Could Pass for a Raspberry

A hen can fly straight up.  How high she can go depends on the raspberries.  Fortunately, our raspberry canes this year are lush and loaded, with huge green leaves sheltering the fruit from the up-turned eyes of four chickens.  Get a bead on a berry, and they go straight up.

Mostly the girls occupy themselves during the day with whatever is directly in front of them as they drift like sheep around and around their spacious hen pen.  But as the first of the morning Things I get to do today, I'm gathering fruit for our breakfast, and the lovelies hang right at my feet, well trained in the knowing that berries slip from my fingers.  An intermittent flattering of wings tells me one of them spied an accessible treat and has flown three feet or more straight up to grab it.  Shooing them away is futile, and I realize they really deserve all they can reach.  After all it was their scratching, their fertilizing, their picking off bugs that has made the berry patch seven feet tall with all the berries as big as my thumbs.

Could pass for raspberries in the eyes of a hen.

Two minutes later it seemed one of the hens was walking on my exposed toes (flip flops are my default garden wear).  A glance down told the story: it was a sharp beak pecking at my toes.  Raspberry toenail polish can fool even a clever hen.