Many of you have written to tell me how peaceful it is watching the chickens. The reality is that HenCam viewers have a more relaxing time than I do! Let me tell you about what happened a few days ago….

It was a sunny, perfect Spring day. Warm enough to drink iced tea, but not so hot that I needed to put the shade umbrella up. I decided to take my laptop outside to work on a picture book manuscript. My fantasy was that I would sit in an Adirondack chair by the pond, let the chickens out, and enjoy their company while getting my writing accomplished.

I turned on the computer. I took a sip of tea. I looked up to see Twinkydink, feathers ruffled, aggressively entering the HenCam coop’s yard. Twinkydink lives in the big barn, and she is sure that better things must be in this little coop. This is silly. The yard is mostly dirt. The chickens that live there are thrilled to be let out onto the grass. But, as far as Twinkydink was concerned, the barren yard was paradise. Her paradise, and she was going to stake a claim to it. I hurried over and shooed Twinkydink out. I sat back down. Twinkydink ran back, and into the HenCam barn, making a bee-line for Betsy who was about to lay an egg in a nesting box. I put down my tea, ran back to the barn, picked up Twinkydink and carried her over to the compost pile, where I dropped her. The worm-laden dirt took her mind off the HenCam coop. Thank goodness for a chicken’s short attention span.

I went back to my computer. I took a sip of tea. My husband came out the back door, calling to me. A neighbor, who was jogging by, noticed chickens in the driveway. I jumped up. Driveway? That’s in the front yard. Out of my sight. Sure enough, there were Marge and Petunia, strolling down the asphalt on their way to the road. I don’t know why. Pavement shouldn’t interest chickens. But, there were my two old hens, off on an adventure. I shooed them into the backyard. Marge complained.

I sat down. I drank a sip of tea. Eleanor came over and pecked at my shoe. I looked at my computer. It had turned itself off. I gave up.