Dear Diary,
The storm has passed. Now, days afterwards, another thing worth writing about has occurred here in My Kingdom.
It was a sunny and warm Friday afternoon, when our Human Girl began to fill the two tall cooler boxes that stood uselessly in the yard.
Protea clicked her beak. "Oh, my dears, I don't think that's a good thing... Unless she's only filling them to wash our feed-dishes..."
I doubted it. Our feed dishes were reasonably clean at the moment. "I hope..." I began, but I did not finish my sentence, because Protea shot me a look that meant don't frighten Strelitzia! ... and of course Her Perfectness must be minded... That bossy hen! Who's the princess? Me! ME!
But I kept my beak shut and watched Human Girl filled the tall cooler boxes.
Our fear was soon confirmed. "Oh no! She's added three jugs of hot water to them! She never does that much for washing feed-dishes!" squawked Protea.
Strelitzia shuddered. "I h-hate baths!" she said. "I w-won't go!"
Streli could be very stubborn. But she didn't get her own way always. Human Girl would catch her and wash her in that dreaded tub, no matter what Stubborn Strelitzia did to escape.
I gulped. "Who's going first?"
"Oh, make the best of it!" smiled Protea. "At least we'll have lovely clean, smooth feathers!"
I hardly heard her. I was staring in horror at what our Human was doing.
"Oh... I don't believe it!" I yelped. "Aaarrgghh! Sh-she's adding lavender to the bathwater!"
My sisters looked, and sure enough, our human was added the pale purple lavender flowers, straight from the bush, into the water! The water that I was going to be dunked in!
"Oh how lovely!" Strelitzia was saying. "Won't we smell nice, sis?"
Protea nodded approvingly. "It's going to be much better, smelling of flowers instead of sand and rocks."
"What!? Have you two lost your minds?!" I groaned in disbelief. "You want to be washed in that poisonous mixture?"
Protea said, "Ahem! It is a good thing to be clean. See here, just lift up your feathers. Now, look! the skin is all sandy and black! It will be clean and comfortable after a nice, sweet-smelling bath."
That's true. But I still dread water. It's horrible. Even warm, soapy water with Epsom salts in it.
I looked around the run desperately. "Quick! I command you to help me find a place to hide!"
The girls had to obey. They told me to crouch in the old compost hole. I was well out of sight. I began to feel rather hopeful.
Human Girl usually did things in the Pecking Order order. I'm at the top of it and Strelitzia's at the bottom. Which means Protea always goes second. But! there is two ways to do it still: top to bottom OR bottom to top.
It's usually top to bottom. Bad luck for me!
But I had a small hope that she might go bottom to top for once.
But alas! No sooner had she filled the last tub, than she headed for the run, and ignoring Strelitzia, found me!
I flapped and scratched desperately trying to free myself, but humans are strong and I was held firmly.
She brought me to the blue tub, which held soapy water. The other tub (green) held hotter water with no soap for rinsing.
Human dipped my feet in. I winced.
"Is it too hot, my pet?" she asked.
She felt it with her wrist. "Oh, no, it's fine." she assured me.
Then I was dunked in whole. I flapped and tried to leap out of the tub, but Human Girl caught me and smoothed my feathers soothingly.
"It's OK," she crooned.
I do not like getting wet. And I certainly don't like being soaked. But that's what Human Girl did.
She soaked me until the water had reached my skin, and then began to rub me softly, careful not to pull out my feathers.
She occasionally used some soap, but it was mostly soaking.
Then she bathed Protea. Protea rather liked it, and so did Strelitzia but I was too busy being wet and miserable to pay to much attention to their reactions to water.
After the baths, we sat in the run drying off and smoothing our feathers, basking in the hot sun.
Later, when we were mostly dry, our Human Girl brought us some supper; it was a very special treat she had made, as a peace-offering.
It was some nice watermelon ice-lollies, and you can find the simple recipe here! On my fabulous Instagram.
Now, that we were 99.9% dry, we headed into the Haunted Henhouse to sleep.
"Well," I said to my sisters/handmaidens as we climbed onto the roomy roost. "I'm sure glad that's over!"
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