What is it, Lassie?!?

It's that time of year, mid-winter, when we all admittedly get a little stir crazy. I've been very busy with work and soaking up as much of the farm as I can on my down time. Recently, we had a glimpse of Spring here at the farm where the weather warmed up and the sun was shining - lovely! We all embraced a break in the weather to spend more time outside and with our animals and that is when I started to notice some strange behavior... I can't explain it, maybe it's Spring fever? Whatever the reason, the animals have been acting a bit strangely and mostly the chickens.

The other morning after Dan and I fed the chickens we were followed out of their house by Rachel (one of our Silver-Laced Wyandottes) who was clucking furiously at us and cocking her head as if in important conversation. "What is it, girl?" I asked but of course, she's just a chicken. This behavior was very unusual because normally there is nothing that will come between a chicken and the feed bowl :). But she followed us all the way to the goat house with rapid fire clucking.

I've also noticed out my office window a lot of comings and goings from the goat house. The chickens will run (literally run and if you haven't seen a chicken run you really can't apprciate just how comical this is) into the goat house and then run out and confer with each other at the doorway. It's as if the goat house has become a meeting hall and there is something important going on. Now meanwhile Joe, the rooster, seems totally out of the loop. He's still roaming the paddock looking for love, which he gets, but it's quite perfunctory these days. Clearly the ladies have more important matters to attend to.

Meanwhile the goats have also been trying to tell us something. From the moment our car pulls in the drive, they stand up as high as they can and start braying very pointedly at us.

Even our little dog and the cat have been acting a bit off and craving more attention than usual. The dog seems to have developed a crush on the dog at a neighboring farm and spends most mornings looking longingly out the window in "Teddy's" direction.

So maybe it's just the mid-winter doldrums or spring fever brought on by the recent weather change, but whatever the case, something is up. They certainly won't let us ignore them and we don't want to :).