Children and chickens have a natural affinity for each other. Having a hen as a playmate is not a new phenomena. A diary that I have from the 1920s has an entry about a boy, sick and home from school, playing with a hen.

When my sons were little, they’d each carry their favorite hen down the slide in the backyard. I swear those chickens enjoyed the rides.

On the other hand, I know of people who grew up with flocks of chickens on family farms, who had scary experiences of being attacked by roosters and mobbed by hungry hens. I usually hear these stories from the spouses of the now grown children, asking me how to convince them to get a few backyard chickens. I don’t discount the validity of how they feel about poultry. Chickens can be scary – remember they are close relatives of dinosaurs! (Don’t you feel for this little boy, having to feed the turkeys, too?)

Do you have a story about children and chickens? Good or bad? Tell us in the comments.

Yesterday I joked about how hard my dogs work. This is Lily at 8 am this morning, letting me know that a coyote had the gall to trit-trot through the meadow across the street.

I know my dog well. This is not a here comes the FedEx truck stance, nor the I hate those Vizslas alarm. This is a predator alert. I had to look for a minute before I, too, could see the coyote weaving through the stand of pine trees. But, look I did, because I trust my dog.

Good Girl, Lily!

As I wrote about yesterday, when the weather turns, there are additional chores to do in the coops.

But for some of us here, it appears as if winter brings fewer duties.

These days, my dogs’ main job is looking out of my office door. Well, Lily does. Scooter doesn’t bother to watch for UPS trucks, deer and coyote. Scooter leaves that to Lily.  However, they both work at keeping me company while I write. Good job, dogs!

Here’s another vintage cat photo. This time the cat is full of feline aplomb. However, the boy, all readied for the camera with slicked hair and his nicest overalls, is caught at that awkward “stand still and look at me” moment. I’m guessing that the photographer was in a hurry to snap this image before the cat decided to leave and the boy had had enough -hence the framing of the shot with more wall and ceiling than boy and cat!

I collect vintage photographs of animals and their people. (You can find my favorites printed up as postcard books in my store.) At one time I thought I’d add another title – Vintage Cat Photographs. Not unexpectedly, it’s difficult to find good old cat photographs. Shutter speeds were slow. Cats twitch. They leap. They scowl. What I have is a collection of awkward vintage cat photographs. Here’s one:

Actually, I rather like them like that.