Gibby has a longer cable

Gibby now has a double length cable, he can reach the whole length of the back yard. Now it's harder for me to play with him, I am very leery of being caught by that cable. When I back off out of his way, he comes at me on his hind legs with his front legs up and waving - reminding me of a great big teddy bear. When he wants me to pet him, he runs to the end of the cable and then lets the cable hold his upper body back while he swings his rear end around and sits right next to me. His timing is so perfect, he doesn't knock me over. He only gives me a moment to hug and pet him, then he's off again at a run. He has new area to explore, but somehow in all that extra space we lost his kong. I had trouble trying to look for it because I had to keep alert to the approach of the cable. George was in the yard when Gibby did one of his fast run-arounds and the cable wrapped around George's feet - he did quite a dance to get loose before he lost his footing. That was one skillful dance I wish I had caught on camera.

Today we had one of those miracles that makes farming exciting. After raising the five little Aracauna chicks, almost catching my mother's house on fire with their heat lamp, discovering that one of the chicks was a rooster, having that rooster escape and run me ragged around the barnyard, and waiting and waiting, today, FINALLY, the first egg arrived! It is so different from the eggs laid by the other hens - it's half as big and it's gray. I called it green, but the camera thought it was gray and it looks very gray and small in the egg box with the super extra large brown eggs.

Gibby the Observer

Gibby was more observer than participant today. The Araucauna rooster, who was supposed to be a hen, flew out of the big cage just as I stepped in to fill the feeder - he flew so close to me that it felt like his wing did a push-off on my shoulder. A couple times in the past, he rushed around when I stepped into the cage, but this looked like a planned escape. The time I had to play with Gibby was spent trying to recapture the rooster.

I don't know why any bird would want to be loose in a yard full of twenty or more cats, but this guy didn't seem to see the cats as any kind of threat. He marched right up to some of them and scared others. At one point, he dove into the waist high weeds in front of the red house and must have landed right on a cat, because there was a sudden explosion and a flash of cat above the weeds headed to the left while the rooster headed to the right.

Every time I tried to head the rooster off, he flew or ran in the opposite direction. Somehow, he knew he shouldn't head toward the yard where the dogs were waiting. He went that way once but immediately turned back. At first, Gibby and Patches were barking, but then became very silent. For another half hour, they just watched.

Finally, I realized the Araucauna hens were all roosting, so I opened the gate and left it open. The rooster was on the porch of the old red house where some antique chairs were piled, waiting to be refinished. He heard me approach and ran into a dead end. He was caught between the chairs and a wall and couldn't get out, but I couldn't figure out how to get him out either. I moved some of the chairs and let him loose. He ran right away toward the chicken cage - ran past, and then turned back and went right into the cage. Whew.

Gibby must have watched carefully, because he barked again the minute the cage door closed.