I vowed that I wouldn’t write a cliched post about spring. No photos of an emerging crocus or apple blossom here! Well, spring is here, and I couldn’t do such an overworked topic, even if I wanted to. The mornings still sparkle from a hard frost,

and there’s nary a crocus in sight.

But, there is incontrovertible proof that spring has arrived. This:

This week I collected enough eggs to sell 3 dozen! It makes me happy to think that my neighbors are enjoying the good eggs from my flock. I also admit to like having the bills that my customers leave in the jar. There’s something about “egg money.” It’s only a few dollars but it makes me feel rich. I can only imagine how a farm wife felt about the money she brought in from her own flock. Often, it was the only money that she had. Even more importantly, it was her money. In an economy where there was little cash, and the main farm income came in seasonally, with long gaps between earnings, having that saved away jar of egg money was often, literally, a life saver.

My egg money goes in my wallet. I’m having coffee with a friend later this week. When I spend $4.00 for a latte, I’ll thank the girls. It’ll make the coffee that much more special.

Although there’s still old snow in the shady areas, most of the yard and animal pens are looking end-of-winterish. There’s mud. There’s manure to rake up and dog messes that hid in the snow all winter that I need to pick up. Not a very attractive description – but, with the sun out and the weather in the 50’s, there’s a hit of green, which makes it beautiful.

It was a perfect day for a clean-up. While I mucked out the goats’ stalls and raked their yard, the hens had an outing. Here are Lulu and Buffy multi-tasking. They’re dust bathing and pecking for bugs at the same time.

Candy had a romp in the goats’ yard, and had a snack on mint shoots.

Meanwhile, the goats got in the way. They also got in the compost pile where I was dumping their old bedding. Hay that they had rejected in their stall, becomes appealing when it is somewhere they’re not usually allowed.

After giving the goats all new shavings and fluffing their hay, I did a spring cleaning in the HenCam coop. Cobwebs were brushed off the ceiling, the floor swept, even behind the food bins, and a messy catch-all shelf was cleared off and dusted. When I started sneezing and couldn’t stop, I decided that I’d done enough.

After showering and putting on animal hair and dust-free clothes, I decided to check my email. Just to take one more look at my hard work, I clicked on goatcam. What a sweet picture. There were Pip and Caper, lying down in their clean bedding, chewing their cuds. Then Caper tried to stand up. But, somehow, he was under the water bucket. He stood up anyway. The bucket tipped and the water poured out. I saw his ears swivel. What’s that water noise? I saw him thinking. Oh. My bed is soggy. The goatmaid should keep this place nicer. He carefully made his way out of the stall.

Back I went to the barn. I sopped up the two gallons of water with a towel. I shoveled wet bedding. I put new shavings down. Good-night boys, I said. Thank-you, they said. Can we have a bedtime snack?

I am off to the shower, again.

Three years ago, I decided that Lily needed a dog companion, one that she could rough-house with and challenge to tug-of-war games. On petfinder.com, I located a twenty-four pound corgi-mix who had just found her way into foster care and had whelped a litter of pups. I went to see. I was sure that the boy pup was just what I had in mind – a corgi-terrier -a tough mid-sized farm dog. I was wrong. Dad must have been a chihuahua. Scooter maxed out at 10 1/2 pounds.

I’ve never been a toy dog lover. I’ve no desire to dress up a dog, or baby a shivery, nervous, twitchy little thing. I think he’s relieved. He does shiver, and likes to sleep in sunny spots, but Scooter hates, hates, hates, to wear coats. He does not want to be carried around. Although he doesn’t play tug-of-war with Lily, he does bite her toes and makes her chase him.

Today we went for a walk in the woods. It was icy and muddy, but Scooter kept up. He leapt raging rivulets of water! He waded belly-deep through cold mud! He sniffed smells that needed sniffing and he left his mark on every three-inch high mound of turf. Scooter says he might be little, but he’s no toy.

This doesn’t mean he doesn’t love his creature comforts at home. Even the big dogs get to curl up and rest.

I was invited to bring some chickens to the Boston Museum of Science for a talk by writer Susan Orlean. She wrote an article about chickens for the New Yorker and so was asked to talk about her hens and her writing at a lecture. I brought the live props!

Around 5 PM, I popped Marge and Petunia into a large dog crate, Tina Turner and Siouxsie in another, and Coco in her guinea pig cage. Then I tucked them all into the minivan and off we went. Marge, of course, clucked and murmered the entire 45 minute drive to the museum. The chickens have never been on a wheely cart before, nor in a basement parking lot. Petunia stood up to get a good view. Cheryl White, from the Museum, is pushing one cart. I’ve got the other, and Steve helped with the doors. We had to take a freight elevator. Petunia found that interesting, too. Marge, of course, continued to make comments about her adventure.

I brought tarps, X-pens, shavings, water dishes, and plenty of treats. I was sure that the girls would stay in the pens. I was wrong. It was their bedtime. Even though the lecture hall had bright lights and there were over a hundred people in the audience, and Susan was talking into a mic, it was still bedtime. They needed to roost. Tina and Siouxsie tried to balance on the narrow wire X-pen, but couldn’t do it. Every few minutes I had to pick them up and put them back in their pen. Finally, I held one girl and Steve held another while we sat in the audience. For awhile that worked, but they got restless. We put them back. Then Marge and Petunia decided that they really, really, absolutely had to roost. Here, Marge is checking out Coco’s digs.

Petunia soon joined her on the edge of the X-pen, and both went to sleep.

I had no idea that chicken bedtimes were so written in stone. I was sure they went to sleep when it got dark. Now I know. The next time I do an evening program I’ll forgo all the treats, but bring roosts. I also know not to bother bringing shavings to put in the pens. What a mess.

Throughout all of this, Coco, my star traveling hen, stayed calm. She ate, she strutted, she relaxed. At the end of the program, I held her and a few dozen people pet her. She seemed to like the adulation.I let Susan Orlean hold her, and finally had to insist that Susan give her back.

This morning all of the girls were no worse the wear for all of the traveling. They were chipper and well. I even found a brown egg in the HenCam coop nesting box. Could all of this excitement have gotten Marge or Petunia to lay again?

The yard is a squishy, slushy, thawing, mess, which speaks of spring, except it’s windy-cold out and a couple of inches of snow are expected this evening.

However, time marches inexorable. (Such a cliche phrase, but I can’t resist using the word inexorable.) There’s proof of it in my pond.

In the fall, when the weather gets chilly, the fish in the pond slow down. I stop feeding them. In winter, ice and snow covers the water feature and the fish hibernate under the big rock.

The ice is receding.

Look who’s swimming around.

The Beast survived the winter, too. I saw her yesterday, moving slowly, but moving.