There's No Place Like Home

In case anyone wanted a chicken update, I'm not sure the mites are gone. I hover on that strand of hope each time I go out to see what the chickens are up to. It looks good, but I'm no chicken/mite expert. I hesitate to declare triumph. They are Mitey.

I do know that the chickens are desperate to go home to their chicken house. Every night at around dusk, they crowd around the path to the chicken house door, like groupies with no tickets, desperate to get into that rock concert. They look despondent. Tonight in the dark, I had to move the three baby chickens who were huddled against their old door in a desperate mini-chicken stack. It's heartbreaking, really, their loyalty to tradition. They laid against the door, deriving comfort from just the nearness of their old place. I put them in the new area with the other chickens, a gentle nudge toward togetherness, team, family. Find comfort with the Group, when really they just want to go Home.

Also I hear them irately calling to me (or anyone) during the day when they want to lay their egg in the chicken house and the door is shut. They walk around anxiously, freaked that their regular place is closed, what will they DO?? They don't LIKE the nests out here, they like them where they USED to be. Because they used to be there. That's where we GO, in THERE. They shriek. So they are laying SOMEPLACE, I know they're laying but they are HIDING that location from me, in protest. I'm expecting a typed letter soon, from their attorney, a Rooster. They'll be firing me, and hiring Emma, who will open their door for them. And they can file inside in an orderly fashion, and assume their old roosts, right at dusk, prompt for bedtime, because as all chickens know, dozing on that wooden beam in the chicken house is the greatest time of day. Who cares about the mites.