Naughty Chooks...

So finally for the first time in 2012, I have got myself into a good groove. 

Working hard in and out of the house, smiling more, and trying to get in a run here and there in the mornings when I can.  Yet here I sit at my computer this morning, a prisoner in my own home.  

Held captive by a little red free range hen.

"Sorry SJ, you're not going anywhere for a while..."

How is my sweet chicken imprisoning me you ask?  Well, she seems to have designated the wintry flower beds next to my door as the place to lay her egg this morning and gets a bit peeved when I try to pass.

  I have mixed feelings about this.  

One part of me wants to say, "Hey sod you lady chicken, this is my house and I will open my front door any damn time I please!".  The other part of me says, "Please carry on.  Your eggs are tasty and having it delivered to me at my front door is so kind of you."

Now as I have one eye on the computer screen and one eye on the chicken nestled in my flowers, my mind races.  Am I too permissive with my chickens? Is that even a thing?

Consulting the online communities of cool 30-ish hipsters such as myself who keep chickens in their ultra-sleek city coops (ahem, I keep mine in a barn in the middle of the country in the foothills of the Italian Dolomites, not the populated suburbs of Chicago or New York), I suddenly feel inadequate as a chicken farmer.  I do not have a fancy coop and a "run" for them.  My chicken house most certainly does NOT look like one of those that you see on Pinterest.  

Chicken Mansion...

I have two little red hens and a white one with a limp.  They are misfits.  They are dirty from rolling around in my wintry veggie garden.  They eat veggie scraps and leftover pasta.  They play-fight with my chihuahua.  I cannot relate to these city-slicker hipster chicken mammas who most likely collect their morning eggs in their purpose bought Hunter wellies. 

So thanks to my feathered friends, I have come to realise that much like everything else I have done in my life, no matter how 'normal', this too has got that certain "Steffi-Esque" twist to it.  

That, my friends IS a thing.  I know because I live it.  

So to my "free range" chicken ladies - welcome to my free range life.  No cordoned off area for you to 'feel' free.  I am free range in this small world of ours, much like you girls in our Monfumo garden.  

And you can lay your eggs anywhere you damn well please...

Buon appetito!!

xoxo sjkh