At this time of year I am oh, so tired of kale. My dinosaur kale pushed up leaves in early spring, and has been producing ever since.

It no longer looks appetizing to me. But, the bugs say that it is perfectly edible.

As a gardener, this time of year, I really appreciate having hens. Instead of feeling guilty for tossing vegetables into the compost pile, I have a ravenous flock that says that I’m the best farmer, ever.

Never mind that they don’t have good manners, and gulp down big pieces.

And eat with their elbows on the table.

They sure know how to say thank you.

What are you pulling from the garden and feeding to your hens?

This is my front yard. The greens have changed to their late summer hues.

One branch on one maple tree is always the first to let me know that fall is here.

Temperatures at night have been in the low 50s. Days have been warm. If this keeps up, it’s going to be a gloriously colored autumn.

The leaves aren’t falling yet, but feathers are. Like the trees, there’s always one that goes first.

Jasper has lost her tail.

This isn’t a case of feather picking. This is how she greets the change in the seasons. I’ve collected all of her lovely Welsummer feathers from the floor of the coop.

They’re exactly what I need for my school visits, and I’ll use them when I talk about the differences between feathers and fur, and to teach the children how one should pet a bird. Jasper’s loss is my gain. She’ll have feathers again by winter – a full tail of them! – but the trees will be bare until spring.

After a few hours of free-ranging, I call the hens back home. Everyone comes quickly. They know that this is the only time that they get scratch grains. When they are back in the run, I count. There should be eleven chickens.

I count ten. Misty is missing.

She has dreams of being a wild jungle fowl, that elusive Indonesian bird that our domestic chickens are descended from. Or, maybe, she imagines that she is her late, late, late ancestor, a dinosaur. Whatever. I have to find her. I look in the tall grasses of the meadow, where she sometimes builds a nest. She isn’t there. I check the overgrown raspberry patch.

She’s there, well-hidden, but I see movement.

Misty, the carnivore, is busy looking for crawling and wiggling things to eat. She cares not a whit that her flock mates have all hurried home to grain and safety. She is a wild jungle fowl!

I manage to get her back onto the lawn.  I shake the can of corn and she remembers about the easy pleasures of domesticity.

Misty comes running.

It’s not difficult to tame the wild jungle fowl.

Do you have one in your flock?

Feathers are strewn on the ground, and are piling up in corners and caught against the fence.

I

Is this the result of a fox attack? Carnage?

No.

It’s all from one molting cochin hen.

Pearl.

Look at her. She wouldn’t even make a proper feather duster.

She doesn’t look good from any angle.

Certainly not from the rear.

Nor from above.

Those bumps on her bare back are the new feathers coming in. They’re call pin feathers. Ouch. No wonder she looks to be in a bad mood.

I estimate that Pearl has lost about two-thousand feathers so far. Only seven-thousand more to go.

Those of us who spend our mornings scrubbing out and refilling waterers, shoveling manure, and topping off feeders, have one view of the utilitarian metal items in our backyard chicken pens. We don’t think about bringing them inside and putting them on our dining room tables! However, these days rusty farm implements are chic. Yesterday, at the Brimfield flea market, I spied an assortment of feeders, no longer fit for animal use that were being sold for more than the price of new galvanized merchandize at Tractor Supply. I have to say that tidied up, this makes a charming plate rack.

I spent several hours wandering the booths. I bought two eggs cups (of course!) and a vintage agriculture brochure. And then I went to Tractor Supply, where they have shiny feeders and waterers, which I didn’t need (remember all of that scrubbing in the mornings?) But, I did buy something new and made of metal. I bought a farm gate for the goat paddock, which to my mind is very beautiful, indeed. We’ll see if it is goat-proof as claimed. Pip and Caper love a challenge. You’ll get to see the new gate after I put my teenage son to work digging post holes and installing it!