Sincerely, Cindy

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We all have our daily routines, including our pets. For example, for me each morning begins with the cat, Livvy, pouncing on the bed at 5 a.m. which then is the signal to the dog, Zeus, to get up and start chasing her around the bedroom which then signals my husband, Al, to yell at both of them to stop, which they both, of course, ignore. He yells one more time and this is my signal to get up, feed the cat, put the dog out, make the coffee and while the coffee is brewing this gives me my quiet morning devotional time. While Zeus is outside, I fix his food dish for him that the cat ignores until I open the door for Zeus to come back inside. At this point she then makes a beeline for his food dish to sample it to make sure I’m not trying to poison her buddy while he stands there patiently waiting for her verdict. When she saunters away from his bowl, that’s his signal that he may now safely consume his breakfast. Next, I go outside to check on my chickens to make sure Shirley, Frankie and Elaine all have fresh water and food for the day. I generally get about half way across the yard and Shirley starts her chattering. She’s the boss lady of the chicken yard. Shirley has her area and Frankie and Elaine have their area. I alternate days letting them have the run of the yard. Shirley one day and the next Frankie and Elaine. If you know chickens, you know that if they aren’t raised together from an early age, they do not accept each other. However, I figured after a year or so of living in the same area that the three of them would be used to one another and everything would be hunky dory if I let all three out at the same time. Not so much. Frankie and Elaine ganged up against poor old Shirley. They are younger and about half the size of Shirley. Good thing I had my fly swatter in hand is all I’m going to say. I do not believe in sparing the rod and spoiling the chicken. But, I digress… back to the routine topic… Shirley’s routine is to chatter and carry on the entire time anyone is within 50 feet of her area. Like I said, she’s the boss. She is a big girl and not able to get too far off the ground so I don’t worry about her going rouge on me. Whenever I open the door to her pen to let her out, she’s just happy to run around and search for tasty bugs. However, while Frankie and Elaine used to be content to do the same, they have developed a new routine the past couple of weeks. They fly the coupe. Literally. The first time they did this, I must admit, I panicked. They flew over the fence and were in the empty lot behind us just having a field day. So, I jumped on my golf cart and took off after them. Only problem is when I got to where they were, I looked over the fence and saw those two hooligans were where I was five minutes earlier. I swear those chickens were laughing at me. Anyway, I have adjusted to their new routine. Instead of hunting them down, they always return home to roost each evening at dusk so all I have to do now is go out and tuck them in by closing the door to their pen. I kind of like this new routine. Sometimes, change to a routine is a good thing. Sincerely, Cindy