We kept half a dozen elderly hens in a clearing in the wood, protected from foxes and badgers by high wire netting, the bottom of which was buried in the ground. Nothing could jump over or dig under. But a cat could claw up a tree, leap on to the roof of the chicken house, then drop into the run below. At one period we kept over forty hens, and the chicken house was spacious and specially designed for such a number. Jeannie had believed they would bring in some useful pin money, and they were, in fact, her responsibility. The eggs also helped, since we lived so far from a shop, to make the daily catering easier for her. We found, however, as others before us, that the pin money was an illusion and that so much was paid out every week on expensive laying pellets that it was cheaper to buy the eggs. Thus gradually the flock was thinned out until these six old pensioners were left. Very occasionally one of them would lay an egg; but the real justification of their existence was based on sentiment.
