This morning has been quite chaotic, starting at the break of dawn when the pups were stirred into a group howl to let me know a starling was caught in the bird netting over the pheasant pen.

It wasn’t their fault; the pheasant were causing a ruckus themselves, jumping and chirping at the poor starling invader.

There was not much I could do that early and I was more focused on shushing the pups out of my bedroom window as quietly as possible than I was saving a starling at 6 am. To my surprise, though, it was still alive when I went out a couple hours later to feed everyone and I was able to free it from the netting.

I’m not entirely sure it learned its lesson, knowing how starlings are. 🙄

Before I could even make it out the door though, the hens were cackling up a storm and at first I thought they were reacting to the big hawk up in the poplar tree who was keeping a keen eye on the flock. It turned out that one of them was having a bit of a time laying her egg, which does happen now and then.

By the time I got my snowpants and my coat and my hat and my gloves and my boots on to go out to check on her it was all over and she and the other girls had calmed down, although she was eyeing the problem egg as though it was a terrorist’s bomb or something. 😅

The pups, having already been stirred up, were in quite the mood when I traded them out on my way to check the flock and collect eggs.

They did zoomies all over the play yards and took turns jumping in and out of their summer pool (which we left the water in so now it’s a husky ice rink).

Their commotion got the horses behind us stirred up and they started neighing and running about. Of course I couldn’t help but join in the fun a bit myself and ran around a little with them, yelling “HIKE!” to get them to do more zoomies. 😆

The only ones who stayed quiet this morning were the ducks (who are always quiet) and the quail.

And of course the big hawk, who silently watched it all from his perch up in the poplar, probably wishing he could swoop down and eat us all…