My neighbor has asked me if I want her chickens. How could I say no?  She loves her chickens and was almost in tears just thinking about not having them anymore.  At least she can look over in my yard and see her “babies”.

Gail is a great neighbor.  She is 100 pounds dripping wet and has the energy of 10 people.  I exaggerate just a little.  Among the many things she does, she recently had a children’s book published.  “The Tales of Sweet Day Farms: There’s a pig in my kitchen and a horse on my porch” is the name of her book.

But in the meantime, she is scheduled for surgery and recovery time is 6 weeks so she can’t take care of her animals. So, now I have another momma with three baby chicks, one rooster and fourteen hens.  After her recovery time, she may be headed back to Pensacola, Florida to help care for aging parents.  So sad for me and her.  She loves her home and animals.

We worked yesterday putting up fence for another yard.  We had planned to make another yard eventually but we had to get on it right away to help her out.  We got outside early to start working but it turned hot quickly.  Thank goodness, it turned stormy outside and the winds started blowing and it clouded up with no rain.

I managed to find all the ant piles outside so I have bites on my feet, legs and arms and even one on my chest.  I was so hot that I was wearing as little as possible so there was more skin for the ants to bite quickly, I guess.  I don’t know if it is my imagination, but I swear I feel feverish when I get a bunch of ant bites….and I am sure I have at least 15.

Gail was amazed at how fast we got the fence up and were ready for her chickens.  We already had a house that wasn’t being used but none of them went in there last night.  I do hope they manage to find the nests I put in there so they will lay where I can find the eggs.  They were pretty upset with the move so they may not lay for a few days.

I just can’t imagine having a better neighbor than Gail and it makes me so sad to think of her and her husband moving away.  She is always willing to check on my animals while my husband and I took a couple days vacation.  We had many a conversation over the fence about our chickens, dogs, kids, husbands and whatever else came to mind.  I have only been in her house once and she has only been in mine once in five years.    Sounds funny, I guess but visiting over the fence is about all the time either of us really has.  She is outside feeding her animals and I am doing the same and that’s when we visit.  She also has a day care in her home.  You would be surprised how much you can know about someone even though it is just conversations over a fence.

I am headed outside to make friends with my new chickens.  I am going to go into the yard a lot in the next few days just to get them use to me.  I call “chickie, chickie, chickie” when I go in with food so they will come close to me instead of run away.