A nice end to a lousy day.

Work has been so busy recently and I'm trying to do so many things that sometimes I don't have the time to check out the simple pleasures in life. This afternoon though, because I'm now going to be working extra tomorrow, I got to finish at 4.30pm. So, I was straight home to let out the girls for a trot around the garden. When I let them out I found one perfect, still-just-warm egg waiting for me. I took the camera out to check on the progress in the garden and over trundled these three little bundles of fluff. I don't fool myself into thinking they are coming to see me. I know it's the food they are after and of course they nearly always get their own way and get a handful of seed. Thinking they would like a dust bath in the warmth of the greenhouse I opened up the door and straight away two of them hopped in but as I walked back to the house, lovely Shakira trotted along just behind me, like a wobbly puppy walking to heel. She got an extra handful of seed for making me laugh.
When I got online to write this, I found a lovely email to me from Luke and as I wandered around the garden I saw so many new plants forcing their way through. These are the real gifts in life for me. I'm a lucky woman.

6.30pm
Later, when I got my usual call from Luke to pick him up I went out into the garden to lock up the chickens.
 Imagine my surprise when the three girls came trundling over towards me. "What are you ladies still doing up?" I asked them as they did a U turn and ran along behind me. I found out why they were up past their bedtime when I arrived at their run. The wind had blown their door tightly shut. This was the second time today they had been affected by the high winds as earlier Buck Bucky and Sweetie were trapped in the greenhouse when the wind blew the door shut on them. Not that they minded, they are always happy to have a 'bath' in the greenhouse soil.

To encourage them back in their run and to apologise for keeping them from their perch I threw some peanuts into their run. The first two raced past the treats and hopped up onto the ramp into their house but lovely Shakira, who lives to eat, vacuumed up as many of the nuts as she could find before she joined her slimmer companions who were already on their perch, half asleep.