The little chicken yard is home to contented clucking and much pecking at the scraps I toss in along with the chicken scratch.
So why only a few eggs?
Mystery solved. Brian found a clutch of eggs tucked between the ferns and bleeding heart beside the studio door (how did I not see this???)
It was that hen who has been escaping from the pen with regularity.
Caught and taken home again to the coop, she is the epitome of righteous indignation.
"I will not suffer this kind of treatment!" she seems to say, glaring at me.
She has been pacing all afternoon.
It's funny to think I am doing battle with a chicken and losing. As the evidence shows, she has been out to lay her eggs almost under my nose every day for six days and me none the wiser.
But since I've just finished a Partridge in a Pear Tree and moving on to Three French Hens I think the timing is impeccable!
