Reading a Book, or at Least Trying

It was a quiet afternoon on the farm. Martha settled onto the back porch settee with a book in her hand. The sun shined, the breeze was fresh, and there were no children to interrupt her reading...

Up onto the porch hopped one little black and white hen. She cocked her head curiously and gazed at Martha with one eye.

"Are you trying to get me in trouble?" Martha asked. But the chicken just stared silently back.

Martha made an attempt to ignore her feathered friend. She looked back at her book and hoped the silly bird would go back to scratching in the garden, but rather than disappear the little chicken invited her friends to story time. They stood a safe distance away, looked at Martha, cocked their heads to one side, and stared.

Martha looked back out of the corner of her eye without moving her head. The porch was now crowded with chickens. Chickens alone are not necessarily bad, but chickens have bad hygiene and often forget to poop only in the grass or garden... Martha put her book down, got up, and shooed the chickens off the porch.

The brooding birds ran off into the grass. Martha settled back in her seat but reading was not in her future. As soon as her eyes were focused on her book, the bad, bad, biddies returned,

Turns out they were hungry and were hoping for a handout of some kind. I do suppose that making eggs takes quite a bit of energy. (It looks like I'm going to be looking up some recipes for quiche...)