Awakening

(Before)
The great lily, under here is where the eggs are laid and currently Cheryl's broody domain!

(After)
Awakening!

God bless the flowers you can ignore all year and they still put on quite a show with no help from you! At the beginning of Spring I debated on ripping this lily out to have room for another tomato plant. I'm so glad Redwood talked me out of it! In the shade of the leaves it stays fairly cool and the chickens have chosen this as their preferred laying spot.

Last night at dusk (which is so close to the Summer Solstice it's after 9pm!) I got Cheryl and placed her in the coop. It was still light enough that I thought she would be able to jump up on the post and sleep next to Gayle as she usually does. I went out about 30 minutes later and she was sitting on the ground, angry and clucking! I placed her up next to Gayle and that's where she stayed until I let them out at 6:30am.

Let's hope this breaks her broodiness cycle!

We've been leaving the coop open at night (except last night) and so far no problems. We do live downtown and the only animal that has gotten into our fenced back yard is a neighbors cat. Our chickens are so large they're pretty intimidating. They have no defenses though so I'm always a little worried!

If we can keep the coop open at night that frees us up to take a few more weekend trips without hiring a chickensitter! (I almost typed chickenshitter which would have made this post much more entertaining!)