It’s 8 degrees this morning. Where are the chickens? Outside pecking at the scratch corn. Where is Candy? In the chicken house, drinking warm water and eating the laying hen pellets. But, the wind is supposed to pick up and it is going to be brutal out later, at which point the girls will go indoors and annoy each other. I’ll put a cabbage in the henhouse later today to keep them busy (and healthy – greens are very good for hens).

Cabbages are cheap, right? Not if you’re shopping at Wholefoods Market and the only options are organic green cabbage or savoy. I bought a head there anyway. I spend a huge amount on American beefhide rawhide flips for my dog, Lily (she goes through several a day – doggy prozac for my crazy puppy). I also buy Lily supposedly indestructible toys which she shreds, sometimes in minutes, or, with luck, a few days. I also make tug toys for her (not hard to do, just braid strips of polartec and sew in a squeaky toy). All of this is to say that I spend a heck of a lot keeping my dog happy. So why not buy an expensive cabbage for the girls? I won’t do it often – those big cheap cabbages satisfy just as well -but this once? They’ll need it today. I think of it as an expense like those rawhide flips for Lily. And if that’s elevated the hens to a status above “backyard chickens” well, that’s obvious already, isn’t it?

BTW, Marge is laying lovely brown eggs. That’s the nice thing about hens, for all the trouble and expense you get something tangible, and absolutely perfect, from them.