The sky is falling!

The smoke from multiple fires is so thick the sun is either a rusty orange or almost invisible. Evacuation warnings are in place for multiple towns. Even with two air purifiers working overtime, the air is stuffy and hard to breathe. So what am I worried about? Why Ninja, of course. 

Unlike my beautiful bear who stays with us in the house and is protected from the fetid air except for those times when he must go out for important business, Ninja is on her own outside. Two nights ago the worry was the potential for very fierce Santa Ana winds. For those who are not Californians, think hurricanes. I was fearful that she might be blown off her perch in her favorite nighttime roost. I needn't have worried -- but for a very odd reason. 

Yup. She's broody again and hiding out all day except for about a 20 minute break to gulp down some food and run back to her nest. And the other good news -- the winds never reached us. So double good fortune.

But back to the broody bit. I'm now an old hand at figuring out where she hunkers down, and sure enough, by patiently waiting out of sight, I watched as she dove into the Bromeliads (again). So for the fifth time, I have to disappoint her motherly instincts and raid her nest. Easy peasy. Today I would simply watch for her mealtime excursion, quickly/stealthily raid her eggs and wait for her meltdown. Nope. Somehow missed mealtime. Dang! Frankly, in all this smoke, I'm not that anxious to roust her out because it means she'd spend more active time in the yard. At least her nest is somewhat protected. With the sky falling at the moment, there are no easy choices. We'll have to wait for tomorrow's set of catastrophes to pick out options.

And now for GOOD NEWS...

One satisfying moment out of all this though -- Ninja finally deigned to take her dust bath in the very ritzy tire bath I made for her. You may recall the two days of sifting dirt and two types of sand along with diatomaceous earth carefully placed near her hangout. She utterly ignored that spa treatment until yesterday. Actually, that was the tip off that something had changed. And sure enough, apparently it was the precursor to her nesting for the long haul. It's good to know that hens have high hygiene standards. Not to mention all that work was worth it. Small victories are victories nonetheless.