Post for 09/23/10 First Day of Fall and an Autumn Harvest Moon

September 23, 2010

96 degrees today, the first day of Fall.  Go figure!  Gorgeous Autumn Harvest Moon last night, won’t see another for twenty years. 

The chickens have been lounging in the shade most of the day, panting.  Yes, they pant, like dogs, to cool themselves off.  I went out a little while ago to see if there were any eggs and there were no eggs and no Raven.  I looked in all the boxes, bent upside down and peered under the nesting area and coop, went out of the run and walked around the back....no Raven.  A momentary fear passed through me – could something have gotten her?  Could someone had let her out?  Then it occurred to me, there was one more place to look.  In trying to break Goldie from being broody and the others from attacking her, I had rearranged all the nesting boxes and tried to make the run more of a romper room for them, a distraction.....   Since several love to fly up onto my plastic lawn chair when I bring it in there, I decided to bring in a plastic wheelbarrow, slightly different than the conventional wheel barrow in that it is more like a large trashcan with wheels on the bottom and a handle on the top to pull it around.  I had turned it upside down so the bantams could run under it to escape from the larger birds who couldn’t fit under it and also so the birds could fly to the top and hang out.  However, the larger birds have been afraid of it and have not used it as a perch, whereas the bantams have gone underneath and explored a bit.  I swear bantams are smarter. 

Anyway, I lifted it up and there was Raven, laying in the very back, having hollowed out a little nest for herself.  She has laid two eggs in Goldie’s bottom box, 1 egg in the small upper box and 3 in the large upper box.  I suppose she is trying to find a place where her egg will not disappear, either that or she is like Goldie-locks in the fable and trying out new beds.....

I have a meeting to go to and will check later to see if an egg has arrived.  Hopefully, it will not be a temptation for any of the other birds who peck at anything on the ground.  Only Goldie should be able to get under there, maybe Ellie too, but not the other birds,  but they could perhaps reach their head under.

Got home at about 4:45pm and went out to check on Raven.  She was out and walking around so I figured there was an egg somewhere and indeed it was in a little nest she had made underneath the wheel barrow.  Egg number seven.  Wonder where egg number eight will be laid!!!!