Tag: chickens

so very en vogue these days. These creatures are delightful to have around, yet be warned; free range em on your property and you’ll lose your flowers and step in poop when you least expect to…

Bunny Belief

Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Low Vision Life, Mommy Mind1 Comment

We’re at that time when I can’t be sure if the holiday magic will hold any longer, if my son will truly believe, one more time, that gifts have been magically delivered as he slept… My son is so thorough in his thinking, in his reasoning and internal deliberations, that it seems impossible to me that he can truly still believe. And yet he does. Yesterday, as we sat cuddled on the couch, I made the mistake of telling him not to get his hopes up for anything big on Easter. (My goal was to plant some doubt so that the appearance of the Easter bunny would have even more of an impact. Not a good choice.) He burst into tears and told me not to say such a thing. “I want to have hope, mommy. I’m just nine years old, don’t take away my hope!” he told me. I was instantly very sorry I’d said anything at all. I was also struck by how much his comment seemed to imply; there seemed some foreshadowing in his remark of the adult reality that lay just around the corner. He must know, I thought to myself, but he’s still holding on…

On most most holidays and school breaks Elihu stays with his father. This past year was my first Christmas here at home with Elihu, and tomorrow will only be my second Easter here with him. I had wondered about the Easter bunny’s visits to Dekalb. I want to have some consistency, and it seems that the Easter bunny keeps many different methods and traditions in different households, so as we made our weekly drive to deliver eggs yesterday I asked him about it. Seemed fairly similar to my experience growing up. There were some differences, but I was relieved to know the bunny wasn’t in the habit of delivering handsomely wrapped birthday-worthy gifts because the Greenfield bunny had made no such preparations. (The Greenfield bunny is quite satisfied with several finds; a hand-crafted, dark chocolate bunny from the local candy shop, some wooden airplane models and a small bird puppet. The eggs, on the other hand, proved challenging as Master Elihu knows his eggs by shape – each hen has her signature style – plus dying an already dark egg is tricky. I couldn’t use the few white eggs we have, as Cora’s eggs are also very distinctive. A dilemma. Ended up drawing designs with sharpie on the most generic-looking medium brown eggs I could find. Since Elihu sees no color at all this seemed a good choice.)

A little anxious that everything be in order, I arose early today and went to my secret hiding spot in the basement to do an Easter basket inventory. Because of Elihu’s vision, he’s not good at spotting things. I’m continually surprised at how quickly and easily visiting kids will see things that I’ve stashed ‘out of sight’. Because color offers Elihu no clues (bright green plastic grass for the basket, for example) and since things beyond ten feet don’t register much, my job is made much easier. As I retrieved my goodies I felt completely satisfied that it was all still perfectly secret. I was happily surprised to see that I’d saved a few more things in the months leading up to the holiday (when on a budget one must plan ahead) and was very satisfied to see that it made a tidy looking cache of loot. Pretty too. I even got myself a single hyacinth bulb and a nice new ceramic vase for it at the dollar store – just to show the bunny had something for me too. That would further support the case that I had nothing to do with it. Might be over thinking it, but it’s probably the last such time I’ll have to do so.

Yeah. He’ll be ten in a month. It’ll be over soon. At least it can’t last too much longer. So, as with Christmas this year, I approach Easter with the same emotions, the same tender nostalgia. I will savor it all. Every surprise, every laugh, every egg. And Elihu’s right, having hope is important – especially at this time of year. After all, isn’t that what Easter itself represents – apart from any religious significance? The renewed life of springtime and with it, hope… And belief, yes, that’s important too, cuz I know this Easter bunny sure is happy that one certain little boy still believes.

Sick Chick

Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Pics, Retro Post4 Comments

Thumbs Up

Phooey. Thumbs Up is sick. I’ve been through this before – in fact, it was just about a year ago this time that we lost the matriarch of our flock, Molly. I know, I know… they’re just silly chickens. But of the whole forty-some odd hens we have, Thumbs Up has the most, well, distinct personality. And besides, she’s one of the few remaining (maybe the only remaining, it kinda looks it) genetic descendants of Buddha, another peer of Molly’s. Thumbs Up and Madeline are the ‘old-timers’. The ones we’d like to breed this spring to keep that line going. I realize I’m being ridiculously sentimental here. Really, it does not matter. Genetics is only one of many components to a family – or a flock, I should say. It’s not even necessary. It’s such a silly human characteristic to become overly romantic about blood lines. I guess if you’re breeding a racehorse it might be pretty significant, but come on. Why the hell am I so emotionally tied up in this? For some reason I just want to keep a lineage of chickens from our very first flock. Yes, it’s purely sentimental. But here in the real world, it really isn’t such a practical goal.

When I saw her crouched in the nesting box, her wings hanging down in a very odd manner, I knew. Then when I saw her nictitating eyelid closed as if she were sleeping although it was still afternoon (the eyelid that closes bottom to top), I knew it. Crap. Immediately I told myself she was just about as good as dead. I wasn’t so sad, really. She had a good life, I smooched her plenty, and so she was done. For a minute I thought I’d just leave her there and hope for an overnight improvement. Well. Maybe not quite a minute. No, I couldn’t let her go. I promptly got a towel, wrapped her up and brought her inside. I parked her by the heater near the piano. Oh dear. She didn’t look good at all. Her crop was bulging out and was way too firm, her tail was held at a weird angle. Crap. I hate this. And just because I’d moved her inside didn’t make her chances for living that much better. She was sick.  I just sat there and looked at her for a good long while, trying to muster my courage to take some sort of action. Finally, I gave myself a talking to…Stop whining about how much of a bummer this is, Elizabeth, and DO something!… Now!

Thankfully, I still had the veterinary supplies in the fridge from last year. And it came back to me as I looked over the stash… yeah, yeah… I remember. Ok. Found the syringes and got myself organized. Called my assistant in, then wrapped up the patient and pried open her beak. All meds were successfully administered. We sat back and watched. And, unlike her sister Molly last year, Thumbs Up began to drink. Hurray! She drank, and drank…. I’d given her some olive oil so felt good about the prospects for getting things moving through her system. Gotta keep things moving… we all know the hospital won’t release you until you… well, you know.

Last time I peeked in on her she looked better. True, last year we got Molly better too… twice. Then she finally died. Ich. I’m ready for that to happen too, but I just gotta hope this time we can beat it. We’ll keep her inside a bit longer just to make sure. I’ll run her antibiotics a good ten days for good measure. Why not? The other option is, essentially, to give up. And here at the Hillhouse, ‘giving up’ is not usually the option we choose. Certainly not now!

I’m giving two thumbs up for a healthy hen!

Post Post 3/2/13: I gave up on keeping her inside after four days as she was much improved. I do realize that this might be a mistake and so am keeping my eye on her. She was so healthy that having her confined (and keeping up with the poops) was becoming a challenge. She was proudly roosted on the highest bar last night and I have every confidence that she’s going to do fine. I’ll continue to medicate for a few more days as well…

Another Post-Post: May 11th, 2013, and Thumbs Up is going strong. She is easily the most animated, gregarious hen in our entire flock. And really, back when I made this post, I was prepared for her death. But she’s got spunk. Look for pics of her in future posts!

And yet another post-post: June 24th, 2013… Thumbs Up is the single spunkiest hen of the whole flock. She and Madeline continue to outshine the others with their Houdini–like ability to thwart any efforts at containing them inside the run. Thumbs Up will snatch a sandwich out of your hand if you’re not paying attention – then eat the whole thing and come back for more. If you open the car door she’s in and ready for a ride. She likes to linger near people and is easily picked up and smooched. We lost our matriarch Molly after round two of an illness similar to what TU had in this post, but in some way, Thumbs Up’s triumphant comeback and vivacious character almost redeem the death of that first gal. Talk about happy endings!

Culling the Flock

Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Mommy Mind, Pics2 Comments

First our hens weren’t producing enough eggs. Now they are. Only problem is, over Christmas break some of our regular customers weren’t around and our good ol’ gals just kept on doin’ their thing. We should be glad, but instead we find ourselves in a tad of a panic. We’ve got some 200 eggs now in our mudroom, awaiting their hopeful future delivery. Good thing that eggs keep really well. Cuz it’s gonna take a minute to move em. Did you know that your regular, everyday white eggs that you buy at the store may be as much as a month old? And yet still, eggs are just as healthy to eat even a month after that. Truly, this is some miracle food. Our girls eat table scraps, glean what they can from the grass and nearby woods, and turn it all into eggs. I am continually impressed with their efficiency.

These days, however, the snowfall of a few weeks ago has caused an unforseen hitch in our business, Eggs of Hope. Because the girls can’t spend the day foraging in the grass, they now depend entirely on us for food. And that – crazy at it sounds – means we must provide nearly twice as much feed as before. And at nearly $20 a bag, 2 bags a week… well, you can see this has really become more of a hobby these days than a business. It’s frustrating, especially when I’m having difficulty just buying ourselves food, but for now we’re hanging in there. I went through my pantry and cooked up every bit of pasta and flour over six months old, I opened ancient cans of vegetables I knew darned well we would never eat ourselves, and I even added a few scrambled eggs into the mix. Yup, the girls love eggs. And chicken too. ! Hey, whatever works. They are the world’s very best recyclers, of that I have no doubt. Daily I stand in awe of the miracle of a hen and her magical egg.

We sure do have a lot of magic in our house right now. Happily, we’ve got some new customers, and I’ll post some flyers in town, send out some emails. Should be able to move some if I put a little muscle into it. But still, Elihu and I have both been thinking lately that we might need to adjust our strategy a bit. We’ve had a couple of folks ask us if we sell chicken, and while we do eat our own chickens, it might not be a bad idea to step up the meat sales too. Last night Elihu and I spent nearly an hour going over numbers, ideas… I just love that he is so thoughtful about our process, so careful to consider all our options. I am so incredibly proud of him for having such a good business sense about it all. He’s just as mindful of the details as I am – and honestly, sometimes even more so.

And I’m also so very proud of him for being the farmer I myself can’t quite become. When we decide upon butchering all the non-layers next week, I hesitate. It was our original plan – how can I be getting sentimental now? I knew that the old girls were freezer-bound. I just find that it’s an honest-to-goodness personal challenge for me to follow through. But Elihu? Not a problem. In fact, he’s the one coaching me. Telling me that we tend to anthropormorphize them. That they may be individuals, but in the end they’re not that smart. They don’t return our affection. Or at least necessarily remember us from visit to visit. They are simple creatures, he tells me. They know we feed them. They’re funny to watch, and yes, he agrees, we love them…. but they’re just chickens. And after all, he tells me, they were domesticated for this very purpose. Sheesh. All right already. You’re the bigger farmer than me, it’s clear. Ok. Let’s do this thing.

So tomorrow, we’ll vent our chickens. Check out their rears, their egg-laying holes, to see if they’re wide enough to be passing eggs, or if they’re in a dormant, non-laying state. We know that if we have 42 hens but we’re only getting 27 eggs a day, 15 gals aren’t doing their job. And that makes em dead ends. Feed goes in, nothing productive comes out (and what does come out just adds to the mess and future cleanup!). We’ll vent em, paint a big white X on their back if they’re not up to the task, and plan to move em out. I’ll call the Amish farmer on Monday to see when he’s butchering. Then Elihu will help me gather and box the hens up, and load them into the car. I may take him out of school that morning to help, maybe not. It used to be a big deal, a special event, but now, not so much. He’s so nonchalant about the whole thing. Now he knows they meet with a speedy dispatch, and that’s all that matters to him. That they have a good life and a quick, humane death. Like I said, he’s a real farmer. And one with a good heart. A very wonderful combination.

I’m trying to stay focused on our new plan. We need to cull back our numbers over the winter to reduce food costs during the snowy months. We’ll sell our meat birds in mid fall, restart the flock again in the spring (as we do every year with 24 eggs in our incubator) and then start the cycle over. Near the start of fall, as it genders become evident, we’ll butcher the boys as well as the girls who aren’t laying well anymore. We’ll keep the youngish gals and a resident rooster and then just do it all over again.

This is the plan, and although it’s been our plan in years past, we’ve yet to see this process through an entire year without hiccups. Seems there’s always some situation that arises to interfere…  but I feel good about 2013. We have both learned so much together these past four years, and I feel we’re much better equipped to see our business through a successful year. Elihu and I both think that this is the year Eggs of Hope will reach its stride, get its groove. Just need to make a couple nips and tucks here and there. (Our nips and tucks will be a hell of a lot easier to make than what Congress has ahead…) That should do it. Will let you know…

August 2012 921

Happy at Home

Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Waldorf Life3 Comments

Elihu has had a fever on and off for the past few days. Reminiscent of his very first day at Waldorf last spring; on his first day of the new school year I was called by the school nurse to come and administer his nebulizer treatment (as I’d not yet gotten this year’s doctor’s slip) and I ended up taking him home instead. He stayed home today too, and good thing. His sleep was deep and long, his fever only breaking just this morning. This needed to be a day of rest. He’d been going non-stop with his father for weeks and had come home with little time to adjust to the new school year. My intention was to give him a day with nothing to do but feel better.

Well, kind of. I did have a secret agenda for the day which seemed like it might work well with my kid confined to the home. I had a pile of clothes to go through which a friend (with boys just ahead of Elihu) had dropped off recently. A boon to be sure, but there was still some labor involved in assimilating and using it all. Not everything would work; the piles had to be gone through. Not all would be the right size; some were too big and would need to be put in bins for next year (and clearly marked so as not to overlook them until they were then too small!), some weren’t quite his style (shirts that advertise ‘Nike’, ‘The Gap’  and that feature the ‘life is good’ stick figure playing baseball aren’t really a match) and some he can wear right away. It just takes some time to assess what’s what. And in a little house like ours there’s only so much room; one can only keep what one will really and truly use.

We did this for about twenty minutes, until Elihu hit a wall. I don’t blame him, I kinda knew I was pushing it. In his incredibly convincing adolescent girl routine, he flung himself onto his bed and wept, and then in his incredibly self-aware young adult persona he paused from his drama to explain to me that he needed to simply cry and be angry right now, he apologized for doing so, and then promptly resumed his performance. I in turn apologized, thanked him for helping as much as he did, then left the room to give him some space.

After a while I came back to check on him. He wanted a hug. I gave it freely. He seemed pooped. Still not himself. I offered to read him a story. He told me he’d like that. After the story was finished, we lay there on his bed for a moment, shifting gears, and then got up and had lunch.

As I cleaned up the lunch dishes, Elihu put on his glasses and headed outside. After I’d finished in the kitchen, I followed him out to the coop to see about some fixes I’d been meaning to get around to for a while now. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect. The air just right, on the warmish end but not too bad – that is to say no mosquitoes hanging around – and a nice breeze blowing through. As I began my work in the coop, Elihu began his work of chasing chickens. It was kinda cute to see him zipping past – first right, then left, whizzing by in pursuit of a fast-moving bird. We’d check in with each other every now and then, sometimes stopping what we were doing, each seeking out the other and simply meeting in a hug. Wordless, or perhaps with a simple “I love you” we’d part and go back to our respective projects. It was a productive day for me as I’d finally gotten around to the outdoor to-do list I’d put off for too long now; I zip-tied holes in the fences, screwed planks along the perimeter of the coop bottom to deter under-the-coop-laid-eggs (as well as hunkered down raccoons and such), fixed the timer that opens and closes the coop door, installed a couple new nesting boxes and did a half dozen other little things – all of which added up to a couple hours work.

All this time Elihu was in his own heaven. Birds everywhere, birds tame enough to hold, wild enough to chase, varied enough to be beautiful and fascinating each in its own unique way… And with each of us so close by to the other, yet each of us each so engrossed in our own work, it made for the most perfect afternoon. An afternoon of love, security, joy – and even progress. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We’d take a moment out, pick up a bird, sit together side by side on an overturned milk crate and spend a full ten minutes marveling over all of its wonderful qualities. The variation from bird to bird is really impressive, and neither one of us is ever bored of bearing witness to it. We admired nearly every bird in the flock; at the end of the day we’ve handled, smooched, praised and thanked nearly thirty birds. Especially the young roosters who will go to the Amish butcher this week. (This is about as long as we can know them and still hand them over…) We know we have one mature rooster too many, but as we’ve had him for over a year now (his name his Judson) we cannot bring ourselves to butcher him too. The young ones go easier…And it’s these quiet, one-on-one moments we share with each doomed fellow that make it easier for us to let them go. They live a good life, and they die a quick death, and they receive our deepest gratitude. As farm animals go, it’s a sweet life.

The hours pass by and it is perfect. Every now and then I try to look up and around at my world; I see the spread of the beech tree branches, the canopy of the white pines, the view of the pale blue mountains beyond. The air is perfect. We are in no hurry. This is a day where not a thing is expected of us. And on account of once having lived a life where there really was a whole lot expected of me, it makes me treasure this moment even more. It’s a good thing to know the companionship of animals, to know the outside air, and to be blessed with unscheduled time – and to experience all of it with my young son makes it even better.

We even got around to burying out old pets today. They’ve been in the freezer for a while now. Some months, and well, yes, some even years. We have our three-legged leopard gecko Sweets – who’d come with us four years ago from Chicago and who’d had her leg amputated by a very kind and generous vet who did it gratis – as our situation was then fresh and dire – and she’d meant a lot to us. When she finally died, the ground was frozen, so we simply put her aside to bury later. Her sister, Stripes is there too. Died on Christmas day of a bored, tank-confined heart. (She got the best gift ever, in my opinion.) Then oh! Here’s King George!! Our beloved button quail. He lived free-of-cage in our house for over a year, every night making his surprisingly loud mating calls sadly to no avail… he pooped very courteously in one corner only, and he was a good companion to a six year old boy. (There are a couple of pics of them together in an album on Facebook which you can see for yourself.) And of course, there is Molly. The white hen who started this whole business. The cute little yellow chick that we found absolutely irresistible as we passed through Tractor Supply ‘just looking’ one Easter season.

I’d dug the deepest hole I could – and it wasn’t big, cuz digging in this particular corner of Greenfield is a job rife with rocks – and we planned on nestling all our little guys in there together. “With white cloth or on dirt?” I asked Elihu. “White cloth”, he answered. He put Molly down first, after we’d admired her peacock necklace and thanked her especially, then the others went in around her. “You know the white cloth is just for us. This whole thing is just for the living – you know that, right?” I said. He nodded. I said a general thanks to all of them for coming into our lives, and I apologized for the things we may have done to cause them distress. Then I told Elihu we should each take a fistful of dirt and put it in to begin the burial. He told me to wait – he needed to say something. Then, in the earnestness that can really only yet be found in a child, he kneeled down and pressed his hands together. He spoke for a while, basically saying what I had, but adding a whole bunch more. (He kinda reminded me of his paternal grandmother – always offering these ten minute long blessings at the start of a keenly-anticipated meal. !) Then, feeling ready, he let me shovel in the dirt. We marked the spot with some large rocks, then placed a couple of daisies on top. We hardly even paused; it was over, and we’d concluded the chapter the best and most fitting way we could. On to more life now.

We meandered down to check on our garden, which by now was reduced to a handful of plants; some tomatoes, peppers and beans. Elihu had pilfered some dried beans from his handwork class at Waldorf and brought them home in hopes they’d germinate. Germinate they did, and so we planted them here. Tonight they yielded just about enough for supper. We harvested an enormous, bright red cayenne pepper too, but learned that someone had beat us to the tomatoes, trimming off all the upper branches, leaving us just a few green ones close to the bottom. Maybe we really do need an electric fence next year. After all, we mean to do this right, and so far this garden has hardly been anything but a rather unsuccessful experiment. Gleaning a handful of a crop ‘every week or so’ wasn’t what we had in mind. Guess a true farmer can’t just get up and go to the Cape for a week, can they now? We’d missed a key week of watering and weeding and were seeing the results. Plus, going fence-free didn’t help. With our dinner in our hands – or rather, in one of my hands – we headed back up the hill.

I find some leftovers and heat em up, and I cook the beans. I’ve got a glass of wine left too; we have the makings of a nice, simple dinner. Tonite it’s kind of a white-trash kinda night; we’ll watch some show on cable about fellas scuba diving for gold in the frozen Bering Straight while we eat. We don’t watch a whole lot of tv – and when we do it’s usually while we eat. I know that’s not a great habit – but even that’s not so much a habit as it is a treat. Just as we finish eating, a truck pulls in… it’s a student of mine and her dad here to return a metronome and to say they’d like to start lessons again when they figure out their new fall schedules. It’s nice to see them again and to hear about their summer. Elihu whisks Katie away to look for frogs as her dad and I chat, but soon it’s time to go. It’s been a long day and we still have to close our birds in for the night. Goodbyes and good nights follow as they pull away and we go out to evening coop duty.

The automatic coop door opener is working again. Maybe all it needed was to be re-set. Who knows. But the door is closed, and all the birds have roosted. Even Max got back into the swing of an automated coop and got himself in before the little door closed. Now we have to close and lock the big door. But not before we count them all, and certainly not before we play ‘musical chickens’. When you simply touch the back of a resting chicken, he or she will emit a little sound – a little ‘whirring’ noise of surprise. Each a bit different; some coo low, some chirp high, and when you get going it’s kinda like a little bird orchestra. Elihu has fun with it. Then he stops, and the place gets quiet again. Head count. Twenty-eight chickens, six of whom are roosters (and going next Friday), one helmeted guinea fowl named Austin whom we love very much and who adds loads of comic charm to the place, and finally, the largest of our flock, Maximus, the Lavender Ice Goose. Thirty birds in all. For now. Elihu and I just stand there, looking, unable to walk away. Soft cooing and gurgling sounds surround us. It’s a peaceful place to be, here in our chicken coop. I know Elihu is feeling very proud right now. I am too. Honestly, it’s not as if we have some special talent here, but what we do have is a group of animals whom we care for responsibly, and whom we love, and of that we have pride.

Our night isn’t quite over. We want to enjoy our screen porch, and Elihu wants to enjoy some time in the darkness when he is free of having to wear dark glasses just to exist. I light all the candles until the porch glows. I sit and watch as he plays. He locates a long piece of PVC which once served as a drainpipe, and he begins to play it like a didgeridoo. Sounds pretty good. He looks around for crickets or mice (he wants a mouse to replace the one he found outside today and then let go by accident inside the house! Sorry, that lil guy’s showing up again tomorrow morning – in a trap…) He runs around back inside and flicks a light on and off, faking it’s a ghost, then asks me if I’d seen it too… Things get silly, then they wind down as I’ve drawn a bath and we need to get down to business. Candles out, pipe down, clothes off.

Elihu enjoys a much longer bath than I’d intended, as I sit down to write a much longer post than I’d intended. He’s certainly old enough to get himself out and dried off, and mostly that’s what he does these days, but in that we’ve had such a day of togetherness, when he calls to me to come and help, I do. Soon he’s in bed. Too pooped for stories tonight. Instead, the room is dark right away. I lie next to him, and lying on his side, he puts his hand on my face. “This was a great day” he says. I agree. We kiss, then lay back down. Oh so soon he is deeply asleep. So am I. It’s not til halfway through the night that I awake to finish the post. But now it’s back to bed for me too.

What a day we had. Such a very happy day at home.

Dead Hen

Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Farm Life, Mommy Mind, PicsLeave a comment

I guess it’s a little easier now than it was in the beginning. But it still feels kinda crappy to see a little creature that you’ve nurtured from birth, lying ripped open and dead on the ground.

Yesterday, Elihu and I took a walk down the hill to our garden to check on things when he spied a form in the tall grass. “Mommy, there’s dead chicken here!” he told me. I was surprised, and not. The chickens, for some reason, don’t often venture down the hill to this spot; the only times I’ve known them to come down here is when they’re following me. Even Max doesn’t bother with the garden. (He does, however, become a threat to the young plants when he carelessly tramples over them with his big, webbed feet as he waddles along after me.) I came to look and saw that it was one of our dark red girls. Who? I don’t know. It’s most often the head and comb shape that tells us, and the head on this girl was missing. And honestly, even after having had them for two years now, I can’t always tell the dark red ones apart. A couple stand out, but for the most part they’re just red hens. I’m relieved to see it’s not Thumbs Up or Madeline or Shirley Nelson, but nonetheless I’m sad to think that this little gal, who’d made it through two winters and all the many nighttime attacks on the coop, had finally met her end.

The question we chicken farmers always consider first is ‘who did it’? But in the end, there’s never a definitive answer. One can speculate all day – and indeed, one can spend hours online in various chicken chat rooms discovering all sorts of anecdotal evidence that ends up telling us everything and, well, nothing. Raccoon, weasel, fisher, hawk, fox. All equally possible. All may well take off the head. All may well leave the prey and return for it later. Just yesterday Elihu had told me there were two young hawks outside talking to each other. I’d thought they were probably just blue jays – but as usual, he was right. We looked up to see some juvenile red tails circling above our yard and immediately made sure our flock was close to the coop for safety. So it might have been one of them. But really, there is no sure safety for a free-range flock. You do what you can, keep your ears open and use common sense, but ultimately there will always be a missing hen at some point.

I picked up the headless hen and saw her breast flayed open; I recognized the pink flesh – it looked just like the chicken breasts I cooked for supper nearly every night. I wondered to myself why the animal hadn’t eaten the meat. Seemed a waste.  She was still flexible, so we guessed she had been gotten fairly recently. That she should not go to waste, I flung her body over the steep edge of the hill into the brush for some lucky animal of the forest to come and finish.

Ironically, that night we had chicken for supper.

Our Molly

Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Mommy Mind3 Comments

Our dear white hen, Molly, died this morning. I went in to the mudroom to check on her and give her the morning meds when I found her, lying on the floor. Although her feet were cold, her body was still supple and at least felt room temperature. Looks like she’d just died. Maybe less than an hour ago. I look for clues, signs of how she died, why she died. I see a puddle of liquid around her mouth. She’d thrown up something. I just knew these past two days she was getting far worse. I wonder, did I do the right things? Did I fail her this second round? Since my back’s been out I’ve not been keeping a good schedule with her, and I’ve missed a couple of doses. Was it that? Something tells me no, she was just too far this time. Past few days she’d been burying her head far into her neck feathers – a new posture I’d not seen before – it signaled to me that she was worse. Yesterday, for the first time ever, her tail drooped to the floor. And yesterday she collapsed a couple of times. I took that to mean she needed calories, so made an effort to get a concoction of yogurt and high-end feed into her gullet. Did I force feed her to her death?

In the end, of course none of it matters. But I must take something away from this, lest she have died in vain. And after stroking her feathers and going over the past few weeks in my head, I come to the conclusion that in the past few days I was just prolonging her discomfort; I was trying to keep her alive for my benefit, not hers. I ask her to please forgive me for this. I knew damn well she was not feeling good – that she was feeling very bad, she might have been in horrible pain for all I know – but regardless I sought my goal, rather than the goal I should have pursued: that of her comfort.

I don’t tell Elihu til after breakfast. He’s much more stoic than I. He doesn’t burst out into tears, he just gets up and walks in to the mudroom. He strokes her, then picks up her head to look closer, to glean anything he might, then he lays her back down. I leave for a moment and when I return he’s still there, just looking at her. I join him, we hold hands and just sit. Then I allow myself to cry. I haven’t cried in a long time. I must need this, because the tears are pouring out of me, spilling onto my dear, white hen. I look at Elihu, who is not crying. Instead, he puts his hand on my shoulder. I pull myself together. We talk about where to bury her, and decide it should be under the flowering quince bush. All the birds love that spot, and on sunny days they like to rest there after a day of wandering the property. Yes, that’s perfect. Just perfect.

I drive Elihu to school, then come back home to tidy up. To take care of a dead hen. First, I sit with her, and I try to understand what it is that still nags at me about her death. And then I get it. I knew she was uncomfortable, but I chose to ignore it. But I knew better. So in the future, when an animal is not feeling well, and I’ve already done my best, I will have mercy on them and put them down before they suffer any more. Thank you dear Molly for reminding me to be a better caretaker to my flock.

And thank you for making our homestead so cheery these past three years. How many times I’d stood at the sink, washing dishes and looking out the window at my happy flock, spread wide across the lawn and woods, scratching, ever scratching, flinging leaves behind them as they searched the dirt for tasty bugs. Most of our chickens are red, some lighter, some darker, but mostly they are all of subdued, darker shades. Except for one. I could always find Molly at a glance. She was our bright spot in the flock.

We’ll miss our dear white hen.

R.I.P. Felix

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I’m so sad, but I can’t cry. We’ve lost so many animals here at the Hillhouse, and now we’ve just lost another. It’s part and parcel of life here with the wilderness just steps beyond our door. Elihu takes it in stride, but this morning my heart is unusually heavy with the loss of our dear little Bantam Silkie Rooster, Felix. I suppose when we finally do lose our beloved Molly one day, then I will cry, but for now I’m merely beset with yet another loss of a creature I’d grown to know and love, yet another irretrievable event out of my control here on our small farm, yet another inevitable tiny heartache.

I think back on a summer morning last year when we awoke to find all sixteen of our young chicks – finally on the doorstep of adulthood – mangled and dead on the floor of their brooder pen. My fault, I knew. I’d not secured the wire over the window very well, and it was an easy entrance for some creature. A creature who did not even eat his spoils. That broke Elihu’s heart more than the deaths themselves. It’s much easier to accept a death when you know it served to feed another needy stomach on the planet. But to see death for no gain – that’s a true heartbreaker.

I’m wrestling with myself this morning. Did I in fact secure the barrier plank against the coop last night?? Did I? It had been knocked over this morning, and that was my first warning something was amiss. Felix, as he’d been rather picked on by the bigger birds, had taken to spending nights under the coop rather than in it, and so I’d made sure to close the perimeter of it, leaving but one entrance point which he used like clockwork to let himself in each evening. In the morning, my routine was to kick his plank down, opening up his ‘door’ and wait for him to emerge, thereby giving him a head start over his larger cousins upstairs. But did I close him in last night? Had I perhaps forgotten? Or was there a highly motivated creature here last night who’d simply knocked the plank down himself? I’m pretty sure it was the latter, but since I can’t be sure my mind goes tormentingly round and round.

In the end, there is nothing I can do so I must let it go. I make one more hopeful look around the property, waiting for that familiar lift my heart always feels when I first see the strutting of his poofy little legs and goofy little silhouette. He is here, he is there, he has always been somewhere about, and to come upon him all at once is always a joy – a tiny bright spot in one’s day. One cannot look upon a silkie and not smile. But his was a lonely life – the only one of his miniature kind, always skirting the edges of the main flock lest his tail feathers be plucked to bleeding by the other birds as they had been many times before. And as his feathers are fluffy rather than tightly zipped up as most birds’ are, he’s unable to fly, making him an easier target still. The irony to me is blunt: Elihu and I had only yesterday decided we’d set out to find him two hens this week, and they were to be Gretchen and Gertrude. It gave us peace to know that soon our dearest little Felix would not be alone, and his way in the world might be lighter.

Well, Felix is no longer in this world, and I’m sure his way is indeed much lighter today. Some other forest creature has satisfied a long empty belly, and Felix’s cares are all ceased. Rest in peace, little rooster. Thanks for the joy you brought us. We’ll miss you.

Post Script: A “bantam” is a miniature breed of chicken, standing about eight inches tall. Silkies have fluffy white feathers – even on their feet! – and dark purple skin with blue combs. They really are pretty adorable. And they’re very soft to the touch. Here is what our Felix looked like:

http://liselfwench.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/800px-silky_bantam.jpg

A Better Bird

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Elihu and Molly

After agreeing that we would put Molly down if she did not get better – and admitting to ourselves that we had little hope she would get any better at all – I am so absolutely pleased to report that our beloved hen is indeed much, much better today. And I’ve gained some skill the past few days in administering meds to a chicken. I know that her crop is on her right side – I know to avoid her trachea, I know how to hold her, pry open her beak and get the stuff in the right channel. At first it was tricky – not so much because of her non-cooperation, because in fact she, being quite sick, hardly protested. It was because of my lack of skill. I’ve given pills to cats before – and in the end, that’s probably harder, but just not knowing if I was getting it down the right pipe with Molly had me second guessing my technique. Guess I did something right because today Molly was not only walking, but she was drinking and eating on her own – and God bless her, she even pooped! And we all know you can’t leave the hospital til you have a bowel movement. Right?

I was further heartened to see she’d hopped down from her bench and had walked into the kitchen, where she pecked occasionally at bits of dirt on the floor. I poured some of her fancy, nutritive -rich, vet-bought feed on the floor in front of her and was relieved to see her eat some of it. Not much, but some. Although better, her hind end is still bare and rather plump, not at all what it should be. But I continue to massage it often, encouraging things within to keep moving as they should. Not sure if she’s egg bound or not. No conclusive info to be gleaned from the internet. Nor the vet. Not without an xray, at any rate. (And that aint happenin.) Just to be clear, she’s gone from a bird who went hours without any discernible movement to a bird making quick and darting, dare I say bird-like movements. Which is good news for a bird.

So after a happy Valentine’s day in which Elihu gave his classmates a drawing of a swan (he didn’t want to draw a dove, it was too obvious a choice) and gave each a highly polished and unique gemstone as a lasting token of his friendship, we are going to retire happily, knowing our beloved white hen sleeps just one room away, very much on the mend.

Sick Bird

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I used to think that people who brought their chickens to the vet were ridiculous. Come on, taking a hen to the vet? How silly. I’m much more practical and cooler-headed about my birds. Sure sometimes they get sick – a little wheeze or some diarrhea now and then, but they’ll sort it out on their own eventually. After all, they’re farm animals – they live outside. They’re tough. They’ll be fine. I would never take my chicken to the vet – what a crazy waste of money! That sort of thing was for naive, soft-hearted urbanites who merely kept a trio of layers in their back yard with names like Daisy or Myrtle. Not for real country folk like us. (You do know where this is going, don’t you?)

Yes, last night I had to change my tune, eat my words and become humble. One of our hens was truly sick. The very fact that I could easily catch her told me how unwell she was. She was our eldest hen – the chicken who’d started it all. The one we bought as a fuzzy, yellow chick at Tractor Supply one Easter season, the one who bore most of the flock we have today, the one to have survived foxes, raccoons, fishers, mink, hawks. The one who’d seen some thirty coop mates disappear over the past three years to unseen predators, plucked one by one from the flock, or mangled en-masse in a dead of night attack. She had survived it all. While we’ve had many birds casually named things like ‘Keithie One’ or ‘Keithie Two’ (hens named for Elihu’s friend who’d found the eggs they hatched from) or ‘Claras One and Two’ (seems a shame to lose a perfectly fine name just because we lost a hen) this hen was our dear Molly. Our first hen, our only white hen. Our one and only Molly. We had to do something.

When she made no effort to run or even struggle, I knew she was bad off. I’d noticed that in the past week she no longer roosted at night, but stayed on the ground of the coop. She’d lost all the feathers on her butt too – but I’d chalked both changes up to a new, broody sort of behavior. Early spring, perhaps? A motherly mood? Now more serious problems came to mind – did I have an egg-bound hen? I turned to google, and in a few minutes had Molly bathing in a warm sitz bath in the kitchen sink. Admittedly, I’m not as frontier bad-ass as I’d like to think; it took a moment to get into the new mindset needed in order to massage my hen’s bald and bulging ass end. I knew that soon an oiled up finger might need to be inserted into her rear to check for a stuck egg. I just wasn’t up to it yet. So I massaged, felt around for any clues under the skin. I know I wasn’t patient enough with her bath and massage – I was so eager just to get her system moving – to expel whatever was blocking her up – I ended the massage after barely ten minutes, and after making a few more google searches I chose instead to inject some olive oil down her throat to lube her up. I’d added some Epsom salts in order to improve upon the laxative properties of the oil – but she puked it up instead. I later learned Epsom salts can make you nauseous. Oh poor Molly, I wasn’t providing any benefit to her, and I was now seriously concerned about her getting worse.

One half hour later, there I was, walking into the local animal hospital with a hen in my arms – instantly dropping a cool $55 just walking through the door. I justified my visit by considering it to be a mini class in hen health. I’d I thought I’d keep it to that; I was there to learn what ailed her and how I could treat it on my own – the way a real, able-bodied chicken farmer should. But my objective was quickly forgotten in the talk of fecal tests, parasites, antibiotics and dietary supplements. Before I knew it my mother was coming to our aid, visiting us at the vet’s, checkbook in hand. I could afford to walk in, but I couldn’t afford to walk out. Tests cost money, medicine costs money. And apparently, Molly needed some high tech help. Although the vet was able to massage her in a more productive way than I (the gassy smell in the room was good evidence) poor Molly’s system was fairly compromised by this point and needed assistance. The damage? $260. Hmm, let’s see, that means it ended up costing $52 a pound to mend her. Although mom knows my financial situation – that is to say she won’t be holding me to pay her back that huge sum – it’s still kinda of a bummer to know that in the end, we couldn’t do it old-school, on our own. We needed help. Phooey.

Plus it does kind of cast a shadow on the prospect of Eggs of Hope appearing to make a profit. I guess that’s kinda in the tank now anyhow. In the beginning, we did actually make some money. Not much, but some. That was then… Three years ago, when we started out, I’d hoped to keep the operation simple, organic, cheap. The girls would forage all day, reducing the need to buy feed. They lived in the garage at first (this was a disaster – chickens poop quite a lot, and they create dust, dander, just plain a dirty mess…) Live and learn. Fareed popped twelve dollars for a retired international shipping container for their coop – which ended up being, in Elihu’s words – a ‘death capsule’. A year later and a little help from my dad and we had a professionally made coop. But when the workers left us with our brand-new, empty coop, we still needed more stuff. A little extra carpentry for roosts and nesting boxes. Here began my learning process as I started to use my saws, my crude assembly of tools and salvaged lumber. But as with anything in life, there’s more to everything than one fully appreciates in the beginning. I ended up throwing in the towel this past fall, when my roosting bars finally fell under the jostling of twenty birds. For the time being we’re using tree branches stretched across the rungs of a couple dilapidated ladders for roosting bars. And the nesting boxes I made (I’m actually kinda proud of these) still sit on the floor of the coop – rather than a few feet up and on the wall as they should be. The fence which once (well, almost once) enclosed them is now in tatters, and I can’t keep a one of them inside. All in all it’s a sketchy, hillbillyish setup at the moment. But this year, goddamit, I will finally get it all under control.

There’s something to be learned in every new endeavor. And I’ve learned a lot these past three years. Ultimately what I take away from my experience thus far is that having chickens – doing it right, that is – actually does take some organization, infrastructure and yes, money. And sometimes even a trip to the vet.

A Post-Script:  Molly seems a tad better now. At this writing, some twenty-four hours after her trip to the vet, she’s begun to drink water on her own and looks a bit less stressed than she did before.

Saturday Starts

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The roosters are crowing, the goose is honking, the crows are cawing, the blue jays are scolding. Their voices are so loud, I almost feel like I’m in a tent. I hope the noise doesn’t wake Elihu, as this is my morning alone-time. It’s Saturday, and thankfully, there is no place we need to be. I let the birds out for the day a good hour ago, then quickly got back into bed to finish a book. I don’t get very far reading at night – I’m asleep before I can take much in. But the mornings are quite different. Rested and clear-minded – it’s a perfect time to read. I’ve just now finished my book, wasted some time on Facebook, and have begun to ponder a cup of tea on the couch before he calls to me.

I reflect on our early morning moments. They are a tender time, something I know will not last too much longer. As a preteen I don’t think he’ll care so much for his mommy crawling into bed with him and crooning in soft tones. But these days, it’s what he still wants. And truthfully, it’s what I still want. These are moments that sustain me. “I need some mommy love” he’ll say to me, putting his thin arms around my neck. And I’ll kiss his forehead, trace his hair with my fingers and listen as he tries to recall his dreams for me. We give ourselves a good five minutes like this each morning before the hustle of breakfast-making and backpack-assembling begins.

No matter how sweet the moments that may follow, all mothers know that sinking feeling inside when the tiny voice first cries “mommy….” interrupting a project, a chore, a moment of thought. It wasn’t until this past year that his call no longer bothered me in the same way it had for the past seven years. I think it’s because these days he doesn’t truly need me in the way he did when he was smaller. When he calls to me now, chances are he can wait a minute. Don’t get me wrong – I love my son above all else and always rise to the occasion – no matter what I’m doing or where my mental focus is, I always bring my attention to my child when he needs me. And I always respond when he calls to me. But thankfully, we’re over the hump. It’s not as it used to be. There’s a lot of need in those first years. It’s exhausting. I simply cannot fathom having more than one child – much less being a single mother with more than one charge. I have all I can manage with integrity, I believe.

Just as I’m beginning to listen for Elihu’s voice calling softly out to me, I am startled – to the point of leaping from my chair – at a sudden, loud noise. A piece of furniture has fallen over. “Elihu?” I shout – “are you ok??”. Nothing. I wait, I listen. Not a sound. I go to his door, open it and look to his bed. He’s not in it. Or is he – sometimes he hides under the covers – I bend in to look more closely…. “BOO!” he laughs, standing behind me in the hallway. It’s official, my kid does not need mommy time this morning. He cracks up at my surprise, then whizzes off through our small house on full-awake mode. Seeing that he is clearly doing just fine without me, I retire to my room and go back to the computer.

A few minutes pass. The house becomes quiet. I’m beginning to wrap up my post – I hadn’t intended it to be but a brief musing on the morning, and it seems I may have gotten a bit off track. “Mama?” he calls softly, as I continue to type, “can you please come see me?” I save my work, and go to join him in his bed. We enjoy our time again. Our window hasn’t closed yet. Thankfully he is still somewhere between little boy and young man. It’s a great combination. No longer does he need me to get him dressed. He can even get his own breakfast. He does pretty well without me for the most part.

Still, there’s no substitute for a warm embrace to start a Saturday.