The Birth of a Rooster

At the beginning of my internet hiatus, which began in April, I got a batch of baby chickens. As they got bigger and we moved them to the hen house....I got more chicks. At one point my tally was this: 27 chickens, 8 turkeys (they were supposed to be guineas, but the store was wrong), 15 guineas. All of my poultry was thriving by the end of June, although a snake knocked off a couple. Jason killed the snake with an ax and the poultry murders temporarily ceased.

One evening, at the end of July, I went to close up my chickens in the hen house. The the chickens were everywhere and didn't want to go in the hen house. I noticed a few were missing and I was certain that coyotes had come into the hen house while the door was open, snagged a few, and ran off. There was poultry everywhere! They were trying to roost on top of the garage, on top of the house, in the trees. One desperate hen even climbed on Barrett's stroller while he was in it! Barrett had been desperate to touch a chicken, so he didn't mind. Jason was out of town, so there was no way I was going to get them all inside without help. I called him and he said just to let them roost anywhere until he could get home the next day.

The next evening the chickens were still boycotting the hen house, but we forced them all in. We were sure that they were safe as long as the door was shut. I still get a knot in my stomach when I think of that evening. The next day I opened the hen house door to the most horrific site. There was feathers everywhere, disembodied feet, pieces of my feathered babies strewn about. A handful of chickens and a lone turkey stood at the door. You could hear my sobs for miles. I had locked my babies in a death chamber! I cried all day.

Eventually I mustered the courage to go check on the remaining birds, which were far from the hen house under a tree. My new tally would be 9 chickens, and 1 turkey (the guineas were still babies so they were housed elsewhere). Hank, my glorious red rooster was gone as were most of the other roosters. Hank had been the leader, though. One rooster remained, Antonio, a "fancy" bantam rooster with dramatic contrasting black and white feathers. Antonio had earned his name because he was always hanging out with hens that were three times his size. To me he seemed the Latin lover type, so I called him Antonio like Antonio Banderas.

In the days and weeks that followed a war was waged.We determined that raccoons had broken into the hen house.Chickens were moved to the barn while Jason reinforced the hen house with barn tin, we set traps for the perpetrators, which were caught and brought to justice. Raccoons are a formidable enemy in that they are smart, have opposing digits, and are very greedy.

Meanwhile Antonio had made himself the new pack leader. He called all of the other birds and told them where to go, he watched the horizon for danger, he announced when I was coming with food. Antonio was and is a very savvy rooster, despite the fact that he is small. Of all the tragedy involving the poultry, Antonio is the true winner in a Darwinian sense. He is an ornery little thing and has been known to attack my husband while his back is turned. I secretly find these attacks hilarious. Jason threatens to fry him on a bi-weekly basis. The little S.O.B. is a survivor, the chicken Napoleon. I'm damn proud of him and am Glad that he is now THE ROOSTER.

It's Log!

We heat our home with a wood-burning stove. I think that a lot of people in the country do this because propane costs money and wood is usually free. I might add that my husband is...uh....thrifty. We seem to spend an inordinate amount of time cutting wood, loading wood, unloading wood, stacking wood, fetching wood and building fires. My husband does most of the work, but I do have build an occasional fire.
I never took fire-building 101 in college, nor was I ever a girl scout. Fire creation is not a talent of mine. Building a fire is complicated by the fact that the toddler likes to stomp around the stove saying "hot...Hot .....HOT!!", mocking our warnings. The toddler also has a fascination with the fireplace tools, which he tries to hand me at inopportune times. Nothing, however, is more interesting to him than the logs themselves. He will move and stack logs that are as big as he is. I'm sure that he would choose to play with a log over any of his trillion toys.
On "Ren & Stimpy" they used to have a commercial for log and there was a jingle that went:
"It's log...it's log. It's big, it's heavy, it's wood. It's log....It's log. It's better than bad, it's good. Everyone wants a log! Everyone needs a log!"
If you were a kid in the early nineties, then you will know this song by heart. I hope that I've activated that part of everyone's brain and that song is stuck in mental replay.
Anyway, I thought that I was the only one that remembered that song. I began singing it one day while my husband was building a fire and Barrett was trying to balance on top of a log, of course. "Will you stop singing that! It's bad enough that I think about it everytime I'm chopping wood." I guess my husband and I share a bond in the fact that we were both raised in front of the television.

Holla if you remember the log song!

Back from the Dead

I'm alive!
Just like Tupac.
A lot has happened and I will explain it all eventually. I'm just going to summarize the events of the past few months for now:

• Dan killed the groundhog.
• Barrett has gotten bigger and more daredevilish.
• We welcomed a second little redheaded boy on October 21st. His name is Gunther Paul and he is thriving!
• I now share my acreage with 3 turkeys, 8 chickens, 2 guineas, 3 horses, 4 dogs, my husband, 2 little boys, and my transient father in law ( he lives in a camper behind our barn).
• Dan now obsesses over some rodent living in our wood pile, as he no longer has a groundhog to hate.

I'll get pics of the new baby up soon. I have a lot of catching up to do!

It's a.......

Yep. It's another boy for me. I'm so excited for Barrett to have a little brother to beat up. Everyone, say a prayer for me. Two boys that close = trouble.
Oh, and the baby is looking great and healthy too.

Baby Pool Stud

It got hot early this year, so Barrett and I have been spending a lot of time in the pool. Thanks to a certain little cousin for the hand-me-down swim trunks. Oh...and that guy in the pic isn't my husband...he's the pool boy.

Farm Living

We are moved into the new house. Well, the house isn't new, but it's new to us. We moved into an old farmhouse, and we're not certain how old it is. We do know that the octogenarian farmer down the road says it has been there as a long as he can remember. We also know that boulders hold up two corners of the house. So.....it's really old. It's a work in progress. I describe it as a little "Green Acres", which irritates my husband, but it is the truth. You know how Lisa Douglas would open her closet and be outside? It's not that bad, but we do have some "rustic" exposed wood walls.



I am the proud owner of 14 chickens (we had 15, but one died), and 12 guineas. We got them all as babies. The chickens are getting big, and it seems that we may have a disproportionate number of roosters. This is bad because we wanted a bunch of laying hens, and also because roosters don't always get along. I'm going to start an amateur cock-fighting league for some extra cash.



I'm hoping that the guineas put a dent in the trillions of ticks on our property. They are cute little docile things right now. They let me pick them up and cuddle them. They'll look like martian chickens when they get big. (see pic)



Dan has Spent the past three weeks engaged in World War III with a groundhog, which has resulted in numerous massive hole in the yard. When he's not digging, he's laying in the grass, panting, waiting for the groundhog to emerge. He has a lot less time for other mischief since he has found this new obsession. He comes in at night filthy and tired, not wanting to get in the trash or steal food from the baby's high chair. I'm willing to accept the potentially ankle-breaking craters in exchange for the complacent canine.

I'm Not Dead!!

I'll be back online soon. I miss everyone from bbc soo much. I'll be back to blogging about nothing soon.