A steady pattern

The hens and the people have developed a steady pattern. One egg per day, a half hour out of the coop near sundown, and clean straw in the hen house most days.
I wonder if they’ve forgotten their lost buddy Gloria. I think not. I’ve always believed animals are smarter than we give them credit for. This is due to the fact that animal intelligence and human intelligence are as different as night and day. We can’t understand them, so we think they are dumb.
My son planted new grass in an area that a backhoe had torn up. As I suspected, the girls thought I made it just for them. I put up a fence to keep them and the humans out while the grass gets a chance to grow. I used metal fence posts, but found that I did not have enough to do the job. As a boy growing up in Nevada, I remembered that fences there often have a repeating pattern of one metal post and one post made from local plants (not trees, this is Nevada). I made some fence posts from some pruning remains and the fence looks very good to me. The hens were a bit perplexed at the new state of affairs, but quickly adapted.
One activity that Dolly, the Rhode Island Red, loves to do is have a dirt bath. She wiggles around in the dirt and turns upside down and makes very contented sounds. If I was a predator, that’s when I’d make my move. Luckily, she has me and Lily to watch out for her during these periods of luxuriating inattentiveness.