when the footing is bad outside

go chase your tail in the tub

Each morning I’m greeted by a remarkable chorus of squanking.

By the time I get to the coop to unlatch the door, they girls have been up longer and longer each day.

The days are getting longer. In the mornings the girls remind me of this.

They are ready and they are impatient. They have worms to eat and compost to scratch and eggs to lay and other chicken-y things.

As the door falls open, the five fall out together as one stinky clucking ball of flappery.

Yesterday, Theother and Two tried to make a break for it. They looked at me and made to coop the floop and explore this icy new world.

I could just imagine them trying to cross the icy, rolling wasteland that is our back yard.

With not traction, no purchase and no footing below them, they’d be flapping and clucking and clucking and flapping - a lot of movement and feathers and noise that goes no where.

The dogs are faring no better than how I imagined the chickens would. The whole yard rolls with little hills formed by an old stump here, a…