Whippersnappers.

 The old girls have been settling in happily chatting, eating bugs and compost, hanging out in the last of the sun, and generally enjoying themselves.

That changed today.

I brought home 5 of 15 hens someone gave me, and the new girls clustered together with their backs to the center, eyeing the Aunties with suspicion.  Pearl had to let one of the upstarts know who the alpha girl is on the property, but otherwise, they have left each other alone.  

The originals complained though. Muttering peppered with vocalizations of outrage and protest.

Cleaning up the coop day, just in time for it to get messier faster with more chickens, I found 6 eggs, and having the impression that the girls had closed down shop, I was surprised, but happy to be able to hand eggs over to people again.  

They will probably knock it off now that there are strangers about, and a clique of girls who all went to summer camp together and have their own stories, don't want to hear anything from the elders, no directions, no tips or criticisms.  

Tomorrow when there are even more chickens added to the flock, I expect more questions about when it will stop.

 We are coming up on, is it 3? years since the virus hit and changed the world; unlike so many who got more creative during that time, I stopped writing.

About a year into the pandemic, I stopped having chickens too, because losing them to one disaster after the other was more than I could handle.

A friend in the next town had a bigger flock, a more secure location, so they went to live there.  I sent 4 over, and 2 weeks ago, 3 came back, the intrepid Pearl, the affectionate Marsha, and the introverted Golda.  They are all non producers now, so I have set them up in an avian retirement home, but unlike human ones, they are about to be joined by a bunch of teenagers, and possibly a rooster.

I am on the fence about the rooster.

Who could compare with Buck, the strangest security guard ever?

A local woman has 15 that she is giving away, because she is moving to Florida for the winter.  It seems as though that happens, and then when the snow birds come back in the summer, they get more chickens.

The girls settled in well, I am hoping they remember me a little from bringing them a big box of green and sometimes fruit throughout the 2 years they lived in Nelson, If they don't remember me, they are at least being polite and appreciative.  

That will change when they get a bunch of whippersnapper hens in their space.

I have missed their gentle conversations, remarks about what they find, secrets they pass around before bed, and their greetings in the morning.  All of these vocalization are different.  They can tell when I am greeting them, and when I tell them my side of things, they don't take it to heart.  

If they share opinions and advice in Avian American, it goes over my head, but sometimes....

Sometimes I get the gist.