sunshine

[dragonlady7]

via https://ift.tt/3ec0xLe

There’s a company installing solar panels on the hill behind the farmhouse. The commercial install crew is doing it, I guess; it’s larger than a normal home installation, but really quite small for a commercial one.

The install site is across the little farm road from the winter barn, where the baby pigs are, and where some of the hens still are, and so that hillside– well, the egg-production flock is Out On Pasture but the mobile pasture units aren’t far up the hill yet. So a number of the hens are out, roaming freely between the pasture units and the barn and down into the barnyard and just generally being nosy.

The installers have numerous vehicles, including vans with sliding doors, and at one point my sister walked by and they had the doors open and two of the striped hens had jumped in and were exploring. My sister managed to retrieve them, and then today BIL had to retrieve some chickens from the interior of a van again. And the flock was all inspecting them all across the hillside, they were under very close supervision throughout the installation.

The installers have found all of this delightful.

when they left today they made sure to examine their vans thoroughly to make sure there were no stowaways. Sister told them to make sure no eggs had been laid, as those hens are always trying to find a calm dark place to lay an egg.

(Today she found one in a garbage can in the barn, where it had happily hopped in to nest on top of the garbage.)

(Yesterday a hen got up on the house’s side porch and rustled all through the leaves to make sure there weren’t any treats hiding in there.)

(The side benefit of all of this is that the barnyard is delightfully free from ticks. The downside is that the hens are not safe from predators. There may need to be some judicious clipping of flight feathers…)

And during lunch, as the installation crew was eating pizza by their truck, Reno the cat came over with a vole he’d just caught and joined them. Fortunately they also found this charming and hilarious. (Your picture was not posted)

Comments

[minoanmiss]

I don't know what I love more, the supervising hens or Reno deciding to join them for a convivial lunch.