Monday

Oh, oh!  Rooster on the loose!






It happened so quickly. I'd been putting food into a dish in the lower portion of the coop and noticed that Happy was not one of the chickens clamoring for grub. When I opened the roost to check on him, he flew out.

You could say that he was just that anxious to be free, but I think it's more an indication of his personality. The hens have more of a wait and see approach to life. Happy takes charge.

I almost didn't catch him, but I got lucky: he strutted to a corner and I could do a big grab. Mind you, there's a lot of muscle in that little guy. When he is fully grown, I'm not sure I'll be able to hold him down.

All that strength and bravado receded when I reintroduced him into the coop. Pepper, little Pepper, chased him out of the eating area. I was glad I had managed to give him some feed while I was holding him.

And the cats? Oh, they're fine. Their lives have not yet been disrupted by the chaos in the barn. The kittens are enjoying the sunshine, Whiskers shyly watches as I put out more food.






All this happens early. Monday is grandchild day to the max and Sparrow comes here even before Ed and I sit down to breakfast.






Happy guy. Excuse me: happy guys.






After eating, we're back to trying out new play situations. Sparrow gives the crayons an honest try...






He may not produce much in the way of drawing, but they do make him happy. It's all in the journey, right?






At noon, Ed asks if we can release the cheepers. I say yes. It had been two months of captivity for them. A tough, tough two months.

But if we thought they would come rushing out, we were wrong. Honestly, they seem dazed.

(Tomato, first one out, standing in the doorway, reprogramming her small chicken brain to take in this sudden return to old habits.)






We are curious how Happy will fare.  No worries: within the space of the barn, the six of them explode in play.

Happy is a little puzzled, a little tentative, but overall, he seems to know his job: he seeks out higher ground and surveys his girls.





And the girls? Oh, do they romp! First order of operations: dirt baths in the barns soil. Too, they find mice! I would have thought they were the original mouser hens, but I suspect that they merely uncovered Stop Sign's hidden cache of dead mice.


When I bring Snowdrop to the farmette after school, she is anxious to see the cheepers at play. (I am, of course, nervous about the whole integration of Happy into our lives, but I remind myself: if he fails to be the gentle giant, he's out of here.)






The girls haven't forgotten. They look at Snowdrop and wait for the corn to fall from her hands. Happy tries to take it all in.

I tell the little girl -- no extra feedings for now. I want to keep things calm.






(Inside, we dive into the world of make believe.)






(Trust me, it is a beautiful place.)






Dusk. I smile at seeing Dance at the picnic table. Just like her mother.






Beautiful colors. Calm animals. Grateful us.

Sunday

If you have been reading Ocean lately, you'll know that Ed and I have agonized about how to keep the cheepers safe. Cats, too, but we concluded that they're all past the "very vulnerable" stage and likely to protect themselves well enough from any invaders. If asked, I'd say that we were rational in our decisions, listing the pros and cons of various options and strategies. But, as I step outside this morning to feed the animals, it strikes me that we were perhaps not so rational after all.

The thing is, it had snowed overnight: a wet snow, making slush out of puddles, creating yet another layer of winter nonsense.

 



The ground is not thawing yet and so all that melted snow formed puddles over hard-as-rock earth. The pathways are pocked with pools of water and slush. But in that fresh cover of snow, animal paw prints show up beautifully. As I walk to the garage, I can easily see Stop Sign's paw prints, a bunny rabbit's prints, and, too, the prints of our resident possum. They're unmistakable.





I can tell where he came from (the sheep shed), what he looked at (the compost pile and the garage) and where he retreated (back to the sheep shed).

Now, a possum is not really a threat to the cats. The kittens may be scared, but he will coexist with them. A possum does not pick a fight.

But a possum loves chickens. And as I share my paw print sighting with Ed, I am reminded of some basic math: we've been keeping chickens for five years, on the average, tending to to 4 - 6 chickens at a time. In all, we've lost five hens to predators, though one attack was on two little hens together (remember the young Brahma girls?), so you could say we've had four predator attacks. That's less than one per year.

And here's a crucial reality: only one predator loss was at the claws of a hawk. All the others were  likely done by a possum. Too, a couple of times we found a possum in the coop when the girls were not yet there for the night. In short -- the cheepers' greatest foe is the possum.

And we have a hefty guy hanging out here right now.

(Breakfast. Discussing chickens. Again.)





We'll chase, deter and if that fails -- trap. (Trapping and/or hunting possum is permissible under state law, though you have to be careful where you release, if that's your goal.) Still, even though the weather improved in the course of the day (cold, but with a dapple of sunshine), neither of us had the heart to let the cheepers out today. The possum tracks give us pause.



In the evening, the young family comes to dinner. How grand it is to have them appear when the sun is still high above the farmette lands!






(Sparrow, studying furniture...)






Snowdrop absolutely wants to meet Happy and so the two of us trudge to the barn.






She is concerned that he'll crow very loudly, but I think for now, Happy is simply trying to figure out what the heck has just happened in his life. All these big girls! Where is he???






(Where did my sister go??)






Back again! Snowdrop tells a story, Sparrow loves the joyful animation.






Dinner, still in sunshine.






After, there's always a little time for play.






And finally, time for the young family to head home. One last check on the kitties, one last romp through icy slush, all in the fading light of a beautiful evening.

Saturday

Meet Happy, the farmette's new resident rooster.






Whaaat? You got a rooster? -- That is a perfectly understandable reaction. There is much to be said about not keeping roosters with your hens. But late last night, when we absolutely had to decide about the pick up of a Lavender Orpington rooster (that is his breed), the "yay" votes had it. (Then, at about 4 a.m., I changed my mind once again, but Ed talked me down from my concerns. Too, I know that at 4 a.m., the most tame option can seem horrifyingly scary. You should never decide anything at that hour.)

The choice had been between two options: buy a new coop that is big enough for all and comes with what is called a "run" -- a fenced in portion where they can "run free" -- or, get a rooster and set them all out to truly free range, like before, only with a body guard.

As you know, I wanted to fence in the girls. But you do not understand the habits and mores of predators until you've lived in their midst for some years and we are becoming quite the experts. To be really predator safe, a run has to be fenced also from the top (against hawks) and perhaps more importantly -- from the bottom. But if you put in wires on the ground, then the hens can't scratch. They can't look for bugs or worms. They can't bathe in dust piles. They really can't do anything except hurt their claws in frustration. Most people, therefore, do not put fencing on the bottom.

A second alternative is to dig in a sturdy wire mesh (hardware cloth) ideally four feet around the run, so that no predator could dig his way in. Not only is that a terribly odious chore in our hard clay soil (to say nothing of frozen hard clay soil), but, too, it means that the coop and run have to stay put forever and ever, even when every last bit of grass is gone (scratched out by the chickens), even when the run is one big mud pile, covered with chicken droppings, even when you're old and feeble and the last thing you want to look at is a coop with a run in your yard.

Most people don't do any of this. They buy the coop and the run, the hens go into the coop at night, doors are locked and chickens remain safe. Until the evening when the hens go in too early and a weasel or a racoon or a possum dig in and one hour later you come out to a coop filled with dead chickens. Because they're all trapped. Some predators will hunt only until they get their hen, but others (weasels come to mind) hunt down chickens just for the sport of killing them. Perhaps they brag at the weasel cafe how many they butchered that day.

And so the "coop with run" idea became less and less attractive. The effort to secure them completely is huge and in the end, they're caged birds, locked in a small area of mud. And if you don't secure them from the bottom, some animal will dig in and your entire flock turns into chicken pie on some predator's table.

Even as hawks hovered over the farmette and possum roamed the property, we decided, from the point of view of the cheepers, the better option is to set them free, with, perhaps, some better protection. Orpington roosters are supposed to be more docile than others, but if you ask me, all this is speculative and a rooster's disposition doesn't become obvious until he matures and starts breeding with the girls. Ed promises that Happy, named jointly by Snowdrop and me, hopefully not in any ironic fashion, would leave the minute he shows signs of being a meanie.


At least the weather is cooperative in the early morning. Cloudy, just a touch below freezing, but hey, it's March -- you have to be prepared for fluctuations.






Our indoor world is cheerful and warm. Breakfast is luxurious!






The kitties stay to the back of the garage, keeping out of the wind. Stop Sign hangs out in the barn, possibly chasing mice, possibly snuggling under the warm quilt we've thrown over the coop. And Whiskers? Oh, he's around. Elusive and beautiful as always.






Ed and I pick up the rooster in the parking lot of Denny's Restaurant. That's the way these private sales usually go: a big car drives up, an animal carrying case comes out, a chicken is transferred.

On our drive home, we stop by Goodwill to drop off a sack of discarded stuff. The employee looks in the back of the car, sees Happy and asks if he's part of the drop off. I almost say yes, please.

The cheepers come down from the sheltered roost when they hear us coming. Possibly they are expecting some treats. They get a Lavender Orpington housemate instead. And yes, he really is a shade of lavender gray. Like the flower only different.






Everything appears calm when I leave the barn. Ed checks a few minutes later and reports that Happy is now hanging upstairs, in the comfy wood shavings, and the girls are all downstairs. I don't know that he has exactly chased them out. Maybe they're discussing the new situation. There is no blood, there are no feathers in the air. We are grateful for that. (Happy is just seven months old. Roosters are mostly calm at this age and darn it, he's an Orpington! We're banking on the inflated reputation of this breed! We dished out a whole $5 for him. That's right, no one wants roosters -- you practically have to pay people to take them.)


In the afternoon, the rain comes down. I mean, really hard. We're just one degree above freezing now and sometimes that rain looks awfully much like wet snow. Ed has put up covered food stations for the cats that should be (mostly) cheeper-proof, but honestly, unless the weather improves or they start fighting in that coop, I see no reason to let the cheepers out tomorrow or even the next day. There's nothing to scratch, no bare spots of dirt to enjoy.

By evening, there's no ambiguity: that stuff that's coming down? It's snow and ice -- this year's toxic mixture. I turn up my jacket collar and head out on my final animal inspection. All good in the garage. And the barn? What's happening in the coop? I come in quietly, listening. Nothing. I peer in  the coop. No one downstairs.

Well now! They're all up in the roost. Sleeping together, snuggling out of necessity (it's pretty tight up there for six very large chickens). Could it be that Happy is actually... happy?

We will wait to see what happens. And in waiting, we will be cheerfully optimistic. Why imagine the horrors of animal incompatibility when in fact, all could go well?

And so we wait: for good stories about our various animals. And for the real arrival of spring.

Friday

On my drive to grocery shop, I was listening to my usual Public Radio station, enjoying, as I always do, their morning classics, enjoying, too, the emerging sunshine that promised to begin the melting of the heavy snow cover.

The radio host was introducing a work by Clara Schumann and in so doing, she noted a few details of Clara's life. What a woman! I read a little more about her later in the day and I had to shake my head in dismay at how tough a life can be. Perhaps you know a little about this talented musician? I'll throw out just a few poignant details: Clara was under the thumb of her domineering father (after an early divorce, the mother was kept away from her daughter), though from what we know -- he taught her much about music. The girl was performing at age 11 and she continued to write music and give recitals until her death at age 71. Not that this was easy for her. Clara's husband, the famous Robert Schumann, was mentally sick and he died shortly after being committed to an asylum. They had eight children -- four predeceased Clara. She was left with a handful of grandchildren to take care of too. She survived wars, cholera epidemics, deafness. She always was the family's breadwinner. She was, in other words, heroic.

It's International Women's Day today -- a holiday that never quite gained traction in the U.S., but was much touted in the Poland of my childhood. Women often walked home with red carnations on this day, gifted by their employers. A red carnation can take a beating and it surely got that in the course of the commute home on crowded buses and trams. It took many years before I could consider a carnation a real flower -- it always looked as if it was made of tough, synthetic material.

Personally, I liked the holiday and looked forward to some day getting my own annual carnation. In the end though, I was never an adult woman on March 8th in Poland. I left the country at age 18 in January. I didn't think it was a permanent departure, but in fact it turned out to be just that. When I would tell Americans that March 8th was Women's Day, they'd look puzzled. Huh? What's that? Somehow Hallmark never caught on to this one.



What a gorgeous day this is! All that was promised -- delivered! Sunshine and just above freezing. I'll take it!






Awesome threesome...






Plus our superstar!






Stop Sign is not sure he's such a superstar...






Breakfast is sudden and rushed and with an Ed work pal.  At the last minute, Ed opted to go on a work trip and so the morning meal, a thing of beauty for me (and I think for him as well) was a tad curtailed. As is the image of Ed, just because I like the image of the flowers better than his facial expression!






In the afternoon, I pick up the little girl and excite her no end by offering her the outdoors once more. We walk the blocks of her school neighborhood in the way that we always walk them in better, warmer weather days.





Snowdrop is due for a haircut and so we do have a destination, but we have a bit of a wait before her appointment. She and I hang out at the Lakeside Cafe. I'd brought a book with me. It keeps us amply entertained.






(At Bang, the haircut store, waiting.)






Just about done!






Done!






Snowdrop's mom comes to pick her up. They have some visitors in town and so the two of them head home...






(oh, those big snow piles, still everywhere!)






Back at the farmette, the cats are active! 






Stop Sing keeps tabs: if I fill Whisker's bowl, she goes to it and works hard on eating it down. She makes her statement and asserts her territorial rights, albeit in a quiet way. I like that about her: she does not pick a fight.






Late in the evening, Ed comes home. We are back on The Topic, reviewing, trying hard to figure out our animal strategy going forward. I offer one extra piece of information: this afternoon, I saw a huge possum heading toward the barn. I mean, that guy was huge!

And finally, we both come around to the same conclusion. It's the only one that makes sense, we think.

Tomorrow. We'll work on putting it in place.

Thursday

It must be dismal to be an animal and not be able to read the forecast for the week ahead: you wake up to yet another day of very cold weather and surely you think you're stuck in some kind of Groundhogian melodrama of never ending winter. We at least know that tomorrow, for the first time in a very long time, we'll hoist ourselves into the "above freezing" range. Animals can't be so easily reassured.

Ah, tomorrow! The ice will begin to melt. That's enough to make today's morning walk to the barn almost carefree: ha! take that, you brittle ice (a light kick follows)! You will soon be gone!

In the meantime, the landscape is as it was yesterday, last week, last month.







The cats are huddled. The little guys have never known anything but winter. Perhaps they feel life will always feel cold.






But there is a restlessness in the air. I see it in the behavior of the cheepers: peering out as I open the coop, wondering perhaps if they will ever scratch the ground again, because really, scratching soiled wood shavings is very unsatisfying.






Stop Sign is patrolling her turf. Dance and Jacket still prefer sticking to the garage, but they, too, are nimbly checking out their surroundings. (Dance! Is that you on the garage roof??)






(Back on the ground...)






(Perched on the tool desk, Dance looks almost like a small Stop Sign....)





As we approach the weekend, Ed and I continue to be stuck on what to do with the cheepers. He has an idea and I have a different idea and he really doesn't like mine and I really don't like his. We offer half-assed arguments over breakfast...





He wants to go along with me, and I want to be on board with him, but as we get toward the end of the day, we find ourselves spinning back to the opening question: how do we proceed with those darn hens?



On this last really cold day of the year, I pick up a cheerful girl who never complains about the weather (unless it storms).











From the hidden vantage point inside, we watch deer gather.  Snowdrop wants to name them! "They're not afraid of me!" -- she announces.





What sound do they make?
We don't know. Youtube to the rescue.






And now it's evening again. I take Snowdrop to gymnastics...





... then return home, to cook up a supper of eggs and veggies. No, not cheeper eggs. They rarely lay these days. Age, winter, breed -- these factors are all at play. I am reminded of the lyrics to that folk song -- she's laying eggs now, just like she used t'er, ever since that rooster, came into our yard.

So, we should get a rooster? Maybe.