Broody

Weather continuing dry and glorious with highs around the mid- to upper twenties. Could do with some rain, but I'm not complaining...

This week there has been a broody hen in Carmine. For days, Mama has been fretting and fiddling and watching and waiting. Adjusting the temperature a fraction of a degree here, scattering a few droplets of room-temperature water there. Making embarrassing chirping noises that closely resemble the noises she makes when feeding the dog and the cats, and thus sending the poor creatures nuts.

The pasta is boiling dry! Where's Mama? Upstairs. The kids are trying to kill one another! Where's Mama? Upstairs. The phone is ringing off the hook! Where's Mama? Upstairs. Time to go to school! Where's Mama? Upstairs...

Finally, Mama went into labour, and after 24 hours of expectant panting up and down the stairs, checking on the very slow progress, she gave up and went to bed.

That's when it all happened. Sixteen little beaks tapping on shells. Sixteen sets of tiny shoulder muscles bracing and shuddering and making appear tiny spider cracks. Sixteen bedraggled and ugly-as-sin chicks safely hatched and either drying in the incubator or already snoozing safely together in a heap of Easter-yellow fluff.

Bionda Piemontese chicks, less than a day old.

And now Mama is high as a kite on the miracle of new life, and insists on running around town spreading the good news, and will soon, surely, be approached by chaps with gentle voices bearing with them a strange white jacket...