June 23^rd 

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!  Tonight my girls experienced rain for the first time.  This part of Alabama has been experiencing a drought and although it has rained once since they’ve moved into the coop, it was during the night so they only heard the rain on their metal roof.  This evening Violet, Rosie & Daisy were sampling some grubs from the compost barrel,

perching on the “distressed” lawn furniture,

and generally admiring the scenery of their little half-acre, when it began to drizzle.  Now, they have experienced the lawn sprinkler, so they knew about spraying water.  They soon learned that the evil sprinkler stays mostly in one area so they can avoid it if they don’t wish to get wet.  Precipitation however was a liquid they could not seem to escape, and it became clear that the girls were a little “chicken” of random drops from above.  When it started to come down hard, they all ran for cover under the coop where they stayed til it subsided to another slow drizzle. 

Rosie and Violet got the idea that rain isn’t dangerous so they emerged for some more foraging.  Daisy was slow to trust the menacing moisture and she stayed undercover until she could see that her sisters weren’t being damaged by the downfall (I’m having fun with alliteration today). 

Daisy eventually came out and the girls decided to introduce themselves to my new lawn ornament. 

For some reason, Jim will not let me put this radiant rooster on the FRONT porch.  He seems to think the neighbors wouldn’t appreciate the grandeur majesty of this important piece of art. 

Sammy likes it!

After a while the monsoon blew in and caught the girls off-guard.  They scrambled up on the porch steps with me and cowered under the overhang while the wind, pelting rain and thunder raged all around.  I tried to take a photo of their reaction to thunder but was always a half second off of snapping Rosie’s beak mid squawk. 

After a few minutes of huddling I realized they were not going to get back to the coop on their own so I grabbed each one in turn and braved to elements to bring them to safety.  Jim stood on the porch in his dry socks and offered encouragement.  What a guy!  I got them all in and it continued to downpour for another 20 minutes.  Then something weird happened.  The girls put themselves to bed at 6:45.  This is about an hour before their biological clocks tell them to ascend the red stairs to their comfy bedroom.  I’ll have to consult the chicken books about this phenomenon.  Maybe they are on some new “chicken daylight savings time”, or maybe they were just sick of the rain.  Either way, these ladies never cease to fascinate and entertain their devoted chickmommy.