Chicks and a classic BHG encounter

One of our three broody hens has managed to hatch four lovely chicks! For the first day or so they seemed too tiny and helpless to survive, but now I’ve seen them hopping around after their mother, confidently exploring their little domain. I’ve just been up to check on them and the remaining two eggs are cold so I’ve removed them from the nest. I think Mother Hen has her hands (wings?) too full with the four she has already, to bother with these last two.
Meanwhile we have another broody hen on eggs in another coop….probably about a week away from hatching, and a frantic little broody with nowhere to go until the weekend.
But still, I wonder….which came first, the chicken or the egg?

On Tuesday I popped down to see another BHG member who will remain nameless, with half a dozen eggs I owed him. As I passed his bee hives, I noticed rather more angry buzzing activity than usual. My friend answered the door, opening it very slightly and poking his head around it to speak to me. He had what I’d assumed was a smear of toothpaste across one cheek.

We had a conversation about eggs, chicks and angry bees…he explained that he’d been splitting up the colonies…hence the bees’ displeasure. “…and the reason I’m talking to you like this,” he went on and before he could finish his sentence, the penny dropped and we said in unison”Because I’ve/you’ve got no trousers on!!”

A bee, not for the first time that week, had flown up his trouser leg and stung him.  The white cream was of the anti-histamine variety.

Now he’d explained himself his embarrassment vanished and he flung the door open and stood before me in his underpants, picked his hastily abandoned trousers up from the front step, shook them and escorted me safely past the furious bees, back to the safety of the lane.

Annie