22 April

We’ve been getting low on hen food which has made the hens very friendly towards me, or not so much friendly, as hopeful whenever they see me they might get something to eat, and more willing than usual to come and dig in the bush.  As for the outdoor office, as soon as I bring out my books they hurry up to the deck to take up their posts around the chair, quite companionably except that I find the air of hopefulness a little hard to bear.  It has been over a week since I had hen pellets for them, so they were eating scraps combined with much larger amounts of the Scratch and Lay mix, essentially a mix of hen treats, not quite junk food but not what a hen should be raised on, and then even the Scratch and Lay was running very low and had to be rationed.  It has made them much nicer about coming when they are called for their tea, except that the cat has also stepped up the campaign for earlier mealtimes and so follows me for the hen-feeding, which unnerves the hens, which the cat takes advantage of with a playful sally, which can send Goldie in particular into one of her tremendous flights she is not easily coaxed back from, however hungry she has become.  But  today the hen pellets arrived!  I filled up a large bowl full, and then worried they would be disappointed having lived on a diet of one treat after another for a week, so added a few mealworms which I thought would work to soften the blow, if it were a blow, or celebrate the return of pellets if the hens were happy enough with the amount to make up for the return to their standard nutritional diet.  I needn’t have worried though, they were ecstatic with their pellets and in fact carefully ate around the mealworm garnish, wanting only one pellet and then another and then another and still more. ​