I had a chicken setback today, I’ve been working for weeks to improve my relationship with the chickens by giving them mealworm once or twice a day, and it’s been working. But today, when I came home from Ed Gulley’s funeral, I saw the white hen pushing Minnie away from her food bowl and pecking at her cat food.

Miinnie, sweet as she is, had abandoned her food and was covering beneath the bench. I was holding an empty plastic water bottle and I tossed it in the direction of the cat food bowl to get the hen out of the way and it hit the hen in her butt.

There were also chicken droppings all over the place.

She squawked and marched off the porch in a major huff. “Don’t be a wussy,” I said, the thing only ways about 2 oz. And I was doing so well.  Back to square one, I think.