Clucked this week by Val

Headlines:
Human visitors to The Garden.

Foot inspection revealations.

Forlorn love.

A clucking good morning to you all. Well what a few weeks it has been here in The Garden. Last Saturday the humans were having some sort of party with lots of other humans. Many of these humans came to visit us and picked some of us up and gave us a stroke, I have to say I stayed out of the way as I don't like all of that fussing. I also noticed as the afternoon went on some of those humans seemed a little tired as they were swaying in the wind and at times it seemed they were speaking in a very odd language and gigling. Very weird perhaps it is some form of human reaction to these long summer days.

Yesterday the humans arrived with a bowl of water, some odd smelling lotion and some white objects and a roll of something sticky. I know the white stuff isn't edible as Cornflake grabbed a bit when the humans weren't looking and ran round The Garden with it. She was very pleased with herself and some of the others chased her round trying to get hold of it thinking it was food. The little human soon grabbed it from her and it was clear it wasn't food. Cornflake was last seen clucking to herself "that's not food, that's disgusting" and washing her mouth out in the water bowl.

From what I could translate the humans seem to have found some sores on Brave's feet and so were checking everyone else's feet to see if they had any sores as well.  Some of the girls had to have a little surgical procedure and now have their feet in that white stuff with the sticky thing wrapped round them, they do look funny but are happily walking around so it can't be to bad. I had my feet checked and am pleased to say they are all clean, so no funny things on my feet!!!

So Brave, Red and RedBull all had to spend the rest of the day in the run and slept in there overnight. This caused some confusion for the girls at bedtime, they are such girls of habit and couldn't work out where to sleep, although there are plainly 2 coops!! I do dispair sometimes, I had to round them up, with a little help from the humans and make sure they were all safely tucked up for the night. Bluie of course was still in the corner laying on pebbles to see if they will hatch!!




Anyway, during the afternoon I could see Charlie looking a bit lost wondering around, he looked out of clucks. Suddenly he realised Brave, the love of his chicken life, was in the recovery run. He ran over and started doing his dance thing, shaking his feathers and wiggling his little chicken hips. They pecked through the chicken wire before he disappeared to spend the might with 17 other girls.






Well that's all from The Garden  for now, have a clucking good week and send me your animal stories so I can read them to the others before lights out in the coop.

Val


PS A big thank you to one of our biggest fans Cath, we had to sign her shirt when she was here at the human party - I didn't realise we were so famous.

This weeks headlines:

Love is in the air in the Garden.

The truth about my antics.

A lucky escape for 2 of the girls

Hello everybody Val here. I thought it was time to set the clucking straight and give you my story. Before I do I bring you the latest in romance from The Garden. Charlie has fallen head over Cockerel for Brave, it is very funny to watch. Every morning he is one of the first out of the coop, runs to the food and water and then waits patiently for Brave, who is always one of the last out of the coop. I think she must be doing her wings and putting on her beak stick. As soon as she walks down the steps it's like one of those slow motion love stories as Charlie runs across The Garden to be next to Brave, he then dances beautifully round her before getting a piggy back ride  - I always thought he should carry Brave but hey she doesn't seem to mind. He then gives her a big kiss on the back of her neck and lets out the biggest cocker doola do I have ever heard.

They seem to be very much in love at the moment - well Charlie does.

The truth about my antics;
I have noticed Brave has been following me about a lot recently and I have to keep finding a quiet time to disappear without her showing the humans where I am. She often gets stuck and can't seem to make her way back through the fence when she does follow me. Yes it's true I did start a few new nests but you see The Crows have been attacking and eating our eggs and the only way to protect them is to hide them. Every time I hide them one of the other girls gives the game away. I have moved again recently and I haven't told anyone where I am laying my eggs, hopefully noone will let on but I will have to be very sneeky beaky this time.

A lucky escape
I seriously worry about some of the girls. There are 3 dogs where we live, they have their own garden and there is a lovely picket fence to keep them out of our garden.  There is big dog who often runs up to the fence when we are sunbathing, she nevers gets near us but tries to scare us into running away. Most of us just stay where we are as we know we are safe. Then there is the medium white dog. She generally pays us no attention at all, and then there is the small brown dog. He has funny teeth and barks a lot at other birds flying over their garden. I have seen him fall asleep standing up!!

We are safe where we are and we know not to travel too far, especially not into Their Garden. However, Pink decided to check out Their Garden recently, she was grabbed by the bottom by the big dog but thankfully wasn't hurt, she lost a few feathers. It was the cluck of The Garden all evening as we fussed around her to make sure she was okay. You would think we would all be on alert but oh no, Green decided she would like to have a look round Their Garden.  Just as she thought it was safe the big dog came running down the garden, instead of flying - yes we can fly - she stood there, frozen to the spot, we were clucking and clucking at her to move. Big dog grabbed her bottom, oh there was a lot of noise and feathers. Thankfully the human with big hair came running out shouting at the big dog and she rescued Green. Oh my that was close, Green is okay and I hope she has learnt her lesson. We have everything we need here and don't need to go into Their Garden. Green is sitting in a bowl of cold water to ease the throbbing of losing her feathers. We have sent her to see Frostie and her gang to get a feathercure and a relaxing massage with slug oil. Another close shave.

Well until next time I hope you all have a clucking good week

Val