Good morning! Warm sun today, perfect for sunbathing. After a chilly spell, everyone is relaxing in the middle of the playground. Black Tiger is in the usual spot, and the ground is in better shape now.
Sunbathing chickens
This is Veronica, a rescued hen who couldn’t fit in with the coop. But the storm the other day changed things, and now she can be with everyone. She’s sunbathing even indoors. When there’s good sunshine, chickens sunbathe as if they’re melting. It helps them shake off parasites, a kind of instinctive health care, and it also helps them feel calm. (More on this in Episode 21.)
Basil still loves the hens. Fuyuto and Madara are taking it easy. And… oh! Iroha, what happened?
Our newest cat
Today I’d like to introduce our newest cat. Ta-da!
Meet Hanabi
This is Hanabi (“fireworks”), a kitten who looks just like Natsu. She’s Natsu’s sister: same father, same mother, born at a different time. We don’t know the father, but the mother is a stray. We tried to catch her to get her spayed, but she lives behind the feed store, where we can’t come and go freely, and another litter was born before we could. There may have been another sister too, but that kitten went to a good home. We took in this one.
Her face is a little “busakawa,” ugly-cute, and she got mad at me for saying so. Her style is completely different from Natsu’s. She loves her little house, so back she goes.
The cat room makeover
The cat room has gotten a bit bigger. The floor is still undecided, but Kanata used to have a separate little room inside it. I broke through the back wall and pushed that room straight outside, so now it’s an outdoor space and the inside is roomy. When I opened the door at feeding time, Kanata walked out, probably for a stroll of a few hours.
Some cats poop outside the litter box, so I put leftover wood scraps on the floor, and now they all sleep flat on them. How about it, Natsu? Bigger, right? “We go outside anyway, so it doesn’t matter to us.” True, Natsu, you go out. But some cats, like Meeko, don’t, so I made the room bigger for them. Fuyuto, what do you think? “Don’t care.” Madara: “Sleepy.” Meeko, not a fan of the camera?
I did the big remodel in the middle of the night while the cats were out, so I didn’t film it. I built it with my new tools. The cats went out to play, came home for dinner and went, “Huh? Our room! It’s different!” Little Hanabi gets along with everyone, too. Thanks for watching!