Back to the Coop

This post is really just a precursor for the one to follow, but for now, here's the first half...

From January 6, 2012

Everyone had something to do, and I felt restless, not able to concentrate enough for any of the tasks I could had chosen to do that afternoon.  Then I recalled that the evening before I had thought about going out to the barn today, to see if it might be possible to put a heated water dish in the chicken coop in a way that would ensure the hens (and their hungry beaks) could not in any way access the cord.  The water dish currently sits under the heat lamp, and I would rather not use that spot for water in case the chickens themselves need to bathe in the warmth it provides on some cold winter morning.  It would also remove the possibility of the water freezing on particularly frigid nights, in spite of our diligence in refilling the dish daily.

As I thought about this, the idea of going out to the barn appealed to me more and more.  I’m not outside as much as I’d like to be these days, due to the cold and snow, but whenever I do venture out I linger as long as my freezing earlobes can endure, soaking in the beauty of my new natural surroundings.  And so I donned my barn jacket and some warm mitts and snow boots and headed out into the late afternoon.

I rounded the corner of the garage, walked half way across the bridge and stopped.  Under the cover of my footsteps the creek could not be heard, but standing perfectly still I could hear it quietly gurgling just beneath its icy crust.  The faint sound was reassuring, though I was not sure why.  With my eyes I followed the tiny footprints of a small forest creature who had descended one rocky bank, crossed the snow-covered ice to the other, and evidently not finding a way up had headed back to the south bank and under the bridge.  Since no tracks appeared on the other side of the bridge I assumed that the creature must have found a way up out of the creek gorge beneath the bridge.

I moved on to the pasture, pushing the gate open as much as possible against the ridge of ice that had built up on the pasture side of the opening.  This would be difficult to shovel away, given that it was no longer packed snow but had melted and frozen into sheer, solid ice during the strange up-and-down temperatures we’d been having.  Closing the gate behind me I angled toward the well to check the water level in the trough.  It was low enough to assure me that Whopper had been drinking, but high enough that it did not urgently require filling. 

From there I made my way toward the barn.  Whopper watched me cross from the window in his stall and greeted me as I came near with his raspy bray.  Noticing the uncharacteristic lack of sound from the other end of the barn I called to the chickens, but received no reply.  It always makes me nervous when they’re quiet because they so rarely are.  But upon entering the coop I found both birds on their perch, apparently happy to see me.  I say they were happy to see me because they allowed me not only to stroke their back, but to snuggle them warmly into my chest, surrounding them with my arms.  I thought they might need a little warming, but did not expect them to allow this much closeness.  But Smiley Fry sat quite contentedly in my arms for several minutes, and even French Fry allowed me to hug her momentarily.  They must be cold, was my only thought, and so I gave freely of my warmth, though how much they received from me through my jacket I can not say.

I surveyed the coop and noticed that their food was quite low.  Had the girls not added seed to their feeder that morning, or in the cold are they eating that much more than usual?  Whatever the reason, they clearly needed food, so I left the coop and returned with a full pail of chicken feed.  As I proceeded to refill their feeder, the two grateful hens came at once and began pecking at the seed.  Perhaps it was their hunger that made them so friendly toward me initially.  Perhaps one day I will actually understand these birds a little.  But for now all I can do is to keep them fed and as warm as possible. “Two months,” I told the birds, “and it will begin to warm up again.”  I just have to get them through the next two cold months, and then we’ll be home free.  And in February I can order a few more chickens to fill out the coop with more company for them and eggs for us.  I wish I could add hens to the coop now because more bodies make for more warmth, but the cold would be too hard on new birds, so they will have to wait until March when the first order of spring arrives.

Securing the chicken coop doors, I returned to attend to Whopper who is enjoying almost daily servings of hay to supplement the depleting supply of growth in the pasture.  I gave the grateful donkey his slice of hay, and since he did not dig in greedily I deduced that he is still finding sufficient food on his own, though the nutrition in what he might forage would be questionable.

There was still one issue in the coop I wanted to address.  There is one window in the indoor portion of the coop, which is in the end wall of the barn, and it does not seal.  Not only does the window not seal, but the window is almost a full inch smaller than the opening it hangs in, leaving too much room for cold wind to enter the coop.  There were some pieces of foam insulation of random sizes beside the coop that I had found when looking for plastic last week, a few that I thought might be small enough to fit into this opening.  I grabbed a couple of possibilities and unlatched the window to put the foam behind it.  One piece fit, but only covered about 1/3 of the opening.  The second piece would not go in at all.  Well, that will have to do for now, I thought.  It was, at least, better than nothing.  I put the window down and latched it, but for some reason it now swung loosely on its hinge, which turned out to be a nail in the window frame above, whereas it had been fixed quite steady before.  Something will have to be done about that.  Covering it with plastic would be the simplest solution, but it will have to be done from the outside to keep the chickens from pecking at it.  I would need to go outside and survey the wall to see what could be done.

On the end of the barn where the chicken coop is, there is a gap between the front pasture and the back pasture, so that the coop itself is not enclosed by any fence other than chicken wire it is made of.  From the outside of the coop one can enter either the front pasture or the back pasture through the gates that open to that area.  The barn is on the west of this section of land, the front pasture borders the south side, the back pasture is on the north side.  Directly east with no fence blocking the way, is the conservation forest. 

I surveyed the wall of the barn and found that the outdoor chicken coop comes to its end under the window in question.  That would complicate the logistics of putting plastic up, considering that the window is high enough to require the use of a ladder.  Adding to the equation was a large opening above the window, much larger than the window, with no glass or any other barrier to block the cold wind from entering the barn above the chicken coop.  This could be covered from the outside using a tall ladder, or from the loft on the inside.  I would have to think about this.

Whose Woods These Are…

As I thought I turned eastward toward the forest...

Tune in next time for the rest of the story...

Through the Looking Glass...Otherwise Known as Ice

Those with more chicken savvy than I have will be relieved to know that since my last post it has come to my attention that one should never clean a chicken coop with the chickens in it!  This is the learning curve I was talking about, and I am very grateful to my chicken-raising friend for all her advice!  I am also glad that both hens survived my cleaning frenzy.  I hope that my inexperience does not cost any aviary life, and this is much less likely with the advice of good friends.  :-)  My current reading material is Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, and that is helping keep our chickens healthy and our eggs safe as well.  But there is so much to learn!

After leaving the barn I took the leisurely way home, after which I wrote the second half of the last post.

From January 1, 2012

I took my time, wanting to see how frozen the creek was a little further upstream.  The creek winds its way from the south-east corner of our property to the north-west corner.  Down by the road the top is frozen completely over.  It widens into a calm pool near the garage, so with little movement and not much depth that is the first section to freeze.  The girls were outside with a friend just before Christmas, and they came in with stories of walking on the creek.  I warned them that the ice would be thin and uncertain, that parts of the creek were still not frozen so they could not be sure at any point how thick or secure the ice would be, and was then let in on the secret that they had broken through in several places.  Cold water did not deter them from having a splendid time, but they assured me that they would not walk on the creek again until we had confirmed its safety!

As the creek passes under the bridge to the pasture it is forced through a deeper, narrower passage, churning over rocks as it meanders west-ward behind the garage.  Here it takes a little longer to freeze, and I have taken to periodically checking this portion of the creek to see how far from the shore the ice has grown.  It was the most beautiful section of the creek in the fall, and is now proving to be so in winter as well.  The ice forms from shore and rocks, leaving portions of the water visibly bubbling beneath the open skylights.  As the snow has fallen it has left mounds of sparkling frosting on these icy patches, adding to the picturesque winter scene.  It is as if the landscapers had planned it this way.  As I cross the bridge to the pastures I am treated to the most breathtaking view:  the creek as I have just described it, anchors the Norman Rockwell-like scene deep in the creek gorge; the rocky bank leads up to the pasture on the right and on the left to the site of native shrubbery, now dormant for the season, out of which grows a structure, its red paint faded and worn by years of garage service, watching over the entire scene from its place of importance, a silent testimony to pioneers of old.

From this beautiful scene the creek works its way toward the house and then bends northward into the forest.  It divides the land cleanly in two, the house and woods on the western bank, the pastures and barn on the eastern.  In warmer fall days I often wandered into the forest, enjoying the company of the many birds and squirrels who find shelter among the trees, and on those walks I see the creek from the west bank.  Wandering along the creek on the pasture side, the east bank of the creek, is a more arduous journey.  The pasture fence is set back some ways from the edge of the embankment.  Along the western side of the pasture is a grove of trees offering shelter from wind and rain for the animals that prefer not to retreat to the barn during inclement weather.  The grove grows thicker near the embankment and so the fence stops the pasture short of the most dense section, leaving a strip of land between the creek and the pasture that is difficult to navigate once the fence is breached.  However, there is one section of the fence that juts out closer to the creek, a section less overgrown, which affords a striking view of another widening in the creek, as well as the house on the hill beyond.  It was to this point that I made my way after finishing with the barn chores for the day.

The widening at this part of the creek is of particular interest because it is easily accessible from the shallower slope on the west bank.  The pool is calm, and, so I’m told, offers a cool retreat from hot summer days if one chooses to wade in the water or to set a lawn chair just so where one’s feet are in the cool water.  A good book and glass of iced tea would complete the refreshing picture.  Or choose to watch the minnows and frogs play in the pool.  Whatever refreshes, this is the place to do it! 

From the barn I could hear the faint gurgling of the creek, a sound that normally dominates the air but of late has been muffled by the cover of ice, so I wanted to see how much of the creek was frozen beyond the bridge and garage.  So as Matthew headed southward to the pasture gate, the bridge and eventually the house, I headed westward to the edge of the pasture overlooking the pool.

Many times since moving in I have wandered out onto my land to see what I could see.  Never have I been disappointed by the scene I have discovered.  Not once has the beauty of this land failed to amaze and delight me.  This day was no exception.  From my vantage point in the pasture I looked out over the creek and saw the pool below, completely frozen over except for a small hole in the ice where the creek flows into the pool.  Through this opening the rushing water tumbled and churned, creating the illusion of a hot springs bubbling up from the earth beneath, yet fuelled only by its own need to reach the river.

I wandered along the fence, ducking under the low-hanging evergreen branches, stopping to photograph a set of tiny footprints that told the story of a squirrel scurrying down the tree trunk and off across the snow.  I wondered briefly if this was the squirrel the kids have named Taz because of his antics at our bird feeders.  That squirrel would have reason to run, having carried off the peanut feeder to points beyond our yard, presumably finding it suitable storage for his own personal winter stash.

I neared the pasture gate, lifted it over the accumulated snow and passed through.  Crossing the bridge I headed reluctantly towards the house, longing for warm spring days when I will be able to more fully enjoy this beautiful land of mine.

Cleaning the Coop

Yes, I realize my posts are going downhill...but something has to be done about this poor coop design!

From January 1, 2012 

I have heard that learning something new every day is a good thing to aspire to.  I would suggest that this would depend on just what one is learning.  What I learned today, though important, is rather unpleasant.  That is, I learned that shovelling chicken poop is more unpleasant than shovelling horse manure.

That being the case, I must also admit that cleaning the chicken coop was not altogether an unpleasant task.  Being a bit warmer than the next days in the forecast, the job needed to be done.  In other words:  I’d rather do it on New Year’s Day, a Sunday afternoon no less, than on a colder day.

So while some napped and others played Mario Kart, I headed out to the barn to shovel out the chicken coop.  The donkey’s stall had a couple of growing piles as well, so my son came out with me to tackle that end of the barn.

The biggest draw-back to shovelling the chicken coop is that it is entirely enclosed, thanks to my great job of covering the walls with plastic to keep the hens warm through the winter, and the fact that the door has to remain closed to prevent the adventurous birds from escaping. 

Which leads to a second problem with this job:  shovelling into a wheelbarrow that does not fit through the coop door.  First I pulled the wheelbarrow into the outer doorway of the coop.  The coop is set up so that the chickens have access to an outside coop attached to their end of the barn, but there is a second door to enclose them in the inner coop, entirely within the barn, so that they can be kept in the warm inner part of the coop during the cold winter months.  It was this inner part of the coop that needed to be shovelled, since that is where the hens have been spending the cold winter days.  And it was in this inner coop that I needed to keep them.  But it was in the outer doorway that the wheelbarrow had to stay.  To complicate things further, if a chicken got out into the outer part of the coop, she could scoot outside the barn into the outdoor area which has a doorway that is too small for me to crawl through in order to retrieve her.

For the most part, the shovelling went smoothly.  There were areas that required more digging than shovelling since the coop had not been shovelled often enough since the hens have been kept inside.  This caused a dust to form that was rather unpleasant given the lack of air flow.  But the real trick to successful shovelling lay in manoeuvring the full shovel through the open door, around a 90 degree turn to the outer door to empty it into the wheelbarrow, and return into the inner coop, all without letting the chickens through the doorway in which I was standing during the entire procedure.

The chickens were watching my actions.  They moved nearer and nearer to the doorway, which meant shooing them away before opening the door to empty the shovel.  Picture me dressed thickly in warm apparel, balancing a shovel full of chicken droppings, reaching for the doorknob, then turning to shoo two over-anxious chickens away from the door before turning again to open the door, then pull the shovel through it, turning again to dump the contents of the shovel into the wheelbarrow which is blocking the other doorway, then turning back, still wielding the now empty shovel, and moving back into the coop and closing the door behind me.  And all of this within a span of a few seconds, speed being my ally in keeping the birds in their coop.

Comical as it may have been, the birds saw it all, and one very crafty, ambitious hen, saw her opportunity and dared to dash through my legs as I turned with the shovel still full.  I tried my best to put my foot between the chicken and the out-of-doors, but she managed to scoot past me and headed toward the small doorway cut in the side of the barn which led to the outdoor part of the coop. 

Now at this point several things could have happened.  She could have run into the outside coop, where I would have had to crawl through a very small opening, try to catch a bird which loathes being caught, and somehow carry her through the same small opening, while crawling on hands and knees, to return her to the safety of the warm inner coop.  Fortunately for me, she must have found the outside air too cold for her liking, and she hesitated at the barn wall opening, turning to see what other options were open for her.

The other option she could have taken would be to run beneath the wheelbarrow, out into the freedom of the barn.  She would have had to navigate back through my legs to do this, and I am thankful that she thought better of this challenge, or at least hesitated to embrace it. 

But while she hesitated I noticed her partner-in-crime, up until this point still safe in the inner coop, finding courage in her sister’s bold escape, running toward the door in reckless abandon. 

I could not close the door to keep her in because that would block the very path I needed the other chicken to follow.  But I could not let the second chicken out or my troubles would be doubled!

Fortunately my son had come over from the donkey end of the barn to give his back a rest, so he stood on the other side of the wheelbarrow to block chicken #1 in case she should make a break for it and try to run under it and into the barn.  This allowed me a moment to shoo chicken #2 away from the inner coop door, which had to be done repeatedly for the rest of the rescue.

So while my son guarded the entrance to the barn, I shooed one chicken away from the inside of the door with one foot, and the other chicken towards the outside of the door with my other foot...  It was a challenge, but eventually the escapee returned to her warm roost.  I suspect that she found the great outdoors much cooler than she remembered it, and she gladly returned to the warmth of the coop, once enough time had passed so that I would know that it was her own idea.

With both birds back in their coop, I finished the task of shovelling it out.  The floor could not be completely cleaned because I have no straw to replace what I shovel out.  This is something that needs to be remedied soon so that I can completely shovel out the floor and give them more straw for warmth and nesting.

So with the wheelbarrow full and both coop doors securely closed, I wheeled over to the other end of the barn to dump my load into the sled my son had been filling.  He had cleaned up one pile, but the other was frozen.  Another job for another day.

With the sled full, we left the barn to find a good spot to dump its contents.  The site had to be near enough to the barn to be convenient, but far enough to be out of the way; not too near the gate to the back pasture; not too near the long growth Whopper is eating now that snow is covering the shorter grasses.

A tall order, but after surveying the area behind the barn we found a small hole, more of a dip really, that was just the right size for our load.  We pulled the sled over and hoisted one end.  My son helped, bless his heart, and received a dump-load on his shoes as thanks.  His look said it all, though it can not be described in words.  He kicked his shoes free of their load and we pushed the result into the hole with the rest, then shovelled snow onto the pile to discourage Whopper from eating from the pile, as horses, and evidently donkeys, are prone to do.

My son then headed back to the house, being cold due to his faulty notion that since he was raised in northern Alberta where the winters are long and frequent temperatures below -30, he does not need more than a t-shirt until -10 or lower.  Even when working hard, -5 is too cold for a t-shirt!  Feeling sorry for him, I had given him my jacket when we were emptying the sled, since I had the foresight to wear two turtleneck sweaters that morning, but he was too cold by then to warm up much without going in, so he headed off across the pasture to the warmth of the house.

Post Script:  Since this post, we have added luxuriously soft mounds of wood chips to this formerly barren-looking coop.  The picture above was taken after the cleaning (hence, much of the straw was gone) but before the addition of the new bedding.  Pictures of the comfy quarters as they now stand will follow once I remember to take my camera with me to the barn again...

Snow Birds

From December 29, 2011

I have heard on good authority that many people butcher their chickens in the fall, not wanting the fuss of over-wintering them.  As novice “farmers” this might be the wise option for our birds.  However, as novice “farmers” we haven’t the heart to see Smilie Fry or French Fry in our kitchen!  Nor do I ever intend to butcher anything!  One has to draw the line somewhere...  But what to do as the mercury drops?

The exceptionally warm fall eased into winter with nary a flake of snow to be seen.  More time to prepare the farm for winter is a blessing, but sometimes there’s no better equipper than urgency.  Week after week passed as I waited for my husband to have the time to sort through his garage to find his staple gun so I could put plastic up around the chicken coop.  The heat lamp was on, but with gaping holes where the barn windows once were, the chickens’ water was beginning to freeze over at night.  Every morning after a particularly cold night I would worry that the chickens might not have fared well.  I ran out to check on one occasion, before the girls were ready, not wanting them to discover that their feathered friends had become a freezer dinner.  Clearly, it was time for action – with or without the staple gun.

So out I went, at the earliest part of the day when my motivation is at its peak, before anyone else was out of bed.  My holidaying husband was awake, so I instructed him to send someone out to help as soon as anyone got up.  I was pretty sure I could get a good start on my own, but was just as sure I’d need help before I was finished!

The weather was relatively mild that day, but being early and knowing that I would be out for some time, I donned my woollies and layered my sweaters.  I wrapped a scarf around my head, being sure to cover my ears, and pulled on my big, hefty, good-to-Northern-Alberta-ridiculously-cold-winter-temperature Sorrels, and headed out to the barn with a hammer and some finishing nails I found in the house.

The worst part of this job, the part I had been dreading all this time, was the location of the plastic.  Between the coop and the front wall of the barn is a narrow room – only about 4 feet wide – in which junk had been dumped.  Pieces of Styrofoam insulation, buckets of questionable contents, and a whole lot of plastic.  (You can see the doorway into this narrow "room" on the right of the photo, complete with insulation stucking out of the doorway.)  All was filthy.  And in that confined space, filled to the point of showing no floor whatsoever, there was sure to be a few hundred bugs nesting, hibernating, or in some other state of creepiness.  I do not have claustrophobia.  But I fear insects, and that fear grows in diametrical opposition to the size of the space I am in.  If something crawls along the wall, I want room to move FAR away from that wall!

But there lay the plastic, unreachable without entering this most frighteningly yucky corner of the barn.  Steeling myself to “just do it,” I took a deep breath and entered the narrow room.  I began pulling insulation pieces out.  With everything I moved, I looked at both sides and underneath and saw nothing move.  My fear began to subside and I plunged into the task at hand.  I pulled out several sheets of plastic of various sizes and varying quality.  Most had large tears.  Some had huge smelly stains.  All had holes poked through, perhaps by the beaks of the chickens last winter.  But I found enough for what I needed, such as it was, determined the best piece for each wall of the coop, and set to work.

The first piece went up easily.  The second was larger and took some fiddling to get it right.  I nailed part of the top and had to take it down and start over to make adjustments I should have made in the first place.  As I worked I chatted with the chickens, who were only too happy for the company, clucking almost constantly their own cheerful chicken song.  Occasionally I heard a raspy bray from Whopper who felt it was warm enough to stay outside that morning.  Animals make the best company while you work.  But they’re not much help.

As I worked along the side of the coop I soon discovered that the beam at the top of the wall was not straight.  While I had been able to nail the plastic to one end of the wall on my tiptoes, by about half way across I could no longer reach.  I looked around and found nothing strong enough to stand on, so I sent a text to my husband, who I assumed was still reading the news in the warm comfort of our bed.  “I need a step ladder or a tall person.  Preferably a tall person.”

As I waited for help, which took as long to arrive as I expected, I did what I had dreaded most:  I began working in the narrow room.  That wall needed plastic too, maybe most since it was so close to two broken, unsheltered windows that let in all the cold wind that should come across the pasture.  In I went, dragging a long piece of plastic with me.  With nowhere to set anything I held nails in my mouth like sewing pins as I hammered the plastic in place.  In this cluttered area I was not really standing on the floor, which gave me added height.  There was also a ledge where the cement foundation rose up to meet the wall, and I was able to perch on that in order to affix the top of the plastic.  The downside to this convenience was that it put my head pretty much in the rafters – a position I did not take kindly to for all the aforementioned entomological reasons.

But I am pleased to report that I survived this test, and did not have to deal with any multi-legged pests.  Just before I finished the offensive wall, my daughter showed up to lend her height to the project – height that, it should be noted, has only a few inches’ advantage over my own.  With the front wall secure, we moved back to the side wall I had had to leave half finished.  I explained what I needed her to do, and my daughter reached up with the hammer and a nail only to discover that she did not have enough inches over me to complete the job.  Wishing then that I had said I’d prefer a step ladder, we looked again to see if we could find anything we could stand on.  At least now there was someone I could lean on for balance.

We found an old ladder, but on manoeuvring it to a somewhat upright position we quickly determined that it was too tall to get into the stall where it was needed, and would be horribly awkward for us to try…  Victoria saw a bucket and asked if that would work.  I was unsure if it would hold weight without tipping, but we put it upside down and up I climbed, Victoria’s purpose then reduced to holding nails for me, which was not entirely unuseful, and which my then blackened lips appreciated.

With that last piece of plastic, the coop was secure, at least from wind.  The temperature can still drop inside the coop, but at least now the birds will be sheltered from drafts, and will be able to build up a bit more warmth from their heat lamp.  The water has been placed directly under the lamp and is added to daily to keep it from reaching a low enough level where it will easily freeze.  As soon as we can find a place to purchase hay and straw I will be completely cleaning out the floor of the coop and adding fresh straw – enough to give the hens something to nestle into on cold nights, and hopefully to give a bit of insulation to the base of the walls.

It’s all a new adventure for us.  An enjoyable adventure.  An adventure that hopefully will not lead our chickens to our dining room table!  With a little work, a little research, and some good old fashioned luck, our hens will survive the winter they are sure to spend teaching us much that we need to know about hobby farming.

***Post Script:  Since this post we have completely shoveled out the coop and replaced the dirty straw with "wood chips" which turned out to be more like sawdust.  Plenty of soft piles of wood now covers the floor of the coop, as well as two nests, and brings a lovely aroma to the hens' clean home.  We also discovered that the feeder is actually a water dispenser...so we repurposed it back to its original intent and this keeps their water off the ground - so clean - and in constant supply.  Their food is currently in a dish on the floor, but we will be getting hanging feeders this weekend to minimize the need to throw out soiled food from the birds wandering in and over the dish.  Also, a visiting fisher has pulled most of the plastic down...

Water and Ice

From December 18, 2011

Winter dawned this bright, Sunday morning.  The air was crisp and cold, the ground a-sparkle with millions of tiny frosty diamonds, each one a testament to the cold in the air.  I was up first, enjoying the stillness of the lonely morning. 

It wasn’t long before my husband emerged, looking for his morning coffee.  He wondered aloud if the chickens had survived the first night of real cold.  -17 was the reading on the local weather reports.  We could be having frozen chicken for dinner…

I quickly donned my winter jacket & boots and headed out to the barn.  If those chickens didn’t weather the cold well, I didn’t want my nine-year-old discovering the fact!  On the way across the pasture I noted that there was no water accessible through the thick ice the cold night had left.  Both troughs were completely frozen over. 

On approaching the barn I heard the familiar clucking and cackling of our two hens.  Both girls were alive and evidently doing well!  They were happy to see me when I entered the coop, coming much more readily than usual to my feet.  I soon saw why – their water was also frozen over, though not solid, I hoped.

The coop has a heat lamp, near which their water had been placed, but the cold of the previous night had been too much for the shallow water to withstand.  I looked around for an implement of some sort that I could use to break the ice and reveal the life-giving water below.  Improvisation proved vital as I picked up a small metal bucket and began whacking the ice for all I was worth.  I soon broke through, and the chicken’s trough quickly became a small sea filled with ice bergs of varying degrees of floatation.  With the first sign of refreshing liquid, the chickens began to drink.  They seemed to savour the refreshment, filling their beaks in turn, then lifting their heads to swallow the water in delight.

Making a mental note to return to collect the two eggs the girls had left in the roost, I left the birds to their morning bath and returned to the outdoor troughs to dig for water there as well, grabbing a small shovel to help with the task.  I began with the old bathtub by the barn.  Being somewhat sheltered it generally is the last to freeze, and the easiest to de-ice, which was somewhat disconcerting once I discovered how thick the ice was even here!   Perception is a strange phenomenon…a shovel that seems quite light on initially lifting it, becomes unbearably heavy when one is wielding it like an axe when there is a dire need of fire wood.  The trick in trough de-icing, I quickly discovered, is staying dry.  Fortunately, the shovel has a long handle.  Over my head and down onto the ice, slowly chipping away to expose the water, which splashed in direct proportion to how much was exposed.  Once the ice was reduced to a few inches around the sides of the tub, I moved on to the trough in the middle of the pasture.  Fully knowing that the ice here would be the thickest, I set to work and was not disappointed.  As I worked I wondered what I would have thought just a few years ago if someone had told me I would be doing this on a Sunday morning in December.  Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined it!  Yet here I am, living more than the dream, and loving every minute of it.  Yes, even the cold Sunday morning minutes spent digging water out of icy troughs for my animals.  I thought back to 7 months before when I had questioned my ability to follow through with the dedication and longevity required for the adventure I still looked forward to embarking upon.  God had turned my head towards a herd of horses that day, and reassuringly whispered, “This is who you are.”  Yes, this must indeed be who I am - who He made me to be.  Who else in their right mind, could go out into -17 degrees to spend half an hour working up a sweat to dig out water for a bunch of animals…and come in happier than when she went out! 

As a post-script, that afternoon the strong men of our family carried water out to fill the heated trough, preventing any recurrence of the morning’s activity.  I enjoy my new life on the farm, but I’m not crazy!

Bridge Under Troubled Hooves

In editing my first post, written last November, it occured to me that I should introduce the animals on our little farm.  Max, the Tennessee Walker, is not yet here.  He is being boarded until the ground thaws and we are able to fix our run-down fencing.  Here on the premises, left by the previous owners since they were unable to take them when they moved, are a donkey and some chickens.  There were four chickens, but before we moved in they escaped from the coop and two were lost.  The donkey's name is Whopper, so we thought it would be fun to name the chickens after fries so we'd have Whopper and the fries.  Food names turned out to be prophetic for Yam Fry and Stir Fry.  The two remaining birds are French Fry (the mother hen of the group) and Smilie Fry (the more adventurous and fun-loving bird). 

And now, with due warning that I am not known for brevity, on to the story of our first visit from the country vet...

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Wanting to be sure that our donkey was healthy before bringing in our healthy horse, I called the vet to make an appointment for a check-up & immunizations.  The appointment was made for Thursday morning, somewhere between 11 and 11:30, with the promise of a phone call half an hour before the vet was to arrive, which is the exact time it would take to drive from the office to our acreage.

The morning arrived…and left…and no vet came and no phone call was received.  After lunch I phoned the clinic.  “We were just discussing you!” the receptionist informed me.  “We were trying to figure out if we’d be able to make it there today.”  Evidently some emergencies had arisen and they were sorting out their afternoon before calling to inform me.

In the end the appointment was re-booked for the following afternoon, again with the promise of a call half an hour prior to the vet’s arrival.  We were eating supper when a phone call came.  The vet would be here in about 10 minutes. 

Since it was cold I quickly found my warmest sweater, put on my boots, and grabbed a flashlight.  I realized that I had not yet surveyed the barn to see if the previous owners had left a halter or lead for Whopper.  So my 11 yr-old and I headed out to the barn to see what we could find.  Upon entering the dark barn I found a halter hanging from a nail in one of the posts.  Covered in cob webs, this had clearly not been used in some time.  I looked desperately around for something less offensive to my city senses, something I would not have to dig out of its nest of web, and was relieved to see another halter, dusty but more useable than the first.  I reached for that halter, reasoning that although it looked a little big, it was obviously the one that had been used most recently, so it must be the better of the two.  Near the halters I found a lead.  We were all set.  Now to find Whopper…

How does one find a black donkey in the dark?  A flashlight can be helpful, but evidently even more helpful is an 11-year old girl who knows the habits of the donkey you’re looking for.  Kathleen found him in no time, lying down among the trees.  I handed her the flashlight while I held the halter near Whopper’s face.  He was a somewhat resistant, but succumbed to the gear with very little convincing.  Great!  I thought.  This donkey is so easy-going, this should be a breeze!  The halter is a little big, but he’s not resisting so it should be fine.

As we got him to stand I heard a voice on the other side of the fence.  It was the vet and his 4 yr-old son who had climbed through the bush to where they thought we were, only to discover the fence that still separated us.  “I’ll bring him to the gate,” I told the vet.  Whopper placidly followed us to the gate, and through the gate.  The idea was to take him across the creek to the garage where there were lights that would make the exam easier for the vet to carry out.  We reached the edge of the bridge and a childhood story was brought to my mind…

“...stick wouldn’t beat dog, dog wouldn’t bite pig, and the pig would not go.”

In this case the pig was Whopper.  He had reached the edge of the bridge and he would not cross.  He did not kick.  He did not fight.  He did not make a sound.  He simply stood his ground, refusing to be coerced, coaxed or even pushed across.  Eventually he decided he’d had enough of that, and he turned to head back into his safe and comfortable pasture.  I pulled on the lead.  I pulled HARDER on the lead.  I dug in my heels, pulling with all my weight on the lead.  The donkey would not stop.  He did not run.  He did not kick.  He did not fight.  He simply walked with obvious brute strength in exactly the direction he wanted to go.

By then my husband had emerged from the house.  Having about 100 pounds over me, and whole lot more strength, I called for help.  At this point the donkey’s nose had come completely out of the halter, and the head strap had pulled down and was hanging around his neck.  My husband came and asked me to hold the halter while he unclasped the lead to make a rope halter.  This custom halter would fit perfectly on Whopper’s small face, and would, in theory, make it easier to lead him.

Whopper had stopped because I was in front of him at this point.  He stopped nicely and nuzzled his nose into my belly.  As Victor formed the nose part of the lead halter I stepped aside to make Whopper’s nose accessible to him.  Whopper began to walk forward.  I stepped in front of his face.  I had learned that this was the only way to stop him.  But then we couldn’t get the lead on his nose.  So I stepped aside, and Whopper began to walk.  This went on a few more times until we finally managed the gymnastics necessary to get the lead around his nose. 

I think by this time Whopper had forgotten all about the bridge because as Victor led him to turn around, he did so with gentle compliance.  It has been said that if you do the same thing you should expect the same results.  Evidently this applies to donkeys.  He stopped short at the bridge’s edge and refused to move another inch.  This time there were three of us trying to urge, coerce and push forward.  He would not go.  “Turn him around,” suggested the vet.  “We’ll push him backwards.”  That sounded reasonable to us, so we tried it.  Whopper did not agree.  Evidently the “out of sight” bridge was not quite out of his mind.  He would then not move forward or backward!

The vet decided to simply do his check by flashlight.  So I held the flashlight while Victor held Whopper, and the vet did his job.  The most obvious problem was Whopper’s hooves.  They had been neglected for some time, to the point that they were going to cause pain and damage to Whopper’s feet.  So the first order of business was to clip them.

I know very little, but this I know:  A well-trained horse will stand perfectly still and allow a ferrier to trim his hooves.  An apparently passive donkey will not.  He did not kick.  He did not fight.  He simply put his foot down – literally – and pushed against the resistance of my husband to inch away from the vet’s clippers.  Very little progress was made before Victor was half way down the creek bank.  “He’s pushing me into the creek!” he warned.  It was at this point that the vet decided a sedative would be in order.

He returned from his truck with needle in hand and proceeded to try to give the donkey a sedative.  “His skin is like leather,” the vet commented.  And after a few tried, “I think he’s dulled the needle.”

This all became too much for Whopper and he decided to make a break for it.  Pushing past my husband, the stubborn donkey fled from the source of his angst…across the bridge!  So with the garage light flooding that small part of the land, the vet was able to administer the sedative, and finish clipping the elf-like hooves, making Whopper look like a normal donkey once again.  Throughout the procedure he leaned drunkenly against Victor’s legs, but no longer did he try to push away.

The vet managed to get the hooves clipped to a good, healthy length, then gave him the required immunizations.  He left us with dewormer to administer the next day.  He then suggested we take Whopper back across the bridge to the pasture before the sedative completely wore off.  We agreed.

In the process of this adventure we learned a number of things about donkeys, and a few things about country vets.  I believe they have to be a special breed, country vets, that is.  They require a deep love of animals, a desire to keep them healthy, a willingness to travel for this purpose, and an extra large portion of patience!  This vet’s little boy accompanies him on most calls, and had a good time regaling my girls with stories of what happens to a person if a horse steps on them… 

What I learned about donkeys is that we should not be fooled by their calm and gentle exterior.  Whopper is the sweetest animal I know, but try to get him to do something he doesn’t want to do and you will learn from which parent mules get their stubbornness!  Fortunately they don’t fight…at least ours doesn’t.  But they are strong in their diminutive bodies to the point where they can push a man twice their size against his will, and digging your heels into the dirt, you will not stop them.  We had heard that donkeys make good “watchdogs” because they scare away predators.  What we learned from the vet was that not only will they scare them away, they will make sure the predator does not escape alive.  Vicious is not a word I would ever associate with Whopper, but evidently my chickens are more than safe in his pasture.  Small but strong, these sweet little guys are not to be trifled with.  I suppose he is like the proverbial gentle giant – sweet tempered, but a force to be reckoned with when danger is present.

Now we have a much happier Whopper, a sprightlier Whopper, a Whopper who is capable of chasing down those predators and “taking care of them” with his snazzy new dogs, fit for running, playing and, if necessary, kicking.  Hopefully we won’t need to see too much of the vet, but it is good to know he’s there if we need him.  And he knows how to handle a stubborn donkey.

By Way of Introduction...

Beginning at the beginning I should go back to the point in my life when I was about 9.  My family visited some friends who lived just outside our town on a small farm.  Or it may have been a large farm.  At 9, all I knew was that they lived in the country and had horses and big dogs.  I loved the horses.  I hated the big dog smell.  However, the experience was overwhelmingly positive, and from that point onward I believed myself to be “deprived” because I was destined to grow up in the city.  Well, suburbia, to be exact.

Fast forward through half my life.  I married a man who grew up in the country, but never wanted to own a horse because he knew first hand how much work they are.  I can’t say I ever thought I’d live on an acreage, but if I ever did I discarded the thought at that point.  However, through a number of events, most significantly inheriting a beautiful Tennessee Walking Horse from my father-in-law, we came to be living smack dab in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees.  Which is pretty much smack dab where I belong.  I could never have dreamed of a place as beautiful as this, and I am thankful every time I look outside that I have been graced with such beauty all around me.  But the beauty is only the beginning.

I am 45 years old and have just begun the greatest adventure of my life.  For the very first time I am living in the country, and have become the deliriously happy owner of a donkey and 2 chickens, in addition to the horse we inherited a few years ago.  It has been an exciting winter learning about country living, and about raising chickens, and I am embracing every minute of it!  Since I have so much to learn I thought it would be fun to blog about my journey from the city to the country in case anyone else is interested in my “Green Acres”-like experience.

We moved in last November, but had no internet until this past week.  So the few posts I have already written I will post over the next few days.  I hope that they entertain, and perhaps encourage you.  Along with my husband and me, our four children have also become country folk.  The oldest goes to the nearby school.  I still educate the younger three at home, though #2 may head to school for his last two years as well.  The younger two are 9 and 11 – a wonderful age for them to move to the country and learn about farm life!  So we learn together, starting with chickens.  We have ordered 2 more laying hens and 6 day-old chicks.  We are looking forward to their arrival in late March.  Pictures will be posted!  We are hoping to hone our gardening skills, something I have never been particularly known for in the past.  I have started some herb seeds in a small greenhouse box. 

As I said, it is a journey.  A new life.  A life I drink in every morning in gratitude.