There are leeches in my water garden. Bear with me, this will be about the hens. My water feature has been pristinely clear, without chemicals, since we built it three years ago. It has an effective filtration system that includes a planted area that mimics a natural bog. It also has a 2-foot deep area with fish, which my dog sometimes cools off in, as do I. My sons spend hours circling the pond, looking at tadpoles, hunting frogs and marveling at dragonfly nymphs. But this is not a garden blog, so I’ll stop here. Suffice it to say that when you are given water plants as gifts you should quarantine them first. Or else, like us, when you put your feet in the water, they will soon be covered with disgusting, sucking leeches.

But, once again, what is stomach-churning to me, is pleasing to the hens. The plastic filter (that looks like a large, thick sponge) housed in the pump chamber was filled with tiny, writhing, larvae. I knew what to do with the filter. I put in on the ground in their chicken yard. “I’ve got bugs, girls!” The hens came running and then stopped suddenly and peered with suspicion at this algae-covered mat. That is, everyone but Snowball, who spied the wriggling critters and recognized good food when she saw it. Snowball hopped right up and started pecking. Tweedledum joined her. Then the others stretched their necks and tasted. My girls clucked and chuckled with satisfaction. If I could have clucked, I would have. Once again, they were gleefully taking care of a yucky garden pest. (See June 2 blog.)

Tomorrow Tweedledum and Snowball will be given a romp in the pumpkin patch. I don’t like the way the pumpkin leaves have holes in them. I’m sure the girls with enthusiastically take care of the problem.

Three of my hens are broody – Blackie, Snowball and Marge. A broody hen sits in a nesting box, and if there are eggs there, she’ll roll them under her to keep them warm. I don’t know how Snowball stays balanced. At times she is perched on four large eggs that weigh almost as much as her.

A broody hen stops laying for weeks, and sometimes months, and so a backyard hen keeper has to decide if he or she wants to go to the bother of breaking the broody cycle. It is possible, but not easy.

Being broody is an innate, genetically driven response to a hen’s maturity, the time of year and the environment. A broody hen settles down, ruffles her feathers and elevates her body temperature. In some cases, if you can lower that temperature, she forgets about sitting. I’ve read about putting ice cubes under the hen — which seems rather messy and somehow like a sly practical joke. You can replace the bottom of the nesting box with a screen, so that the heat dissipates. You can lock the hen out of the hen house so that she has nowhere to be broody.

Or, you can leave the hen be and have fewer eggs. That’s been my choice because only two of my good layers are broody, so I still get seven eggs a day which is more than plenty. But if I had only three or four hens, I would try to break the broodiness.

If you’ve had any success getting your broody hens off of the nest and laying again, email me! Also, what’s the longest your hens have been broody? Tweedledum was broody for a month this spring, and now she has no interest in sitting. But I think that Snowball is going to stay put all summer.

Today will be another scorcher of a day: 90 degrees, humid and not a breeze for relief. The chickens will drink a lot of water and loll about in the shade. The broody hens will sit still in their nesting boxes where it will be hot, but not unbearable for them. My dog will wade in the pond with the koi and goldfish and tadpoles. It’s the rabbit I have to worry about.

Rabbits use their ears as natural air conditioners. Hot blood circulates through the ears near the skin and is cooled by the surrounding air. But Candy is a lop-eared rabbit, and so she can’t stand her ears up, away from the heat of her body to catch the breezes. One worries, because rabbits can die of heat stroke. Our bunny lives outdoors. In the summer Candy’s hutch is moved to the shady side of the henhouse. The big canvas umbrella that had been up by the garden bench is now over her house as well. If Candy were kept closed up in her hutch I would go to the added precaution of putting a bottle of frozen water in her bed. But Candy has access to the chicken yard during the day, where there is cool damp earth to stretch out in. Perhaps you saw her yesterday, splayed out in front of the hencam — a very comfortable and healthy rabbit.

It is raining again, which means that the hens are bored and a tad uncomfortable. Their feathers are bedraggled. Instead of lolling about in the warm dirt taking dust baths, they brave the rain for a few minutes, then crowd inside the henhouse. Instead of quickly laying their eggs and hurrying outside to find a curiosity or a tidbit, they want to hunker down in a nesting box.

We have three nesting boxes for eleven hens, which is usually plenty. But Snowball and Blackie are broody, so they have staked out two and are immovable. That leaves only one box. Marge claimed it this morning. Ginger glared impatiently at Marge, like a customer waiting in line at a restaurant who stares at the seated person who is finishing her dessert, preventing her from lingering over coffee. Marge stayed put.

Perrie didn’t bother to wait. She hopped in – right on top of Snowball, shoving the little white hen to the back of the box. Snowball stayed put.

It is time to order more nesting boxes.

My cousin Meredith, who moved to Australia twenty years ago, was here this week for a visit. She brought me the perfect house gift – a copy of the magazine “Australasian Poultry.” The cover photo is of a little girl holding a hen and the caption is, “Kids and Chooks.” “Chook” rhymes with “book” and it is my new favorite word. In Australia and New Zealand “chook” is slang for chicken. “Chook” sounds just like the clucks that my chickens say when they are pleased with something. I think that “chook” is an endearing and expressive term and I would like to start using it. What do you think? I hope you folks down under will be flattered. I promise not to say it with a fake accent.