Hey! Chicken fights! Ice and snow, bless the Lord!

O.K. Not the best action shot. You had to be there. This is before the ice and sleet and snow started falling. There was ice, however, little chunks on the bit of left over roofing I put down as a temporary drain of the roof water away from the hermitage. A little chunk of ice went tumbling down this corrugation. It was frantically followed by these three chickens, themselves slipping and falling and crashing and grabbing the bit of ice and attacking each other all in one explosion of feathers… I didn’t know they liked ice so much… Yikes!

I let them out for the first time yesterday evening for a hour before sunset. They investigated the whole area around the hermitage and under it, but didn’t stray more than about twenty feet, often going in and out of their “coop” just to make sure they had a secure base to which they might return at the first sign of danger. They all went back in dutifully, as chickens do, at sunset. I’ll let them out a bit earlier every day. They love to scratch everything into a storm of leaves and pine needles and dirt and branches flying in the air… all for a possible spider. I’m happy with that. I have ninja-chicken spider hunters for the hermitage!