The Great Chicken Fiasco...

So we bought chickens some months ago now, as you may know. Courtesy of Partner #1, they live in what is known as a "Chicken Tractor". Basically, it is a chicken coop on wheels. Pros: Chickens get fresh ground every couple days, which means fresh vegetation, fresh supply of insects, better sanitation. Cons: You have to physically move a chicken coop every couple days, even if it is a relatively small chicken coop. Also a con, our chicken tractor doesn't have wheels yet.... We have the wheels, and all the hardware to attach them, we just haven't had the time to get around to it. So what we have is a dolly tucked under one side, so when it comes time to move the tractor, one person handles the dolly, and one person shoves from the opposite side. What you end up with is a shufflely kind of inch-by-inch walk, while the chickens try desperately to stay out of the way and not get run over.

When we got the chickens the kids were beyond excited! They named every one of them. And when they found out that Picky was actually a boy, they were thrilled at the possibility of baby chickens in the future (if the cock-a-doodling bastard lives that long...). So we made it part of their daily chores to feed and water the chicken, and collect the eggs each morning. At first all three of them enthusiastically did it, then it dwindled down to only Silas, our most nurturing of our 4 children, but eventually his enthusiasm faded as well, and now the kids alternate week-to-week who is on chicken duty.

This week was my lovely daughters first time "flying solo" (pardon the pun) and its enough to make me want to *expletive*. She does not seem to understand that these animals depend on her for survival. It's an important lesson, and I know that I should be looking at this as some amazing opportunity to teach her responsibility not only as a child of this family, but also as a human being, but its hard to talk through fiercely clenched teeth...

But that's not the point of my story! It is simply a little insight into the circumstances surrounding the unfortunate events of what will forever be known as The Great Chicken Fiasco.

She left the door open.

The door to the coop was open and 3 of the chickens escaped. This is not normally a big deal, its happened before, and all the dogs were put away, so no problem! Except this day we sent the children out to catch the chickens by themselves for the first time. Now generally they hover around the coop, they know once they are inside they are safe, and all these loud little humans will cease chasing them, so we developed a method that works pretty well: Heard the chickens towards the coop, while someone uses the dolly to prop the coop up. The chickens run right under it to safety! Beauty! Or at least it is when its adults manning the equipment...

During one of these maneuvers, a chicken who was safely inside decided the grass was greener and tried to escape. Child (who shall remain nameless for the sake of protecting the guilty), in a panic, dropped the dolly down, therefore dropping the coop on the poor chickens head! Now I'm sure you've heard that little farm-style urban legend that chickens run around even after they have been decapitated? Well it's true, and its also true when they have had their poor necks broken.

So while the chicken is frantically running around, we've got 3 howling youngsters who are, I'm sure, now traumatized for life. And they are all feeding off each other! Number 1 starts howling, and then number 2 starts howling a little louder, and then number 3 starts howling a little louder than that. I don't think it would have been bad if it had only been 1, but holy dina! Try calming down an 8, 7, and 5 year old after that?! In hindsight, we should have separated them all, and comforted them individually. But what can you do?

Eventually the kids collected themselves. The other chickens were caught and returned safely, and then there was the question of what to do with the dead chicken? The kids wanted to have a funeral, draw pictures and send good thoughts to the chicken in chicken after life. But we live on a ranch. You don't waste good meat! That's a perfectly good chicken right there!

So it took some convincing, a little cultural education on honoring the sacrifice of what you've killed, (and even a brief touch on cannibalism...), but we convinced the kids that the best thing to do would be to eat the chicken and bury her feathers in memorial. I think the deciding factor was the offer to invite our neighbors over for dinner to share in the honoring of the chicken. They did accidentally hit and kill a moose and invite us over for a giant moose BBQ, after all.  Got to return the kindness...

The moral of my story is, if you live on a farm/ranch, and you have chickens in a chicken tractor, don't let you children wrangle up the escapees unsupervised, or you may end up inviting your neighbors over for a reciprocatory, murdered-chicken dinner.

Blue Thunder

From what I understand, my partner has always been a unique individual. In the relatively short time that I have known him this has proven to be true. He likes to do things differently. Always. If there is an alternative way, that may seem a little obscure albeit has the potential to work better, he is probably going to do it that way. His brother has said "[Partner] would drive on the other side of the road if there were no lines!". Seems apt.

When it comes to ranching, his uniqueness translates to methods of practice that are occasionally shaking-of-the-head worthy. But he loves what he does and he wants to improve upon what he does to make it work more smoothly, be more cost effective, turn a higher profit, as well as be more environmentally friendly. As a city-goer I find his methods both entertaining and educational.

Case in point, "Blue Thunder". A 1980-something (who cares its ancient?) Mercury Topaz with a missing grill, one working headlight, no antenna, and questionable bio hazard status....This is his bombing around the ranch vehicle. Where most ranchers have a truck, or a quad, he has the blue car. But what the heck! It was free. And for the amount of beating this thing takes, it still runs! I begrudgingly admit that it works out pretty well for him, yet I still feel the need to inspect for spiders before I get in and wash my hands when I get out.

It is loaded to the ceiling with a wild arraignment of miscellaneous ranch equipment, such as: ropes, syringes, wrenches, fence posts, broken fence posts, fencing wire, binoculars, fly dope, fence testers, empty buckets, water bottles, latex gloves, coffee mugs, flashlights, drill bits, pliers, band castrators, a chewed up shoe, dirty rags, branding irons, dehorners, a full set of golf clubs?, and I'm betting on a 1/2 dozen Mick Dundee-esque knifes... you know, just in case.

Also it triples as a way to transport kids, dogs, and dead livestock.

Partner  "joked" about getting insurance put on it so that he could bomb to town or up the road. I told him that we may break up if he did that. That's not exactly true, but it adequately demonstrates the severity of my feelings toward this car. It's a good ranch car, for Partner, but it's not a vehicle to be seen in public in.... Its like the Uggs of the car world; sure its comfortable, but its ugly as hell, and you should be embarrassed.