December 2010
Today’s uniform – elderly non supporting leopard skin bra (like its owner, has clearly seen better days, a distant memory of life as once was). Check shirt with poppers (perfect for small child to rip open in a crowded market place shouting BOOBIES!). Jodhpurs and odd socks. Perfect description of my mental state. Haphazard.
My first task of the day was of a diplomatic nature. In having taken on foster care of a cockerel, all had gone swimmingly well to begin with. On introduction to the flock he spent the first 24 hours holed up in the corner of the henhouse covered in straw. The ploy worked well, as he slowly emerged under a cloak of straw, he was quietly accepted by the hens as a moving bed and by the Shetland as a creature from the darkest lagoon that needed to be avoided at all costs.
It did not last. Midas (named for his touch of gold) soon turned into a very different creature. Imagine for a moment a school boy discovering the joys of Thunderbird wine, sex and a parent free weekend all in one go. Drunk with his supposed power he attempted to jump and hump anything that came in his path. The cat was highly unimpressed and Midas, left slightly subdued by this mystifying encounter, laid low for a few days but then turned his exuberant attention to the quietest of white hens.
This new love interest slowly turned into a shrunken ghost of herself, peering round corners before she committed herself to sudden moves. Pecking only in the shadows. I had been getting quite concerned.
This morning, however, something in the air felt ‘off‘. The ducks, as per usual, were always the first ones out of the run. Anything that stood in their way never did twice, everything learnt that not being run down by a tank of commander of Aylesbury duck was avoided by keeping your back up against the chicken wire until their tail feathers flickered in the distance.
When nearly all the hens had pottered off in their usual manner I chanced to notice the small white hen perched on a hill of twittering golden tail feathers. If she could have been knitting or filing her nails she would have been. I eyed her and she eyed me. ‘Yes I am sitting on him. If you try and move me I will peck you so hard you will SQUEAL and then I will scratch up every crocus bulbs I watched you plant. Understand?’
There was no option. I left her sitting on a mass of now stifled twitching tail feathers and muffled cries. Later on this morning I saw her wandering around the greenhouse with Midas in attendance. It was as though he was carrying her handbag. He gave me a pitiful look, dropped his head and scuttled up behind her.
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