A Tale of Nine Chickies

Eleven years ago today, nine little baby chicks came to live with us. Their names were Emma, Lizzie, Joanie, Becky, Julie, Orange Feet, Peanut, Black One and Ducky. They spent their first day in a Pyrex bowl under a heat lamp.
As they grew, they explored their storage box, and found food and water...


...and a big "monster" named Mellie who liked to stick her head in the box and try to give them kisses.
They soon outgrew their storage box, and moved into a kiddie pool in the garage. Their mommy hung a hula hoop from the rafters and draped it with tulle to keep the chickies from wandering around and getting into mischief.

Soon they were too big for the kiddie pool, so they moved into their new home-- a chicken coop with a fenced-in play yard.

They had perches where they would huddle together and go to sleep at night......and nesting boxes where they could lay their eggs.
As they grew, the chicken named Julie started to look a little different from all of the others. Julie did not lay any eggs. Julie started to make cock-a-doodle-doo noises. Can you tell which chicken is Julie?Julie (now known as Julio) "played rough" with the other chickens (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), and attacked any human who dared to enter the chicken coop.
Julio went away to live on a farm. (No, not that kind of farm - Julio went to live with another family who wanted to raise chickens, but only had two hens.) Julio was very happy at his new home and right away "played rough" with his new coop-mates, much to the delight of his new owners.

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To Be Continued...

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Earlier in the week, I thought this story would end today, but my niece Jenny called my sister to wish her a Happy Birthday yesterday, and had a thought about Ducky's whereabouts. Jen thought that maybe, just maybe, Ducky did not get taken away by an evil hawk or eagle or fox (or Colonel Sanders).

And maybe, just maybe, she merely took offence at us moving her doghouse full of eggs into the coop (we wanted to keep them safe), and she wandered off to lay another nest of eggs nearby.

And maybe, just maybe, Ducky is hiding from us, for fear that we would mess with her new nest (even though we have not disturbed her original eggs, just made them safer).

And maybe, just maybe, Ducky will come wandering back to us in 21 days (according to this site, that's how long chicken eggs incubate) with a little family of her own.

And maybe, just maybe, I will win the lottery, become Queen of England, and knitters will rule the world.