Wasn't That a Mighty Storm?

On the heels of way hot came the storm to end all storms. According to lifers here in our little neighbourhood (including Mr.BCF) this was unlike any other. The dark clouds gathered and swirled quickly as water picked up from the lake and headed for land. The rain came in a vertical sheet soaking everything. The wind picked up canoes and trampolines and relocated them. It broke huge branches and moved them across the street. The power went out. Our new chicks (teens, maybe young adults by now) are still free rangin' it. They live in a plastic box at night and roam free during the day. It seems a little cruel and I think the big girls are a little jealous ( I think I hear them banging the bars with their tin cups when the young ones strut by). It occurred to BCFjr that the girls should be rescued. I mean the wind was picking up canoes-canoes for goodness sake! "Could the wind pick up the chickens?" "Oh, of course not honey" I cooed. When did lying become so easy? Finally, when the lightning stopped striking around our house, I was convinced to go out and perform "operation rescue chicks". I expected to find them hiding in their usual spots like the bamboo grove or under oversized hostas. I've been told that turkeys will drown in the rain simply because they don't know enough to not look up at the sky and open their mouths. We found the chicks, looking like turkeys, in the open staring up at the sky and blinking profusely in the rain. BCFjr simply grabbed them in a group hug. There was no fight or flight as usual. They didn't make a move as we each took one under the arm and brought them into safety. Having lost a chicken 2 days before, it seemed sweeter to rescue the least of these.

And then there were 5...

Every night before BCFjr goes to sleep, we pray for "no nightmares and keep the chickens alive". I go through the exercise with little thought to "what if..." Well, today, "what if..." happened. Here, in an unnamed Southern Ontario town with the most humidity in Canada, we are, as much of North America is, experiencing record-breaking high temps. It got hot, followed by real hot, followed by stinkin' hot...Now, chickens don't fare well in heat. They don't sweat and like dogs and cats (fellow non-sweaters) they pant to stay cool. They have been panting a lot! Compound this with the fact that our coop is in the only sunny spot in our backyard and the fact that I have weaned myself off of letting them go free range. The reason for the latter is that I decided that mulch belongs IN the garden and not ON the grass and that hostas look so much prettier when they are not chewed down to the nub. Can you hear the slight guilt in my voice? Yes, it is real And as BCFjr has not fallen far from this tree, he is taking blame too. Hours before finding our fated fowl, he confessed that he threw dirt on her. I assured him that God made dirt and dirt don't hurt. So hours after the "dirt incident", the day following the hottest on record, on hen simply lay down and breathed her last. We were all saddened by this, but not as much as jr. He took it hard and became so burdened with the fact that death could come a knockin' on any other hen's door. That night, as I prayed the standard prayer, I caught myself before kicking into autopilot. I acknowledged that God had let a chicken die, and that we didn't understand, but we would trust him and trust him to care for the rest. That seemed to make sense to all of us. I hope it sticks.

New Arrivals

Apparently after a year of laying, the egg supply slows down. Kinda like women in their forties (kinda). So Mr.BCF decided that we should keep up egg production. He is a project manager when he is not farming. Now our coop accomodates 6 chickens, so someone has to go. We ordered 2 new chicks and 2 lucky chickens, chosen based on bad behaviour, will be going to the farm down the road owned by some elderly Italian farmers. I don't even want to know if those girls become chicken cacciatore. I'll just assume they are happily, however progressively more slowly, laying eggs. So we ordered 2 new chicks. I walked into the feedstore and said to the stoic farmer behind the counter, "I'm here to pick up some chicks! "I was so tickled by my own humour. Mr. Sourpuss farmer didn't share in my joy. Mr.BCF also thought we should get a new breed, so we could tell the new from the old apart. He is so smart. We settled on black sexlinks. They are a cross between the barred rock (our "old stock") and rhode island red, I think...anyhow, they are just plain old black. The sexlink part comes from the fact that you can tell the boys from the girls really easily when they are teeny tiny. That fact should come in handy at cocktail parties when you're picking up chicks.

They Grow Up So Fast

Dear reader - it has been a long time since I've updated you on "the girls". We just celebrated their 1st birthday last week and the brevity of time came into focus for me. Everyone survived winter for starters. I was really expecting to find at least the weaker ones frozen to the roost at some point. Mr.BCF made some attractive blue tarp flaps for the bottom run - tarps, so many uses. We also put a lightbulb in the roost to keep them from being found frozen to the roost. We had to play with this one. The initial lightbulb/aluminum reflector combo proved problematic. It has a big springloaded clamp on it which you simply attach to the overhead beam. But, girls will be girls and they simply can leave anything alone. They (fill in the blank here) until it fell down, night after night (I never caught them red-winged, but I have my suspicions). Often this would knock the lightbulb out, which defeats it's purpose. So, with a dented lampshade and fear that I would end up with 6 whole chickens in my freezer, I put on my inventor's hat. I got 2 bungee chord and lashed a flowerpot to the lampshade (they happen to be the very same circumference). The girls stayed warm and I could sleep at night. So, it is Spring now and the girls are 1. We had a party, complete with cake and guests. Our guests brought cut apples and Red River Cereal - what a party! BCFjr. couldn't have been happier except for the fact that he wanted his entire class to show up on a Tuesday night. I prefer a more intimate affair...party favours were a carton of eggs - of course.