We lost our mother hen today. From the start, she demonstrated an independent streak. Shortly after we’d decided to let our chickens roam free during the daytime, she stayed out all night. We assumed she’d been grabbed by some predator, but to our great relief, when we woke up the next morning she was under [...]
Archive for the ‘Chickens’ Category
Heartbreak
Posted in Chickens on May 2, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Birds and bees
Posted in Bees, Chickens on April 16, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
One of the Dominiques stayed out all night again Saturday, however this time we were fairly confident she’d turn up. Sunday morning there she was in her latest hideaway, safe and composed. We have been taking her eggs from the rock pile, but yesterday we left it for her; by dark she was sitting on [...]
Capricious weather
Posted in Chickens, Garden on March 31, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
My mother called on this snowy morning, telling me to read a piece in the editorial section of the New York Times called “Chickens on the Loose.” In it, Verlyn Klinkenborg writes: ”I come out of the house, and the birds are waiting at the chicken-yard fence like petitioners in some Russian novel but with boundless optimism instead [...]
Presaging spring
Posted in Chickens on February 1, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Tomorrow is Groundhog Day when, as the story goes, a groundhog ventures from his burrow to foretell the end of winter. Today was 60 degrees, so it’s a little hard to believe we’re even in winter. The bees emerged from their hives, searching for every possible food source. They visited the bird feeders and at [...]
Chickens and politics
Posted in Chickens on January 24, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
The chickens ended their four-day sit-in. They must have seen from their windows that the snow was gone, because the second I opened their sliding door, they raced out…and have spent the day happily pecking in the mud. Our lovely snow was short-lived. Yesterday it got so warm that by nightfall a thick fog moved [...]
Tenacity
Posted in Chickens on January 20, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
It snowed again last night, and today was beautiful. Unlike Tuesday, it stayed cold enough to keep the snow from melting. The chickens didn’t like this snow any better. Just as they’d done earlier in the week, they stopped short on their ramp, looked around, and beat a retreat inside, complaining loudly. We refilled their [...]
Another cache
Posted in Chickens on January 19, 2012 | 2 Comments »
When the chickens were released this morning, most ran or flew to the birdfeeder—their first stop every morning. All but our wandering Dominique, Maria, who walked briskly and purposefully away from the others. She’s the chicken who stayed out all night on two occasions, and who laid her eggs in a rock wall for a [...]
Chicken protest
Posted in Chickens on January 17, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
The chickens refused to go out today. The little door that releases them to the outside pen is opened from inside the coop; you can watch it (and the chickens leaving the coop) through a full-sized door, which is covered by wire mesh. When I opened their door this morning, the chickens stepped onto the [...]
Winter comes to New England, slowly
Posted in Chickens, Garden on January 15, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Despite the Halloween snowstorm, this winter has been pretty mild. Not so this morning; our thermometer read 6 degrees at 8 a.m., and by 2 p.m. it had climbed only to 13. Even Koa, who lies on the kitchen steps regardless of temperature, decided it was too cold for her. Rebecca, seeing the sunshine, repeatedly [...]
Chickens can and can’t
Posted in Chickens on January 12, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Every December, alumni from RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) sell their handcrafted wares at a holiday fair. My sister and I love to go, and we usually find many treasures—for ourselves as well as the people on our lists. One year we discovered an artist, Sam Ackerman, who’d written an incredibly funny cartoon book [...]