Thanks so much to @old-guy-photos for creating the tag name and implementing it.

My first story with this tag, appropriately enough, is about getting down on your knees. (Can you hear me groaning?)

It began this way

Long ago, at the beginning of our retirement, 1/2 step from heaven, in our first garden, the potato beetles were bad and hand picking them was tedious. Despite the direct warning by Moses not to believe everything you read on the internet, I did some online research and did believe that chickens are great for eating these beetles so I wanted to get chickens. Against Mr. Chick's wishes, at first, he started by building a chicken coop. Oh such innocence.
My mathematically minded husband planned it out, bought the materials and began building.

Fast forward

This took a lot of time, effort and the help of a professional to fix some beginner mistakes, but in the end the day finally came to bring our new chicks home.

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Speeding Along to Today

We have loved all our chicks since that very first group and can tell many entertaining and tragic stories about each one. Of course, we learned the hard way that free-range chickens do so much destruction to the garden that we ended up building fences to keep them out.

Since that first year we get a set of 3 newly hatched chicks every spring and begin again. This year was the worst as the latest set were moved out to the coop at five weeks of age

and within 3 days were eaten by a fox, I think, who broke into the coop by removing a loose floorboard in one of the nesting boxes.

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So now we are left with Lee, the lonely survivor, who was just attacked by a dog who came up through the steep woods. She cleverly escaped and is now safely recuperating in the coop.

On my Knees

She is an odd bird and has carefully selected a spot to lay her eggs under the ramp that leads to that tiny run.

In order to get my daily egg I have to open that little door, crouch down and twist myself around to reach the egg...and then manage to get back on my feet.
That may seem simple to you but for me it is a daily ordeal.

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I won't offend you with my picture and a date sign. Be grateful and believe this is true.