Chapter Four —– A Couple of Hens

Boo Berry and I played hide and Get Boo Berry for a long time.  Gradually, Mom got done with whatever it was that Mom was doing and started walking back to the farmyard and (I suppose) onto the farmhouse.

Boo Berry got all nervous, gave me a long look, then bounded after Mom.

That left me to walk in by myself.

Oh! Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.

As I was walking in I ran into the two hens, they were right by the grain bins clucking and scratching in the weeds.

“Hey, CAT!!” the White hen yelled at me. “STOP!  I need to tell you something!  Something very important.”

I stopped, of course.  I had nothing better to do.

“Okay—I’m listening.” I replied.

Cluck, Cluck, cluck….”Just a minute…..there is a cricket!!!”

POUNCE!  missed, well, kinda sorta missed, got one back leg.  POUNCE!!  “Bull’s EYE!”  The other hen yelled, “Right in the back of the cricket!”

Gobble, gobble, yum, yum.

“Hey I want a cricket, is there another one, let’s look and see!” the second hen clucked.

“Okay, okay,” scratch, scratch.

“You two are annoying!!!  I growled.  You stop me for something and then just as you start to tell me you lose your train of thought!  I’m going.  This is a big waste—–”

“NO! WAIT!!! I have to tell you that something big is going to happen and it’s going to happen SOON!!!” Skitter put her claw on my paw and looked me right in the eye.  Well, she did have to turn her head to one side to look me right in the eye.  But….anyhoo  I stopped.

“Silver and I woke up this morning just knowing that something big is going to happen on the farm and it’s going to happen real soon.”  She took her claw off my paw and sorta walked around me.

“I don’t know what it is but we both feel it—like maybe we better get all our eggs in the nest early.  And maybe we better not go out of the farm yard too far…because, gosh, we don’t know, but we do know.  It’s just a feeling in the feathers.  Something big is coming.”

At just that moment the other hen scared up a whole slew of big giant flying grasshoppers!!!
I jumped up into the air to see if I could catch one or two.  The hens were scrambling madly pecking and attacking the only way a chicken can.

BUGS!  The best kind!  Skitter yelled with her mouth full…YUMMY BUGS!!!