You just never know what is going to turn up next here. Life in the country.

The other day it was a doe deer and her fawn as I pulled in to the driveway at the bird feeding station in the front yard. Too bad I had the dogs with me who saw them as we pulled in. Sigh. I waited a while and went to shoo them away, but they were already gone. I let the dogs out of the truck right by the garage and thankfully they just went right in and didn’t pursue a chase.

Every morning Tom the Turkey and his sidekick arrive for their breakfast.  If I don’t pay attention, Tom will stand and look fixedly at the house. Where is my breakfast?? So I fill up the pail and make my way outside where Tom turkey-talks to me the whole time. His sidekick does not trust me and skitters off, whereas Tom stands his ground and we have a quick conversation. Turkey-style. Sort of quiet little gobbley talk, but not full-out gobbling.

Tom and friend

Late yesterday afternoon I noticed that he dogs were fixated on the neighbor Aileen’s yard. (Aileen is the neighbor who has chickens where I get my farm fresh eggs from, sheep and Ollie the Pig.) I went outside several times to figure out what they were looking at. I failed to see anything.

Then around the time it started to get dark I went outside on the deck and I could hear chicken clucking noises coming from the direction of the street. Totally opposite of where it should be coming from. I suspected Aileen was not home this weekend, so I called her. No answer. So I took off in my sweats and slippers like any good neighbor would do. I got to the top of our driveway and could hear the chicken making a racket.

There it was: a beautiful buff-colored hen sitting on their split rail fence clucking away. It spooked when it saw me and flew up into the tree. No way was I going to catch that bird!

I walked down their driveway to check on the chicken coops just to be sure the chickens weren’t all out running around loose. They were all tucked away in their respective coops, so all was good there. The sheep baa-ed and came over to see what I was doing. They all looked at me as if to say “what are you doing down here?” But sheep always have that wide-eyed surprised stare anyway, so who knows what they were thinking?

After a few pats on sheep noses stuck through the fence I headed for home. The chicken looked like it was asleep in the tree. I hope it stays safe. At least it was supposed to stay above freezing last night.