Did you ever just have one of those days where all of your best laid plans run amuck?  Today was one of those days.  My plans were like a well oiled machine.  I had so much to do.  Somehow, everything got derailed, schedules were changed and I even had to call in favors from family members.  We got take-out for dinner.  I had admitted defeat.  I needed a break from life.  I even felt like the chickens were neglected all day as I dealt with the plumber and painter putting the finishing touches on our home that was damaged by a leaking pipe.  Life just had to get better today.

After dinner, I decided to clean out the coop and run while our daughter visited with the girls.  It was overdue for a good cleaning and the wonderful excess compost that that girls created needed to be removed from the run.  We began our work.  My four year old helper was my assistant.  After a few minutes of this unenjoyable undertaking I felt my day begin to melt away from my mind.

Maybe it was the chickens knocking on the closed coop door as if to say, “Are you done yet?’  Maybe it was all of their chatter and my daughter’s giggles as she treated them to scratch.  Maybe it was that things were finally drying out after three days of relentless rain.  Maybe it was that the sun was setting and the day was almost over.  Perhaps, it was a culmination of all of these. Even for me, it’s hard to believe that a little “chicken therapy” was all that it took to suddenly make my day sunny.

On a side note, as I was crawling around in the coop, Oyster Cracker first tried to steal my earrings then took a leap of faith onto my back.  She scared the heck out of me!  Maybe she was just trying to put things into perspective.  Maybe I should worry more about a chicken jumping on my back, than the cost of the 5 hour plumbing bill.