstairs with my name on it...!

Oh well... guess I will have an early start on the day. It doesn't get light outside till nearly seven o'clock, so my day will have to start inside, not outside. The yard guys are supposed to be here this morning-- so I will have to keep the chickens inside the coop till they're done with the mowing. They probably won't want to come out of the coop anyway, with all the noise from those machines. The chickens are already used to the quiet here, and when the neighbor across the road rides around his property on his tractor, the chickens huddle up and start their parade towards The Coopacabana.

When I went into town yesterday, I left the chickens in the yard instead of locking them in the coop. They were all resting in the grass just outside the coop when I came home, and they started to coo and cluck at me when I got back. I checked on them as soon as I put the car into the garage, then I brought the groceries into the house. Before I had everything unpacked, the five chickens walked across the yard and up the porch steps and were standing there by the back door. Hey! Where's our noon-time bread?! And do you have any more carrots and lettuce in there? The two Guinea hens didn't come up on the porch-- they were waiting by the steps, probably deciding what to do.

We have learned that the Guinea hens aren't as smart as the chickens. The gate of the coop swings inward when we open it, and I prop the gate open with a rock, to make sure it doesn't swing shut if the wind kicks up. If the Guinea hens aren't paying attention to where they're walking, they will find themselves behind that gate instead of in front of it, and then of course they can't get out of the coop. But instead of just walking around the gate, they will pace back and forth behind the gate, trying to figure out how they can get outside the coop. It takes the chickens just a couple of seconds to figure out that same maneuver, but the two Guinea hens will go back-and-forth, back-and-forth, back-and-forth for a full two or three minutes.

When I was out yesterday, I stopped in at the thrift shop to see what was new. I found a cute ceramic pig with the sweetest face-- it's a good-sized little pig, painted white with rosy cheeks and dark eyelashes. Except for the eyelashes, the pig looks real, and when I set it out in the garden by the back porch, Gatsby wouldn't go near it for the longest time. He didn't see me setting it out there, and he must have seen the pig out of the corner of his eye because he was halfway up the stairs and his tail fluffed up and his ears went back and you would have thought the steps were on fire the way he ran up. Then he slowly made his way back down the steps, watching that pig the whole time to see if it would move. Gatsby slowly, slowly moved close to the pig and came to the conclusion that it wasn't real. Hey! They sold you a fake pig! You're still a city-girl!

The chickens ignored the ceramic pig altogether... it didn't stop them from coming up the porch steps, looking for their bread and vegetables. I went out there with bread and carrot-sticks for them, but I made them follow me back into the yard before I gave it to them. Wherever the chickens go, so goes their poop... and I don't want to be feeding them on the porch. My three chickens (Dolly, Edie and Jaye) are eating out of my hand now. And either Dolly or Jaye left an egg in one of the nesting boxes for me yesterday. Jaye is too young yet to lay eggs, and it was a brown egg, so it couldn't have been one of my husband's chickens. His two (Audrey and Henny Penny) are the Araucana breed, and their eggs are pale blue. We've had one of those so far, from Henny Penny. No eggs yet from the Guinea hens, but I'm sure their eggs will be much smaller than the other eggs we've had from the chickens.

Mickey Kitty and ShadowBaby have been watching the chickens from the kitchen windows. If the kitchen door is open, they can hear the chickens scratching in the mulch of the flower beds and Mickey will meow and growl a little bit as he watches them. I'm sure ShadowBaby has only one thing on his mind when he sees the chickens: Dinner!

I should explain to ShadowBaby that I have only one thing on my mind at 4:30 in the morning: Sleep!