And this morning in the community “garden” — our CSA farm field — we held a community workday that got lots of hands out there for a productive and social time. We cleared many beds, removed numerous tomato hornworms (which were then fed to the chickens!), weeded and weeded some more, and generally did some impressive sprucing up of the veggie fields.

(In other intriguing chicken news, we recently learned that one of our hens isn’t really a hen — she’s a he, otherwise known as a rooster. He’s bigger than the others and has a tendency to crow. At least this narrows down the options for figuring out which chicken laid the egg.)

Johanna (on behalf of the chicken club) will be letting the chicks out of their coop near the garden this afternoon. She’ll open their coop door around 12:15, letting the chicks free range for several hours (if all goes well), then return them to their coop some time after 5 this evening. If you observe any problems — chicks wandering in the road, pecking small children, or driving farm machinery, for example — please don’t hesitate to call.

I quickly received a reply that included the following helpful illustration:

And in the early afternoon, I went over to check on how the free-rangers were doing. Turned out they weren’t doing much. Three of the chicks were just outside of the coop, within a couple feet of its back wall, and the other 17 were settled inside the coop, cozy as can be.

So, though not very impressed with their sense of adventure, I figured all was well. But a couple hours later, the following message was sent to the chicken club:

After a few hours of freedom, I evicted the chickens from the garden.
They were prepared to decimate the melons, cukes and broccoli either
because those are their favorites or because they were closest.  Can
we develop plan B?  I am sorry to make this report; Laura witnessed
their gluttony as well.

Oh, well. Plan B has yet to be determined, but in the meantime, we’ll just have to keep our little ones cooped up a while longer, and maybe give them more hugs instead:

Our kids have really enjoyed visiting and helping take care of the chicks and piglets. (We grown-ups have too!) Our kids have been particularly happy to do their part helping get these new neighbors accustomed to human interaction.

Here are some photos of our latest morning visit with the chicks and piglets….

It’s especially entertaining to watch the piglets eating. The runt (Little Brad) usually climbs right into the bowl that they all share from, and all the piglets go nuts, pushing and shoving and flipping each other around as they all try to get at the food. The first time our daughter watched all this, she could stop laughing only long enough to say, “They’re rude!”