We're free!

Thursday 22nd October: Dry and sunny early on then heavy showers in the afternoon. We schooled in the morning - this week are looking at recycling and talked about what we took to the recycling station yesterday and then moved on to recycling water - something I am very keen on and hope to set up at our house.
After lunch we decided to give the hens their freedom. One of them has been free in the past - briefly when they escaped through the door while being fed, but otherwise they have always been behind wire. In the hinged door of their new henhouse is a sliding, chicken-sized door. We slid this open and waited to see what would happen. A little head poked out (Fizzy, it's always her!) and then a body dashed out while it had the chance, followed rapidly by the other two. They stayd quite close to the hehouse to start with, but when I went to walk off to leave them, they followed me. Whenever I stpped, so did they, whenever I walked they scurried along behind me. I went through the farm gate and closed it but they scurried under it. I don't want them coming up to the house and garden end, so I picked them up, one by one, and threw them over the gate. They suddenly experienced gravity and attempted to flap their wings but kind of plummeted to the ground. Then they rushed straight back under the gate to me again and promptly found themselves airborne again! This was meant to frighten them, not prove to be great fun! In the end I had to block up the gap under the gate to stop them following, and left them to peck and scratch around the top paddock.
A couple of hours later it was clear it was going to rain heavily so we went to round them up. We hear that hens are so stupid they don't think to find shelter from the rain, then die of the cold. They happily followed me back to their house and after a little persuasion from the toe end of my wellie they hopped back inside. I have to repeat this excitement every day with them!
After the heavy downpour of rain we popped into town to post some letters, and were amazed by the flooding of the gutters down the side of the road. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me because it was quite spectacular. Whilst in town we collected Sunshine the canary from the childcare centre who is coming for a weekend holiday with us.