Chicken therapy

Most evenings lately, I've been heading out to the chicken house around 7 PM, turning the chickens loose, and watching them enjoy life.  I have a lawn chair out there, so I can sit there and relax and watch the chickens.  

Before I turn them loose, I fetch the pet chick, Chickie, from her house so she can get acquainted and see what other chickens do.  By the way, the older hen isn't in this picture because, the minute I turn the flock out, she heads for the garden and takes a dust bath.  She doesn't hurt any plants.  She just chooses a nice, loose bed of dirt and digs in.  There she will stay until I make her join the others and head inside.  
If you have stress problems, let me recommend chicken therapy to you.  There is nothing more relaxing that watching a bunch of chickens peck at weeds, grass, and (if I choose to toss a handful out there), chicken scratch.  From my observations, it appears that chickens like Dock and white clover blossoms better than any other plants.
They have also learned to enjoy leftovers from our kitchen.  For instance, Cliff and I ate borscht for three days, but after that, there was still about a pint of it left.  I tossed some stale heels of bread in it along with some cantaloupe seeds, took it to the chickens, and they cleaned up every bit... once the hen, the elder of the flock, demonstrated that it was safe to eat.      

I enjoy Foursquare, an app that lets me check in at different locations.  If I have checked in at a particular location more than any of my Foursquare friends, I become mayor.  This evening I created a new location where I could check in:  The Chicken House.
This Foursquare thing was a lot more fun when my daughter and her husband were playing along, but I'm still checking in like crazy, just because I can.  I think I am about to steal all their mayorships, too.