Thursday, January 03, 2008

The Oven Gets Cleaned, The Cows are Loose and I Lose my Chickens.

Cooking:
Both girls are home with a cold today. I'm not entirely sure I didn't cause this illness. You see, last night I overpacked my 9x9 square baking dish with meat loaf and said loaf's juices spilled onto the oven floor. This led to much smoke and curiously no alarms going off. The temperature at that point was oh...I think like 8 degrees (F) outside. I opened the door and put up a box fan and soon we were back in business.

After our yummy supper I decided it was time to clean the oven. I have a wonderful self-cleaning oven that obviously had not been living up to it's full capacity. I set it for a four hour cycle and let it get busy. Unfortunately the house filled with the most delightful baked on grease smell and it refuses to leave.

Meanwhile, our dog Mickey, who continues on his journey to wacko-ville let me know that in no uncertain terms would he ever rescue us from a burning house. He high tailed it out the door the second I opened it while arranging the fan. Later when I let him in during the oven cleaning business he again got upset. As I lay in bed he slowly made his way towards my head. After dozing off for a couple of minutes I felt a rythmic shuddering. Mick was shuddering with every exhale. There was no whining, no nudging, no pawing, just a gentle shudder everytime he exhaled. I guess he figured if I was going to sleep through the destruction of our house he would stick with me until the end. I got up and let him outside and this morning I found he slept in the hay shed with Osa and the Ducks. (Osa is a cat, not the lead singer of a band)

Both girls woke up with sore throats and snuffy noses. It could possibly be caused by poor air quality in the house, but neither Jack or I are suffering from the same symptoms.

Cows:
Guess what? The cows got loose today! Wonderful I thought, it's like 3 degrees (F) out and the cows are loose.

Although The Man prefers I don't ride the horses around the cows, I grabbed Dixie's halter and lead rope and was about to mount up bare back when I saw them start running across the alfalfa field. I'll be darned if I will work THAT hard when there are four perfectly good horses and a donkey who can be ridden. Before I got to the horse gate, the cows had turned and came back in the yard, so no bareback for me this time.

Chickens:
In mid-December I got my chickens taken away from me. Not literally, they are actually still here on our property. What happened was my Father-In-Law told me he was going to start taking care of the chickens. I don't think he was impressed with the way I was letting them free-range through his garden the last two years.

At any rate, he has taken over and in fact added the last five of my nephews old layers into my coop. There had been talk of my nephew bringing his flock over earlier in the fall but I had told them no, there wasn't enough room. So in my small coop there was well over 20 chickens vying for existence. When complaints arose about the lack of eggs, I mentioned the age of the five old layers, the weather and the over crowded conditions in the coop. The chickens were more than likely eating their own eggs.

After Christmas it was decided that the coop was too small for all the chickens. I suggested an area in the barn where they could possibly live. Later that day the chickens were moved, my help was not needed. After the move, each night after dark I would go out and catch the moved chickens and take them to their new area, as each evening they would try to re-enter their original coop. They would huddle in the snow around the coop door or on top of the feed can. Eventually they figured out where they were to live and settled in.

Lately I have started to hear complaints about the amount of feed being bought and the resulting lack of eggs. I personally rarely bought feed, for I fed them scraps or ground corn from the cows supply. In addition I was getting 4 or 5 eggs a day, but had to search for them around the farm. Our local Tractor Supply was out of laying mash this week, so my Father-In-Law drove an additional 15 miles to get chicken feed from another supplier. He's convinced this new 16% feed will be the ticket to the eggs.

After corraling the cows today I went in search of eggs and found half a dozen in a nest the hens have started in the barn. I showed my Father-In-Law the nest and gave him the eggs.

Yesterday, for the first time in probably over five years, I bought eggs at the grocery store. The one or two eggs my former hens are laying, are of course, no longer mine.

To say this bothers me is obviously an understatement for the chickens were my venture from the start. No one understood why I wanted them. I built my own coop and would add new hens every year or so to my flock.

My parents hearing of my chicken fun bought themselves a coop and started raising layers from chicks for me. Each spring I would pick out 5 of a certain breed I wanted to try and along with the chicks they chose they would raise a batch up for me. When they were old enough they would make the trip two hours south to what I described as the Ghetto. My coop I hand built and their coop is a converted play house that has windows and a flower box.

Later my nephew thought it would be a great money making venture and accepted 15 layers from my parents at no charge. When he grew tired of his venture the hens wandered his property without food or water and were eventually brought here.

This summer I made the chickens run larger to keep them out of my
Father in Law's garden. I also learned how to shingle, and put a new roof on their coop. After the growing season had passed I opened the coop and let them free range again.

I still enjoy the crow of the rooster and the sight of my fat hens, but the daily interaction has ended and of course now the eggs are gone as well. I will continue to check in on them. Since they were taken away, I have rescued them, as said above, but also provided them hay in a hay bag and lined their nesting area with straw. In the spring I imagine they will begin to lay again and perhaps I will be blessed with a few eggs, or perhaps my ducks will begin to lay and I will convert over to duck eggs. Unless of course, they get taken away as well.

Isn't that just the most pathetic story ever? But, I feel better for having wrote it, and that's part of what blogs are about.

5 comments:

Trail Riding Cowgirl said...

I don't think the story was pathetic at all just true feelings that needed to be written. Sometimes I feel I am whining over nothing on my blog as well, but it is a place to put your thoughts.
I say go get yourself some more chickens, life is to short to have regrets.

Rising Rainbow said...

I find myself wondering why you let your father in law take your chickens in the first place. They were your chickens.

Kathy C said...

Mikael, for the first time in the 19 years I have known the man he played the "I'm old and don't have anything else to do" card. It stunned both Jack and I to hear him say it.

So, I let him take over, and feel guilty complaining, but I guess it makes him feel useful. He has really slowed down in the last year, so again, I understand him wanting something to do. But, that said it's been hard for me to swallow and I feel like a big baby!

Callie said...

Sometimes, you just have to give in and take the high road, but you're still allowed to voice. Sounds like you've done both. :)

Tammy Cutsforth said...

Wow....

Side note: Duck eggs are not the same as chicken far as I'm concerned.... but if you decided they will work for you - I have EXTRA ducks that have so far escaped the roasting pan....lol... Course, you do need an un-related MALE Duck to get eggs... so I'm not sure If I'm more help or hindrance.
Tammy