Chickens – The Surly Farmer

If I Told You I Forgot My Password, Would You Believe Me?

July 30, 2021

Okay, I didn’t lose my password, I’ve just been slacking here. Busy elsewhere, but slacking here. Let’s see what’s happened since I last posted:

We worked and planted Fort Bountiful, which is now certainly living up to its name. Squash or tomatoes, anyone?
I put pavers in the chicken run. Summer and fall with 20 chickens, not too bad. Winter, notsomuch. I had been using hay as litter in the run, but combine that with days of rain and forty stomping birds and it gets ugly real quick. I still have drainage issues, but it’s a mile better than before.
We bought (in cooperation with Dr. Evil’s folks) a walk behind tractor. Dr. Evil’s dad has a regular tractor, but it’s too large for Fort Bountiful. It’s very cool, but it took forever to ship. Covid, man.
Oh yeah, covid. Everyone here is fully injected, which made for a nice couplafew weeks of masklessness, but of course that ended. Thanks, vaccine-refusing assholes!
To celebrate being vaccinated, we dined out a few times. Pizza, good; Chinese, real good (But we apparently have no idea how much to order now.) Burgers, good; Mexican, goooooooood God did I get sick. Thankfully it was lunch so I was back on my feet by the next morning, but brother was that afternoon and evening the worst. I used to have a strong stomach, but like everything else, it’s faded with time. But other times when I’ve had a bad dining experience, it’s been fairly benign. This time was brutal. I’m bummed, because the Mexican joint was my favorite place to eat, now I’m scared to death of it.
Speaking of eating, Dr. Evil and her folks have been eating a keto diet for a couple months now. Not me. They seem to like it.
At the end of May, Dr. Evil managed to drag me off the farm, out of the county, out of the state, and even out of Appalachia. We went to Florida for a week. I will save the details on this story for a proper post, but here’s a teaser: I haven’t flown since before 9/11.
We had our house painted. When it was built, it was painted kind of an oatmeal tan, but later was repainted, umm . . . black. Only one person liked that tint; not naming any names, but he owns a tractor. We went with a light gray and it looks tremendously better.
We also had the old two story deck/porch torn off. It was showing its age and was in fact getting dangerous. We are replacing it with a one level, but larger deck. Great time to be buying wood! Thanks, covid. We are using composite decking, with the builder tells us will arrive someday. Now we just have the framing up, the promise of a deck, if you will.
Dr. Evil’s plans don’t end at the exterior of the house either, no siree Bob (who’s Bob anyway?). She also demanded a kitchen rehab, because, and get this, “I want cabinets and counters!” What a princess. Covid bit us there, too. Has anyone tried to buy a large appliance lately? There are none. Lowe’s? Out. Menard’s? Out. Home Depot? Out. Best Buy? Out. And HD and BB would require us to go to Columbus or Charleston because they don’t deliver here. Even our local appliance store doesn’t have any, mostly because Athens does not have a local appliance store. I finally found one at Costco, which makes me love Costco even more. By autumn, we will be an induction cooking household.
At the beginning of this week, we hosted some extended family for a get together. I’m still recovering.

I’m sure I’ve left some things out, but I think that brings everyone substantially up to date on the goings on here on the farm. I’ll be back soon. Until then, does anyone have any wild food poisoning stories they’d like to relate? Hit up the comments section

I’m Back!

February 27, 2021

I apologize for the long absence, I simply had zero enthusiasm for the project. I’m going to give it another go now and we’ll see how it goes.

First things first: was it just me, or did the time between November 3rd and January 20th seem to last forever? I thought last April, as the pandemic settled down upon us like a lead blanket, was a long month, but damn, those 78 days were really something. Trump carried our tiny county 77% to 22% with a 71% voter turnout. Fortunately, we do most of our business (such as it is these days) in the neighboring county (you know, the one with a university in it), so that saves me from glaring at everyone I encounter out in the world.

My folks have received both of their covid vaccines, and Dr. Evil’s folks received their first dose. The eldest kid actually caught the bug a couple weeks ago, but she seems to be quite on the mend. *whew** We have no idea when we might be able to get our shots, but I don’t think it’ll be for a while. I’m not complaining, though, I mean who saw a vaccine appearing so quickly?

We got a week or so of stupid cold temperatures and a mess of snow and ice this month (February, am I right?). Know what’s great? Shoveling snow and ice from the chicken run before a) the sun has risen, and b) you’ve had your first cup of coffee. By the end of the snow, the three corners of the run looked like a shopping center parking lot with mountains of snow piled up. One bright side: it’s hilarious watching chickens slip and slide on ice.

On the topic of chickens, most of our girls are winter layers, but production slowed down dramatically around the end of December . . . BECAUSE THE HENS WERE EATING THE EGGS!! Nasty little birdies. I’ve found a solution, but it came with a price tag. Sure, we’re getting “free” eggs, but at what cost? Heh.

The garden continues to produce! We’re down to a little clump of kale, some Brussels sprouts which are no long producing sprouts, but whose leaves are still tasty treats for the hens, and a solid bed of upland greens. We’re planning for this year’s garden with some big changes; last year’s garden was a pandemic garden, as in, what if the stores have no food?!? But this year will be less doomsdayish.

That’s it for now. Next time, we’ll talk solar.

Full Occupancy

May 20, 2020

We took delivery of the new chickens last week. I didn’t finish the coop a moment too soon; those little dinosaurs have GROWN. The big girls were shocked by the new arrivals and spent the first day complaining at the top of their lungs. They calmed down some by the second day, but then transitioned into bullies. They chase the little ones around and peck at their hindquarters (I swear I raised them better than this). I’ve warned them that the little ones will not be little forever and they are vastly outnumbered.

Early this morning I saw the motion detector light on the coop had gone on and looked out to see a raccoon testing the defenses. It sniffed at the door, then went underneath only to come back out within a minute and wander away. This is a developing story.

Dr. Evil gave me a fancy drone for my birthday, so naturally it’s been raining since I got it. I managed to take it out twice, but only for a few minutes. It’s thrilling to fly. Hmm . . . make that thrilling combined with stressful, kind of like when you first get the training wheels off your bicycle, or the first time you lead a marching formation.

Speaking of Dr. Evil, she has not left the compound since March 14th! Big round of applause. Me, I’ve been to the grocery store for curbside pickup, to the feed store, and to Lowe’s for building supplies. In other words, not much different, save for no meals out. I miss someone else cooking. How are you folks dealing with life in the ‘rona?

Certain Signs of Spring

March 14, 2020

I’ve freed the first starling from a downspout, the hens have resumed laying, the peepers are loud at night, the horses are leaning over the field fences for that sweet, green grass on the lawn side. Yes, readers, spring is here. We actually didn’t have much of a winter here; most of our snow and the coldest days occurred in November rather than January and February. I will take full credit for the mild winter, as I believe the mild temperatures are attributable to the fact that I laid in a good supply of firewood at the end of November. It did get cold enough to make me look like an ass to the horses when their trough froze over because I couldn’t find the heater. I pulled it last spring and put it . . . you guessed it . . . in a very safe place. I’m sure I’ll come across it in July or so.

Spring won’t really have arrived until the sparrows begin invading our chimney and getting trapped in the woodstove. Nothing like waking up to the sounds of “thrash, thrash, flutter, thump,” I’ll tell you what. Fortunately, Dr. Evil and I have perfected the choreography of Freeing the Sparrows: cat goes in a closed room, I open windows and doors downstairs, Dr. Evil does the same upstairs, then stand to the side of the stove and open the door. Oh, how the hijinx do ensue.

This year the starlings have given us a new treat: getting caught in the attic space. They have been flocking to (heh, get it? flocking?) a vent on the tall side of the house, directly over the outside stairs to the basement, which renders it effectively—hmm, lemme do some calculations . . . two thousand feet off the ground—such that even if I had a ladder that would reach such great heights, there’s no way I would climb that sumbitch. Lately, I’ve seen some fiberglass insulation strewn across the side yard, which is weird, because our house has either rigid foam or cellulose insulation. Puzzling, until I receive this series of text messages from Dr. Evil:

All that insulation? They weren’t nesting in the vent, they were plucking insulation from the vent pipe, and I guess they plucked a little too much and ::thud:: one fell through the hole and got stuck in the attic space. Bats in the belfry got nuthin on starling in the attic. We need to learn a new choreography for this event, because it wasn’t nearly as smooth. Or, I guess I could put some mesh on the vent opening, but where’s the fun in that?

One last bird story before I post this avian anthology. You may recall that we lost hens to skunks and a raccoon last year. In a stunning display of revenge, he remaining two got all kindsa medieval on a mouse that dared enter their run. I was checking on them the other morning and saw a small gray bit amongst the ground litter, and sure enough, my girls did a tap dance all over intruding Jerry. I thought about putting his head on a tiny pike as a warning to others but opted not to.

That’s it for now.

Return of the Skunk

February 11, 2019

Quick update: We had snow last night, which gave proof of the return of the scurrilous skunk. The run and coop were surrounded by incriminating skunk prints in the snow, especially in the area where I suspected entry had been gained before. But we awoke to three healthy hens, so all’s well that (so far ) end’s well. The trusty Ruger 10/22 remains ready for future bad acts, of course.

Then There Were Three

February 7, 2019

I think a while back I mentioned that one evening I went to put the hens away and found several skunks in the coop. They disappeared after that encounter, or at least they weren’t around when I was tending to the girls. Last week, they were back again at chicken bedtime, and I ended up leaving the coop open. The next morning I found that they’d eaten all the chicken feed. So when I put them girls to bed on Sunday night, I took the feeder out of the coop and wished the five hens goodnight, assuring them I’d feed them bright and early the next morning.

On Monday morning, I went to let the chickens out into their run and found three live hens and two dead ones, and a distinct skunk aroma lingering in the air. Murdered by smelly skunks. What an indignity. Needless to say, Monday was a pretty shitty day. I’ve since fortified the old, decrepit coop as well as I could, and there don’t appear to have been any further incursions. But each morning, I experience a terrible knot in my stomach until I see all three remaining hens out and about, scratching and clucking.

Anyway, sorry to share the sad news, but there it is. RIP Eleven, and nameless black hen. You were good girls and we appreciated your brief lives.

Tag: Chickens