When I wasn’t looking, the chickens took our chairs and they have made themselves quite at home in them.

It’s our fault really. A week or two ago, we felt like they needed to get out and stretch their legs around the entire yard. The chicken yard is a good size, but there isn’t any grass left and at some point, we feel like it does them good to get out in the grass and peck. With the veggie garden in its summer state, there isn’t really anything left for them to damage, and we figured if the worst thing we have to do is rake some mulch back into landscape beds, it is worth it to see the chickens happy.

When we opened the gate that first morning, we had to back out of the way they stormed out so quickly. They explored the grass and flapped their wings a bit, enjoying their new-found freedom. It is fun watching them walk around and explore the yard. It sort of transports us from a house in a city to a pastoral farm, where feeding the chickens and tending our crops is our biggest concern in the world.

And then they took our chairs. We looked out one morning and they were very interested in our morning coffee spot. After they scoped it out a little bit, they jumped up and perched themselves right up on our chairs like queens of the yard.

We’ve had to shoo them, not just out of our chairs, but out of landscape beds and from getting too close to the neighbor’s yard. We know it won’t last because the first veggies of the fall season have arrived and pretty soon, we’ll be planting up our garden. For now, we’ll let them have their freedom, and I guess we’ll even let them have our chairs.