Midwife duties

My first opportunity to act as a midwife.

Life on a French farm can be so demanding! 
We have seven hens and a handsome rooster called King Gold here on this lovely farmlet in the hamlet. As well as a cat, once a wild thing but now tamed to be a gentle creature busy catching mice all day.
There has been much excitement in the hen house with Adam, aged eleven, the keeper of the chickens as there are seven eggs about to hatch. Well, yesterday I was lucky enough to be on hand helping with the hatching of two new chicks. Ian gently helped the chicks out of their shells once we could hear the 'cheeping' through the little holes that they had made. He peeled them like he was peeling an egg....actually they were eggs. That was a fowl-house in joke. We noticed that the hen sitting in the nest was the twin sister of the mother and was more interested in laying her egg that getting on with job of hatching eggs. Once she had laid her wet egg on my hand as I was inspecting the eggs,she  departed the nest. So, we had to round up Alberta who was on her break scratching about with her mates on the next door farm totally oblivious of the due date of her chicks. She somehow  got the message and as if by sixth sense, looked very guilty and sped back in to plop herself onto of the two wet chicks and the awaiting eggs.Sounds weird but true.
Today we have another chick and yesterday's two chicks are now fluffed up and strutting about.

Another bird story...
After having a fabulous French lunch yesterday and a rather relaxing evening going to sleep was no problem for me. But to be woken at 1pm by a constant trilling and chirping by some poor misguided and dysfunctional bird was just 'not on! ' What bird sings in the middle of the night? Ah,  methinks, it must be that big fat orange moon thing making little  flighty creatures do strange things in the wee hours. Then I thought, or maybe some  kind of mechanical bird noise triggered by the flowing fountain outside setting off a sensor. On and on it went, until finally I stumbled out of bed , threw open the curtains, to check out this diva. But what confronted me was the biggest full moon I had ever seen. Reflected against this moon was the black silhouette of a bare tree and there perched on a branch was a brave little bird singing out its thorax. Such a tiny creature making so much noise. Back to sleep.
Next morning, our host Ian is dancing about the front gate with 'les juemelles' binoculars getting very excited. What are you searching for? A nightingale. 
Ahhhhh....yes, I heard it....all night! 
Response: you are very lucky as they are so rare.
'Lucky, I don't think so. No sleep is not lucky'

An update on the heart warming chicken story. The morning after I wrote this piece we heard frantic knocking on our front door. There stood young Adam in tears. He burst in and struggled to tell me that "they are all dead!"
He had just found three flat baby chicks, stone cold eggs and no mother hen on the nest. She was out with the girls scratching up breakfast worms & bugs. A real whodunnit? Murder in the henhouse? Was it sly Mr Fox, the twin sister, King Gold or the mother? 
We will never know what went on that night in the hen house.