She was back with a vengeance on Monday. Her first surprise was discovering that we had three new chicks, and her second delighted surprise was learning that we wanted her to spend time with them.
First, I showed her how to let them out and to stand there until they had come out of the Run. On no account was she to try and pick them up when letting them out. We wanted them to learn that it was safe to come out when we were around, and that meant they had to learn they could do it without being molested.
Later I showed her how to pick them up, and how to reward them with a little treat for being picked up. And then how to sit down and get them to come to her and to allow themselves to be stroked. I checked to make sure that she was only letting them eat the interesting chick food (Garvo) when they were being stroked. If they resisted, the food was removed. The hardest lesson was getting her to leave them wanting more.
Later, we had mealworms and we rewarded them for letting us catch them.
She took us at our word and spent a large part of the three days playing with the chicks.
This morning I went in to the chick run and they were running around my feet. Later, when I went out to play with them, they were flying up on my lap and arms as soon as I sat down. I think, perhaps, I let Small Person play with them too much!
The shyest one is no longer shy, so that's a bit of a result.
It wasn't all chicks. We had to pop into town, so we stopped for an emergency pancake. We also made Nutella Lava Cake in the Microwave, which was horrendously sweet and I couldn't eat mine. Small Person had misread the recipe so had used too much sugar. We did the Allotmenteers, twice. We had been planning to do a deep clean, but the weather wasn't dry enough.
We'd also found an air rifle that was fairly light, and she had a go at target shooting with that, while we supervised. As has become traditional this holiday, we watched a Wallace and Gromt film - this week we're up to A Matter of Loaf and Death. She also watched an episode of TaskMaster, which meant she stayed up far too late for a Small Person but she'd cleaned out the Garden Girls and the Chicks for me so she deserved it.
We played a Maths game which she likes (and needs, as she really does need the practice). It's called Mobi, and I'm amazed that she asks to play it! She did some labelling, helped DH, and we played table tennis. Oh, she also cleared some weeds behind the greenhouse, I' can't squeeze down there. She had a bit of a silly fit about a spider, and I tried to help her see how irrational this fear is. It didn't help while she was standing there, but later she did say she could see that I was right and she'd try next time.
Just one more week to go!
