Yes, dreams are always nicer than the real thing when that real thing comes with lots of work.

Yeah, I know you are right but I probably won't stop wishing.

Now chickens, they are really easy to care for and they definitely earn their keep providing yummy fresh eggs. And they are so entertaining, they must make me smile every day, or laugh!

porkpal said:You need to add the likelihood that the cow has pushed down the fence and she and the horse are headed for the highway. The goats have shimmied under their fence and are now dining on your favorite flowers, those the chickens haven't already scratched up, that is, and the escapees will all trample the veggies repeatedly while you are trying to put them back where they belong. Other than that your image is pretty accurate...

I think watching chickens is great entertainment. I have watched lots of chicken videos on Y-Tube.

Although I would never deliberately attract squirrels myself, I was impressed by the ingenuity of someone who invented "Kitten TV" to keep them entertained and excited.

He or she would occasionally toss a few peanuts onto the porch for squirrels to search for ...
right in front of the sliding glass doors!

The kittens stayed glued to that door like kids with a videogame.

I bet they would!

And we refer to our birds as "Chicken-TV" - they really are quite entertaining.

I like that, Chicken-TV! But Porkpal is so right, reality would come crushing down. I don't have to take care of the animals here but we have had our run ins. Chickens scratching out all your flower beds, pecking all the low hanging tomatoes (still have guineas doing that), oh, guineas taking a dust bath in a newly planted row. The goats ate most of the apple trees, the fig tree. So far only one has gotten out. Not that he couldn't get out again, just thankfully he hasn't.

One year I thought someone had tilled my beet row. It was the chickens scratching. That did it! i told my son they had to have a run or I couldn't garden. He built a run. They still got out. Had to clip their wings. They still got out. Had to move every object near the fence so they wouldn't hop on and then jump over the fence.

Now we get along just fine. They watch me when I go to the garden, waiting for me to bring them a treat, then they all come running.

Yes, chickens do all those things and more!! My dh finally made me a cottage garden fence so I could have a garden area but the rooster jumps the fence and then call all the hens. Some of the waddlers can't make it over the fence so he doesn't bother so often! All of the seedlings are grown by now so mostly they just get the bugs, which is okay with me. But this spring, I was considering an electric fence! HA! or a chicken tractor!

Now the veggie garden is in a different location that we have fenced around to keep those chickens out! They like to hang out on the back porch where it's cool and they poop all over. Drives my dh crazy. Now he's convinced that the chickens are digging all the holes for their dust baths. It's the dogs doing the digging.

I told my dear hubby that we (He) should build them a chicken cabana. You know, a covered area for them with a sand box for bathing and misters to keep them cool in the summer. He keeps saying "but they're chickens!"

Well, I guess I had better amend my fantasy farm to include the veggie garden all fenced so those chickens can't get in. Oh and my chickens don't have a rooster. I don't much like roosters, just the hens!

Well, hatching eggs I know there are roosters. I would just grow up the roosters until I could tell it is a boy. Or first time it crowed. Then it would be chicken dinner. No problem for me eating an animal I have personally known. Its not that I mind the crowing, I just am afraid of roosters.

that's okay, rita...i am afraid of chickens!

lovemyhouse said:that's okay, rita...i am afraid of chickens!

Oh no. Chickens. at least hens. are really neat and interesting critters. Those ones I have one winter were really interesting critters and just so much fun to watch. Chicken TV really is an entertaining channel!

Picked tomatos today. Piles and piles and piles of tomatoes!

lovemyhouse said:that's okay, rita...i am afraid of chickens!

Hen attacked and pecked me when I was a kid!

Broody hens can be quite fierce!

I still find my chickens amusing. I can't watch a group of them run without laughing.