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.