This morning started normal for a quick second. After dragging myself upright, I usually head upstairs to let Ditto, Maple and Hope out of their crate and puppy pen then we turn around and go back down the stairs and let them into the back yard to potty. Sometimes Hope takes forever to get out of her crate, then she’ll sit at the top of the stairs forever. When she does I go ahead and take the pups out,  that I have to go back upstairs and encourage her to head down.

(Reba and Winter take their time getting up and wanting out in the morning if anyone was wondering why they weren’t in the conversation).

This morning Hope came right out of her crate along with the puppies and we all headed to the stairs. Ditto and Maple zoom down before anybody else, then Hopie and I took our turn. Unfortunately Hope’s little short, round body started going to fast and picked up momentum and she kind of rolled/bounced down the last few! But she got up, dusted herself so-to-speak and headed for the back door.

I went back upstairs to grab Bruno (formerly Aster) and Dally and head out to the garden so they could go potty before breakfast. (I can’t let them out with the Poodles because of the age difference. I’m afraid the Poodle pups would over whelm them!)

I put them in the fenced off area under the shade cloth then glanced around their pen and spotted something dark in the corner between the fence and the play structure. What?!

It was one of my young chickens.

I ordered chicks last winter and received them in May. They had graduated from their indoor brooder to outside. I haven’t integrated them in with the adult chickens yet so I’ve been keeping them in two giant wire dog crates and moving them around the garden to graze and peck each day. One of the crates is upside down because it has big openings on the bottom and chicks were escaping every time we picked it up to move it. So we flipped it over and I had a blanket over the top for shade and to keep them from flying up and escaping. Well, the wind blew it off and apparently someone figured out they could get out!

But the puppy play area is clear across the garden from where the chick pen was. Why it decided to venture that far from its flock is a mystery!

After I caught her, I was carrying her back to her flock  and saw my bunny (who is normally in the big chicken pen) hopping through the garden! And then looked down to discover a second chick was out! Thankfully she had stayed next to the other chickens. But it still took me a couple minutes to catch her as we played “Ring Around The Rosey” around the enclosure!

And then I was off to catch the wayward rabbit. I followed slowly as he hopped around the garden for a bit. But finally caught him in a corner. Back to the chicken pen he went and then I filled in the hole under the fence he had dug!

Mind you all this nonsense had happened in the first ten to fifteen minutes of me getting up this morning!

I walked in to tell hubby the story and said, “what in the Alice in Wonderland is going on this morning?!”

Thankfully, the rest of the morning settled into normalcy. I let the adult dogs out, fed the horse (there’s only one at home as they other two are down the hill on pasture), then went to the garden to get Bruno and Dally for their breakfast.

Once they had eaten, I let them out the back door to potty and let Ditto and Maple inside to have their breakfast.

The Cavapoos went back to the garden to play after their potty break and I went to turn the turn the dripper hoses on in the garden, feed and water the chickens and bunnies and finish my chores.

When Maple and Ditto were finished with breakfast I took them back out to the garden too. I have the big pen split into two sections so they can all enjoy the space but not be in the same pen.

And that’s how my morning started.🤪