In Which My Life Hooks A Sharp Left And Goes Offroading Into The Ridiculous

So because of the massive amounts of thick, nasty smoke from the Rim fire near Yosemite, we had to take the extreme step today of bringing ALL of the animals into the house.

ALL.

Including 4 cage birds, a dog, a bunny and 50 chickens. Thank God I do not have horses.

To say that this was neither easy nor joyously experienced by all is a massive understatement.

We prepared by clearing out anything chickens could break/accidentally choke to death/poop on and laying out our handy thrift store sheets to protect the floor and furniture. Some of my paint cans came in handy, as did the roll of blue painter's tape.

Weedcat at first stayed by the back door and stared unhappily at the ceiling until I caught on and turned off the ceiling fan. None of the others gave a hang about the thing, but he did. They all stood around looking like they were politely waiting for a bus, no doubt wondering what the Hell was going on. We plied them with various goodies to keep them occupied and distracted until it got dark enough for them to roost.

Which they did on my kitchen island, table & chairs as planned. The youngest babies hied themselves up on the island early on and stayed there. We have two broody banty hens at the moment and they were NOT happy being away from the nest boxes, but we'd tried to accomodate them by draping the sheets so there were dark hidey places for them to go sit.

Meeko liked this paint can.

Finally they were all tucked in for the night...

Wait...what's that up there...?!

Oh, fantastic, it's Pele, who considers herself Queen of the Wild Chickens. After a struggle and much outraged Pele squawking, husband unceremoniously grabs her and puts her on the ground, where she remains...

for about 5 minutes. Then, right in front of my eyes, she flies from the ground straight up to the top of that cabinet again.

This time she got a military-style wing trim, which put an end to her adventures.

Lord, at least the dog behaved.