Go Ahead... Laugh.

This week has been so awful I don't even know where to begin. Maybe I should start with the vicious murder of my laying hens by some unknown creature. I found their feathers covering the yard when I went to feed them on Monday morning. Hubby decided the chickens should be let out during the day which was fine with me but I asked him to please close the door to the coop when he fed in the evenings so the chickens would be safe overnight. Guess what... For some reason closing the door to the coop was just too much trouble. I closed it whenever I was outside but I am normally in the house cooking supper so I couldn't always get to it.

Not having fresh eggs is the least of it. One of the hens was named Loverly. She has been here for a couple of years and she was sweet as honey. She would run to meet me every time I was outside and followed me around clucking as if we were carrying on a conversation. She ate treats from my hand and pecked at my ankles if I tried to ignore her. Yes, I loved that hen and it breaks my heart to think she died in terror while being torn to pieces. I keep getting mental images of that so sleeping has been kind of hard to do.

To add insult to injury, Hubby went to the Verizon store to get a new battery for my mom's phone. Easy task, right? We've had the same phones for four years. The numbers were rubbing off mine but it worked just fine. It was a simple phone. You know... the kind that makes calls, sends text messages and wakes me up in the morning. All I ever needed in a phone was right there in my hand. I have dropped that phone on rocks while riding my mule and it was none the worse for it. The goats have stepped on it and kicked it under the milk stand. It kept right on working. I loved that phone. Not much survives my clumsiness but that phone did it with ease. And then Hubby comes in with a Droid. WTF??? Folks, I have no fucking idea what to do with that thing.

Hubby likes to brag to people he got something fancy for me when in reality he buys what he wants and then justifies it by pawning it off on me. I spent 90 minutes with a nice young man at the Verizon store trying to learn how to work that damn machine. The very first thing I said as I entered the building was "Honey, the next time a big, inbred fucktard comes in here, points at something and says 'Oooh, shiney' please consider the people at home trying to put food on the table before you let the aforementioned fucktard buy anything'. The nice young man, Aaron, listened as I explained to him that a widget was not a good thing when I was growing up and that I had no idea what a wiki was but evidently they weren't worth a shit because it was all over the news that they leaked. He said "Pizza Hut" to the phone and a map came up. I very gently explained to Aaron that the Pizza Hut was a mile up the road and had been there for years. The only places I ever go is WalMart, Food Lion and my milking room. I've been going to Food Lion for 20 years without a map and I'm reasonably certain I can go another 20 without getting lost. Even the goats can find the milkroom without a map. I haven't been to a restaurant since I visited my children last June so that app is useless to me. Should I get to go back to San Francisco, my son has an Iphone and he can find the restaurants. My computer is four feet to the right of my favorite chair so I don't need a Droid to read my email. The TV is across the living room from that same chair. I have DirecTV (thanks to my nephew) and Netflix (thanks to my son). I have basic knowledge of the remote and can set the DVR to record my favorite shows. I live in a pissant Biblethumper town in BFE. Why on earth do I need a Droid? If I lived near civilization and had something resembling a life it would be different but...??? When I left Aaron, I still couldn't make a phone call. Less than 24 hours later as I struggled for ten minutes trying to type a text message I succeeded in dropping the phone and smashing it. Hubby got another one that evening but since Aaron has gone on vacation this phone isn't set up like the first one and if I couldn't work that one, I certainly can't make this one do anything.

I have spent the last five days sobbing until I'm sick at my stomach and my eyes are swollen shut. Hubby thinks it's hilarious to watch me try to figure something out while he and his family laugh their asses off. You would think I'd be used to being the butt of the family jokes by now but in reality it hurts just as much as it ever did. I went with my nephew to the Verizon store and we traded phones. He has the Droid and I've got something that's all scratched up and says "What are you looking at fucker" as a ringtone. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that but I am pretty sure I need to find something that won't prompt Lily and Laney to ask what a fucker is. *sigh* And it's only the middle of the week...

Updates

The mama duck is down to two ducklings. Well, last night she had two. They are too big to get under her now so they are being picked off by the rats. There may not be any left this morning. If I can get my hands on them I'll take them and try to keep them alive until they get big enough to be on their own.

My little hens are gone as well as about half the banties that managed to survive the last chicken massacre. They disappeared the weekend of the fair while I was gone. I understand that everything has to eat, even foxes. But I'm getting goddamned tired of hosting a fucking wild predator buffet. I'm being haunted by thoughts of tiny baby chicks and ducklings dying horribly painful deaths. Over 60 chicks and 35 ducklings have lost their little lives this summer. Yep, it's getting to me. If this fucking jungle isn't cleaned up soon, I'm going to do something drastic. I should probably go ahead and start a bail fund - just in case.

After weeks of telling hubby that Sunday is getting out of the poorly constructed fencing and sleeping in the yard, he came close to her with his truck as he left for work yesterday morning. He said she hollered at him and made him jump out of his skin. Let's not even attempt to elaborate on what will happen if my muley girl is injured. Let's just say it won't be pretty. Note to self... start secondary bail fund - just in case. If Sunday were to die before me, just shoot me and throw me in the hole with her.

My best muley girl is waiting for me to open the gate and let her back into the pasture for her breakfast. For some reason, I really need my morning muley hug today and Sunday gives the best hugs ever.

Bringing it up to Speed

It's been a while since I found the chick standing all alone chirping her little heart out so I thought I would bring everything up to date.

For about a week the poor thing hollered itself hoarse if I wasn't right there with it. Several times I held it in my lap while watching TV. I was crocheting one night as the chick played with the yarn. (It's kind of weird being a mama chicken. It's something I never thought I'd do with my life. Best laid plans and all that rot.) As soon as I put it back in the cage it would start the mournful wailing I had come to loathe. Lucky for me another hen came off her nest with some babies so I nabbed one of them and put it with the chick in the house. They hit it off like gangbusters and became the best of friends. No more yelling at me 24-7. Happy dance.

Two weeks or so later, another hen came of her nest with a couple of chicks. The first hen to have chicks had already lost them to the local predators by the time the second one hatched hers. I put the second hen in a cage with her chicks and even with precautions rats were getting the chicks. I turned them all loose except for one who was a bit sickly. I wanted to give them a chance to run. I took the sick one and the two from the house and put them all in a small cage with very small holes. They have done well there. And better than anything, they are all girls!!!

In the meantime, the second hen, who I had always considered a bit of a dolt, did a wonderful job with her chicks. She totally changed my opinion of her. Within three days she had her tiny chicks flying up to one of the laying boxes and they spent their nights high off the ground. I was so proud of her. Every evening I would check on them. Mama would be holed up in that nesting box with little chicks sticking their heads out. It was so damn cute I wish I had gotten a picture. When the chicks were about 1/3 adult size, I went out one morning to find every single one of them gone. Mama chicken was missing a shitload of feathers where something had attacked her. Bless her heart. Just goes to show that no matter how hard you try around here, this place will stomp the shit out of you.

A week ago I started letting the chicks in the cage out during the day and putting them up at night. They have been good about going up until last night. I guess they've decided they are all grown up and are literally flying the coop. All three flew up to a high point in the feed shed and I couldn't reach them without climbing a ladder. I bid them all good night and hoped it wasn't goodbye. I am pleased to announce that all three chicks were running around the yard this morning. We'll see how long that lasts. I am wishing them all the best.

A Fowl Predicament

Where did I ever get the idea I could keep up a blog??? I must have been thinking out of my ass which in itself is a great accomplishment but one I would have liked to avoid. Many things come into my head as I'm outside working myself to the bone and sweating like sin. I write it in my head but it never makes it here. I keep telling myself that it's OK because once winter arrives I'll be outside less. The water buckets don't need scrubbing twice daily when it's below freezing and there's ice everywhere. Of course I have to carry warm water to all the animals but that's a whole 'nother bitch session.

Before I went to California I had 25 - more or less - banty (bantam to you edimicated folks) hens running around. I'm guessing 10 of them had chicks that hatched within days of each other. There were so many of them the hens couldn't keep up. If two or three hens crossed paths the chicks would mingle together in the middle for a bit and then separate into groups following a hen to whatever destination she had in mind. It was all well and good except that each hen would leave the gathering with chicks she didn't come into it with. As long as somebody was doing the babysitting it was all I could hope for. When I came back from California, there were no chicks and only 4 or 5 banty hens left. There are plenty of roosters (the bastards. I hate roosters.) but the chickens who actually work for a living have all disappeared.

After living here for over ten years and having many chickens all this time, a family of foxes has moved in and they've eaten most of the hens and every chick and duckling that has hatched in the last two months. The roosters (bastards) having no responsibility - like protecting offspring - just run away. The hens perish with their babies. I saw a fox in the driveway the other day. I used to think they were pretty. Not so much anymore.

Yesterday while I was doing the evening chores I heard the unmistakeable sound of a freshly hatched chick peeping at the top of it's little lungs. It is amazing how loud those little lungs can be. I had the scratch feed in one hand and Tess's feed in the other (Tess is a potbelly pig) when I went in search of the tiny critter doing the peeping. I found the chick, a tiny banty about the size of my thumb, in a shed that is currently housing two goats and a setting duck. Since I haven't seen a single hen with chicks anywhere I am guessing that a lone chicken egg was laid while the duck was out doing her daily poop. I wrapped the chick up in my shirt and went about my chores. I had to pass three hen ducks on my way to Tess. The chick was peeping ever so loudly and evidently new chicks sound identical to new ducklings because all three of those ducks (who were either setting a nest or had recently lost their ducklings to the fucking fox family) attacked my ass. They were growling - yeah, I didn't know a duck could growl either - biting and flogging me with their wings. I finally made it into Tess's lot where I was momentarily safe as the ducks flailed and bit at the gate. Did I mention that chicks are very LOUD??? When I left Tess's lot I ran like the wind. Uh, right... the wind in stagnant air spaces. I'm old and have arthritis. Don't forget that part. I got away from the killer ducks and isn't that all that really matters??? Moving on...

The chick is safely in a small hamster cage in my living room with a warming light. I say 'her' because I refuse to believe I'm going to all this trouble for a fucking rooster (the bastards). She has adopted me as her mom. When I put my hand in the cage she hops on it and peeps lovingly. Heavy sigh. Life on the farm ain't never laid back.