18 March

The hens are enjoying the last of the autumnal weather.  They have no idea what bad weather is coming or how long it will go on for, never, except for Wilma, having lived through a winter.  Seasons must take so long for hens.  They will wonder, in the depths of winter, if it really was always sunny when they were little chicks or whether this was just a dream, if hens think about time at all, that is, or think about the seasons.  They must have some awareness of the different weather and they must learn, after the first time, that rain, for instance, doesn't last forever.  It almost will though for much of the winter.  I've been stockpiling sacks of dry pine needles to supplement the wood shavings I will order for the coop, which gets very muddy in the winter, being under the slope downhill from the feijoa grove, though still some way above the swamp garden and the stream at the very bottom of the section.  In the meantime they are spending most of their days roaming free, and mostly sticking together as a flock, Wilma, on the whole, included.  All I really have to report lately is: they like kumara mash very much indeed, which surprised me a little; Goldie and Wilma were the two who most liked the chilean guavas - I would have guessed Mabel, who is usually the keenest on fruit, but she wasn't interested; they all like Simon's strawberry muffins above all else, which is not surprising at all.