Hey! How’s this for an earthworm? The chickens would go crazy if they found it. It would be smorgasbord time. The overnight rain brought this large earthworm out of the ground. There are snakes smaller than this earthworm. You can see that it wouldn’t take too many of these earthworms burrowing through your soil to keep it light and fluffy. Have 25 to 75 of these per square foot, and they will do a bang-up job aerating the soil and keeping it very porous. The last thing you want to do is till the soil. One pass with a tiller through a vegetable bed, and you’ll kill thousands of earthworms.

The hens don’t know what they’re missing. Or maybe they’ve all gorged on giant earthworms already and are stuffed. They have been up for several hours. It’s gossip and preening time.