The first item of interest is that the other night we thought Wanda One Eye had been murdered! Well, I thought that. Aaron was not so dramatic. We discovered that she was missing as I left the main house and was headed up to the studio where I have now permanently moved to. I went to turn out the barn light and close her door and she was not there! So we grabbed our flashlights and looked all over the farm for her- I even had a scare for few minutes that the rest of the flock were also missing. When I shone the light in the roost, I couldn't see them at all. But when I actually opened the door to the roost and looked up, there they were! All 8 of them lined up wing to wing snug as bugs in a rug. That was a sigh of relief. But Wanda was still missing. As we were walking back down to the main house and I was resigning myself to saying farewell to my little chicken friend, Aaron shined his light under his Jeep and lo and behold! There she was! She was snuggled up next to one of the tires and totally asleep. I was so relieved! I went and collected my sleepy little friend and she made quiet little coos at me as I walked her back to her barn and set her into her nesting box. As a side note, she used to have an actual roost- a lovely limb from the fallen tree that was just the right size for her. But she didn't take to it when she was moved into this new space, so I figure why force her?
This behavior with Wanda is now becoming a nightly occurrence. The next night we found her under Aaron's truck again and the night after that I didn't even wait for her to find a place other than her barn. I just scooped her up as it started getting dark and I put her in there.
Tonight was the silliest. She came into the cat section of the barn while I was working in there and talking to Aaron. She started clucking and fussing under foot so much that I almost stepped on her. So, I picked her up and put her on one of the cat's perches. I put some dried mealworms down for her and finished talking to Aaron. Well, she wasn't hungry but quickly made herself at home and snuggled in for the night. Lucy, Carl's sister, was there too and wasn't sure what to make of this new creature. Lucy is a daytime cat. At night she's almost always in the barn. I never see her during the day but she's in the barn all night long. Anyway, the two sat together for quite a long time just regarding each other. Finally I could not stay and watch this meeting of the minds any longer and left them to their devices. I was not worried for Wanda's safety, for those of you wondering why I would leave a chicken (a clear food source) with the cat (a clear predator). The truth is that the cats could care less about the chickens. The chickens are all bigger than the cats with sharp pointy claws and beaks. And my cats may be many things, but fools they are not.
So there you have it! Thank you for reading!
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