The girls next door

The other day I was putting away my recent batch of tomatillo salsa in the canning room. 

(OK, "canning room" is a misnomer.  It's a wall of shelves in what will be, eventually, a 1/4 bath.  The teensy room also serves as the kitty litter box and animal food storehouse.  I just realized we should call it "The Can" when it's all done... someday.)

Anyway, this room has a small window that looks out over the chicken run and into the neighbors' back yard.  Right now the grape leaves are very lush, giving us some privacy from each other.

It was a sunny day when I was putting away my jars and so the window was open.  The chickens were cooing and making soft noises when suddenly I heard a man's voice:

"Bock bock bockbockbockbock BOCK!"

Croquette, our resident chatty Cathy, replied with her own version of whatever the guy had said.

They went back and forth for about a minute while I stood in The Can, chuckling to myself.  I looked outside and could see a man in the neighbor's yard, his body obscured from the waist up by the grape arbor.  He couldn't see me inside my house for the same reason.  I didn't recognize his voice and am guessing he was a friend of the neighbor's 19-year-old son.

All 9 of our hens were standing at the fence, staring up at him.  He probably thought it was because he was talking to them but in reality, they know that talking humans generally mean food.

I listened to him chat to them for a moment more, then I said loudly and clearly out the window, "I think it's really cute that you're talking to my chickens."

There was an awkward moment of pause while he digested the fact that I'd been eavesdropping on his "conversation" with my girls.  He muttered something about the diversity of the hens as I retreated back into my house to finish up some chores.  Even now, a few days later, I'm still laughing every time I think of this guy hitting on the girls next door.

Poor guy.  I'm sure he was mortified. 

But dang, that was funny.