Chickens love Kitchen Duty, especially guarding cookies!

Penny Protects the World 

(well...sort of)

One cool spring morning, the girls were let out of the run to range around the back yard. Penny set off for the bushes and searched for a strong stick. 

Maudie looked up at The Woman to see if she would toss any green alfalfa her way, and, seeing none, joined the others in searching the grass for bugs and trying to get the herbs from behind the garden fence. Gertie searched for bugs in the grass along the fence, while Daisy and Maudie strutted about in the sun, commenting about the fine weather and critiquing Fifi’s latest hat. 

     “She’s got it too fluffy again,” said Maudie, whose plain brown feathers made her jealous of Fifi’s silky fine white ones.

    “Oh, I think it’s just perfect on her,” Daisy kindly cackled in a low soft voice “just perfect, if I do say so.” 

Penny, having filled up with corn and some grit and well watered, tugged her new stick, a remnant of a pine branch, up the wooden ramp into the hen house and stowed it away in the straw of her nest. She was a wise and cautious creature, not given to over worry or panic. She faithfully kept a sturdy stick propped in the window of the coop to keep the sky in its place. 

Rosie watched as Penny checked that the sky was behaving properly, and wondered how Penny could bear such a burdensome responsibility. Penny took it all as a matter of routine. She knew what could happen if the sky were to fall, and it wasn't going to fall on her watch!