Harriet's big adventure

For awhile now I've wanted to let the girls out of their house to play while I'm in the garden. But I really feared being able to catch them again.

Then last week we had a horrible wind storm during the night that blew open the door to their house. I went out the next morning to find Hazel and Harriet in the garden! Fortunately their training worked, and I just said "Hi, girls!" and they came running to see what kind of goodie I had for them. I just knelt down and picked them up and deposited them safely back in their home (fortunately Greta, the most skittish one, was busy inside laying an egg, so I didn't have to worry about catching her.)

So I decided to start letting one girl at a time out while I'm in the garden, just to make sure that Sadie wouldn't try to love them a little too much, if you get my drift. Harriet was the first one to the door, so she was the lucky girl for the day.

First she helped herself to a great dirt bath. Gee whiz, do these chickens like their baths in the dirt.



Then she took a little nap.



I finally had to wake her from her nap to get her into the garden to do her job. So she scratched and pecked around the garden, finding rollie-pollies and a few grasshoppers, all while under the very watchful eye of Sadie.







Sadie did really great with her! And yes, Sadie really was that close to Harriet. And no, Harriet didn't care one bit, which has me slightly worried about letting the girls roam free until our property is securely fenced to keep the neighbor's dogs out...