The Idiot Bantams (yes, still very much alive and kicking) appear to be under the allusion that the new rustic Potting Shed has been built specifically for their personal use. I’ve caught them all in there at various times over the last week or so, scuffing up the ground, lounging on the potting table, just casually ‘hanging out’ like the Potting Shed is the place where all the cool bantams go. Yesterday, on emerging from the mini-orchard after communing with Edith and Sidney (if ever you want to experience the world in its simplest form, invite a couple of bunnies into your life) I saw Tootsie in there.
Now, Andy’s hat was resting on the potting bench. The hat I attempt to make him wear so he won’t complain about having a sunburnt head. It is an off-white canvas Panama hat and, in its semi-folded form, did look a little bit like a small chicken. If you squinted and used a bit of imagination.
And Tootsie (gender-confused at the best of times) clearly thought he’d managed to attract his very own lady friend. Or gentleman friend. Who knows what’s going on in his odd little brain. For he was sitting opposite the hat, all fluffed up, and chirping at it, something along the lines of, ‘Well, hello there. You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you? What brings a gorgeous bird like you to these parts? Can I buy you a pinã colada?’ Either that, or he was being broody, because the way he was sitting all fluffed up definitely had a look of broody hen about it.
Well…I wish I’d had a photographic device upon my person so I could have taken a snap of the romantic little scene. But I didn’t because, as I said, I’d just been a-visiting with Lady Edith and Lord Sidney and my hands had been laden with gifts of carrot, apple leaves (their new favourite thing) and clumps of clover (their last most favourite thing before apple leaves took over). Also, I’m not one of those people who walk around with a phone permanently attached to their hand, slowly turning into a rigid little curled up claw-like appendage. Seriously, young people - give your phone hand a rest and let it flatten out every now and again. You’ll regret it in your middle years when you’ve been rendered incapable of effective clapping.
Tootsie continued his courtship of the hat for a few minutes, then noticed I was watching, probably felt a bit of an arse, hopped off the table and strutted off to join the other Idiot Bantams and no doubt attempt some roister-doister with Magnus to assert his masculinity. Which never goes well because Magnus is a ‘gggrrrrrrr’ manly type of cockerel and Tootsie is an undecided bantam following his own dreams, which confuses Magnus. So they scoot around after each other, squawking for a bit before agreeing to go their separate ways.
This morning, I discovered this. I returned to the house to fetch my iPad so I could take a photo…
And egg. And a feather. The feather is definitely one of Tootsie’s. It wasn’t there yesterday. Neither was the egg. The egg looks like it might be one of May’s because it is small and white, clean and bright (like eidelweiss) BUT May hasn’t laid eggs for such a long time I was convinced she had joined me in Club Menopause. Or ‘henopause’ as they probably say in chicken world.
Now, here’s a thought. Is it a Tootsie egg? Hhmmmm? Also, the Panama hat was missing. Was it Andy’s hat I saw yesterday or was it actually a small odd bird, that, when it vacated the Potting Shed, left an egg behind? Or can hats lay eggs? Have I discovered a new wonder of the world? Did Tootsie’s cooing and wooing magic an egg from a hat? Makes a change from rabbits from hats, I suppose. Edith and Sidney very much disapprove of magicians using rabbits as props. So do I.
Gosh, it’s not even nine o’clock in the morning and already my brain is in magical wonderment overdrive. Hats, cockerels, eggs, hens….there are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy…’
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KJ