In which the chicks settle in

I know that we are a flower garden, growing flowers for cutting, and that it takes a great deal of time and energy and focus to carry the thing through and to make a success of it, and that we ought not to allow ourselves to become distracted, but these little Barbu d'Uccle chickens are just so beguiling, enganging, mild and sweet, that they are putting some of us off our work. I make a beeline for their little Chicken Cottage as soon as I arrive at work in the morning, to watch them huddled happily on their perch, the mini cockerel chivalrously positioning himself close to the entrance so that he is able to defend his womenfolk should the need arise (hopefully with our high surrounding walls it won't). Henry leaves little heaps of corn temptingly all over the garden for them, to distract their attention while he makes grabs at them trying to pick them up. The last time he succeeded, he pushed one lone little hen up to the rose garden in his small blue wheelbarrow, and it took her five days to find her friends again. This morning I feel that the rot really began to set in, when Morwenna convincingly made a case for feeding some succulent little brassica plants to the hens, on the grounds that we had no room to plant more out. Very popular with the little chickens. If only we could train them to develop a taste for couch grass!