Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Henny penny




Yesterday a miracle happened. Two and a half weeks ago, I put the three barred rock hens in with the other laying hens and they got out of the laying hen pen, which has no "roof". One turned up dead on my front yard a la Zee, I assume. The other two were never heard from again, despite the efforts of Gunnar and Liam to find them (many clues were reported, but no hens). About a week ago, I swore I heard one on the other side of the road. The next day, I thought I heard another in the yard. I searched and searched but no luck. I figured we were being haunted by chickens gone or maybe I had a ventriloquist chicken.

But yesterday, Judy was looking at the hens in the pen and I paused with her and then stopped dead. There in the pen was one of the barred rocks. Guess she figured it was better in than out. Amazing. We have so many dogs in our neighborhood. She's just the luckiest hen ever, I figure. Anyway, it's a really good deal, because that means we'll have three new layers this fall, which is exactly what I wanted in the first place. Good stuff.

Yesterday Judy and I dispatched the last of the meat birds, turned on the new freezer and filled it up with 13 birds, plus the last batch, plus salmon. Good good stuff. It's amazing to look at all that food and think about the winter and being snuggled in and set. After that, I snuggled a sick Théa while Judy snuck off and cleaned my coop. So sneaky. Then, Hans and Olive began canning the pink salmon that Mike caught. Wow. What a day. It's amazing. Returned the plucker, worked on a Web site for ions at Mike's, collapsed... Did I say the busy days were in May? Perhaps I was mistaken.

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