I'm dealing with the loss of little Miss Elizabeth by doing an overhaul of the chicken run. Today I raked about half the yard and hauled a big cartload of rocks, sticks and leftover lumps of sod that I gave the chickens one day while I was weeding. I leveled the whole area which looked like a WW I battlefield as they like to dig holes, either looking for bugs, or taking dust baths. Take your pick. Anyway I leveled and then put the sprinkler on that area to dampen the whole thing down. In the coming days I hope to finish raking the other half and plant a new wheat field. Then finally I want to completely clean the old straw out of the coop and replace it with fresh.
All this activity won't do a thing to alter Sunny's new found interest in the chickens however. She used to ignore them most of the time. But since her recent lapse, she is now stalking the chickens through the fencing. Waiting for the chick to come out of the coop. Which of course she never will again. It's disturbing.
I think part of what happened is Sunny is getting old. She's 14 now and is very hard of hearing. She doesn't see too well, and her hind quarters are pretty weak. She has fallen a lot lately. Her back legs just give out on her at unexpected moments. Her appetite is not very good and she is quite thin. And frankly, she has taken to wandering around totally not paying attention to what's going on around her. I think she's dealing with the canine form of dementia. None of these things bodes well for the future. I'm just putting it out there that things are kind of headed in the direction none of us want to think about.
This afternoon I took a few photos of some lavender in one of the pots on the front porch. To focus... literally.... on other things.
Lavender things....
