Welcome! I’m honored that so many teachers, librarians and homeschool educators are making use of the HenCam. Here’s a page that might be of use. I’ve put down some ideas about how to use Tillie Lays an Egg and my web sites in the curriculum. Let me know if you have something to add.

I do library story times and classroom visits. As you can see, sometimes I bring Tillie!

I live about 30 miles west of Boston. Contact me if you’d like more information about these programs. At this time I don’t do skype or video conferences. However, I’m happy to answer email questions from your students. (Please put up to ten questions in one email from the classroom’s address -don’t have the individual students email.)

If you are reading Tillie Lays an Egg in the classroom, I’ll put a hello! notice on the HenCam homepage. I used to hang a sign in front of the camera, but Candy liked to play with them, and she shredded several messages (including the plastic sleeves!)

Here in New England, the start of school coincided with a dramatic change in the weather. One day it was wiltingly humid and hot, and the next, when the school buses rolled down the street, it was crisp and we all put on sweaters. I hope that the beginning of your school year is as invigorating for you.

Great blue herons are stately in repose. They are serene, these stealth fishermen, but in a quick jabbing moment, they spear fish and swallow them down whole.

Even a fish this big.

There’s too many fish in our little pond, so I don’t mind the heron thinning out their ranks. However, I’m none too pleased that the heron caught one of my prettiest fish.

Of course, the bird has come back to this pool of easy pickings. Lily has a new job- keeping the heron away.

You’d think that a bird that has a hard time heaving itself into the air, and flies slowly, limbs akimbo, wings beating hard, would hurry off when the kitchen door opens. You’d think that when I yell, watch out bird, while holding the eager dog’s collar, that the heron would appreciate the head start and get moving. It takes it’s time. The heron does, slowly, fly out of range. It’s a big bird. Huge. When it lands on a bare branch near the coop, the wood creaks and some bark falls to the ground. To Lily’s dismay, though, the branch holds.

Lily has chased the bird off of the pond three times this morning. She has earned three cookies. I’m sure she’ll be earning more.

This time of year is when the hens molt. They shed their old feathers and grow new, warm coats for the winter. Some hens lose  a few feathers and you can hardly tell that they’re molting. Others seem to lose them all at once.

Lulu is our crazy hen. Whatever she does, she does it with a zany energy. Of course, Lulu’s molt is way more dramatic than the other girls’. First she lost her tail. Here she is going by the name of Lulu Two-Feathers. Doesn’t she look like she has on one of those child’s costume Indian headdresses that you used to find at the five and dime store?

A few days later, she looked like a woebegone stuffed animal. Bare and moth-eaten.

Next, Lulu does her best porcupine imitation.

These pinfeathers will unfurl into beautiful black and white feathers. Most of the other hens are molting, too, but none look like this. I love Lulu dearly, but I’m glad there’s just one of her!

If you don’t see Pip, he might be here. The goat-proofed cam is now a goat-lookout perch. Doesn’t Pip look silly?

Agnes caught a frog.

The other chickens wanted it. The chase was on.

But Agnes was fast and clever. She hid by the stonewall, and gobbled it up.

The other girls wish that they could find a tasty frog, too. But all they find are toads. Yuck!