31 January

​It had been a stormy night, with a gale blowing that had worked the latch on the chicken coop door open, but the three little hens were all standing patiently in the coop waiting for me to come with their breakfast as usual.  Only Wilma had left the coop, and she hurried back when I turned up with the hen food, rushing to stand at the door of the coop waiting while the other hens had first go at the breakfast.  I have been looking forward to when the hens can all go out free-ranging together, hoping Wilma will feel more a part of the flock then, and not just a wary onlooker to the friendship of the other three.  Then in the afternoon, the door had blown open again and this time all four hens came running back into the coop from the garden, Maude and Mabel in the lead, followed by Goldie and then Wilma.  The door now has a new, sturdier latch, but I was happy to see the hens definitely behaving as a flock of four.  There is so much Wilma could show the smaller hens.  I wonder if she will take them into the bush, or, if I lead the way, whether she will be the first to follow me or hang back in deference to Maude and Mabel.