Beautiful, Delicious, and Brutal

The blessings of this weekend were many. Saturday morning I arose to a gorgeous sunrise. Simply amazing to take in and so incredibly time sensitive. I caught a glimpse of the sky, ran around trying to find my camera taking apparatus, ran outside and it had already changed colors. I got this picture, went inside, put my camera away, and looked back out the window and it was completely different. God is so creative. 

I finally got some bubbly kombucha!

Breakfast delight: crusty bread, pesto, liverwurst,
farm fresh egg, & tomato!

I was having a fabulous morning drinking my bubbly kombucha, eating amazing breakfast sandwiches and doing some baking. Then I decided to make it outside to do the chores and realized that we have another issue with chickens being massacred. Except this time, it's not the whole flock all at once. This weekend both mornings I noticed just one dead chicken carcass in the pen. It appears that the deaths are happening in the early morning time, because when I get to them, the bodies are still pretty warm. This varmit is also leaving the carcass versus the massacres we've had in the past, they just take everything. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm thinking possibly a hawk? Just because the most of the carcass is still there and it's only getting one at a time. Any thoughts friends? 

Rain Down

Today I'm thankful for:

• Rain! It is finally raining and it has been for most of the day. I actually rode my bike today to work not being fully confident that it was going to rain today. It did and I seriously debated toughing it out and riding home in the pouring rain and wind. However, I took the advice of all the ladies in the office and accepted a ride home. But praise God for rain! 
• I got home and enjoyed a delightful cup of my new mint tea. This tea bag is a genius invention. Check out the picture. I'm not so sure it's really all that necessary and the bag says, New Eco-friendly design. Looks like a lot of extra paper processing to me, but it sure is pretty fun!

• I will be heading out soon to play some more volleyball. I got to play on a fall rec team with some wonderful new friends and we're playing another season. I'm excited!
• Tonight I enjoyed a lovely dinner of eggs with chard and a beautiful market tomato. This made me realize that I need to be thankful for these fresh eggs and embrace them because........We had another CHICKEN MASSACRE! This time they all got wiped out. No more fresh eggs until next spring. 

Two Survivors

There remains two survivors. After a tramatic experience the second go around there are two sole chicken survivors. I think if they still have it in them to pop out eggs these will be amazing chickens. They have escaped the massacre twice and still remain. We will get more someday, but not until a fence is found and implemented. Add that to the list.

Massacre 2010 Take II

I like to think I'm a pretty optimistic person. I mean when 15 out of the 26 chickens I grew from one day old were massacred on a Sunday evening I was initially quite angry. Later I realized that it's a lot easier to count 11 chickens than 26. It's also easier for them to all fit on the top roost. They eat less grain and poop less, leaving the cleaning up task to be less frequent for me. It really wasn't that big of a deal to pawn off the culprit dog on a local high schooler to take away the issue. But today here's another story..................

Last night at "Who's coming to dinner?" I was chatting with my neighbor about his chickens and the possible varmit that has been eating them. He thinks it's a bobcat, jumping out in broad daylight to get his. I told him apparantely our dogs are doing a good enough job keeping the big varmits away because we haven't seen anything. We've been letting them out during the day to forage and they've been doing just fine. Then today, while chatting with a teacher at CHS about chicken experiences she responded with, "Well, the varmits just don't know you have chickens yet. You just wait, they'll find them." This is all just too ironic.

As of today I have successfully failed at my first attempt of raising chickens. Upon my jaunt out to the chicken coop this evening to feed them I discovered Kansas Chicken Massacre II. A few feathers on the ground and a crappy fence pushed down on the end. There were no bodies in sight and the pouring rain kept me from investigating further. My chicken count is now down to zero. There is no need for me to feed them any grain because there are zero chickens to eat it. There are also zero chickens to fight for top roost. I now have zero chickens to care for and watch scratch the ground. No more chicken dancing going on on this farm.

My optimism is not great right now. Maybe I'll go out in the morning and they'll be roosting in the nearby tree. Probably not. I do know that there will be no more chickens brought on this farm again until we actually get a real fence put up. You'd think I'd learn from the first massacre. Apparantely not, but the good news is tomorrow is a new day and they are just chickens.

2010 Kansas Chicken Massacre

Ever seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre? I saw pieces of it one time while in high school. A couple of my friends thought it would be cool to start up chainsaws inside the house to scare everybody. Well, they succeeded and even though I was not in the same room I jumped at the sound of a chainsaw being fired up inside the house.

Sunday I also jumped at the sound of dogs barking and chickens squawking. After looking out my upstairs window and seeing chicken bodies laying on the ground and the demon Charlie dog in the middle of it all I ran outside before putting my shoes on to break up the fight. It was a sad evening because there was no fight, but a massacre of chickens in a matter of moments. The dog was like a cat in a field of butterflies, jumping after every moving thing. He killed, for sure, 11 chickens and three are written down as MIA. I was doing so well. Order 26 chickens in the mail, 7 weeks later only one initial death, until April 25th, 2010. I'm down to 11 chickens. They're the strong ones, the ones that fled the scene and left my mother, sister and I to chase/hunt down chickens in tall grass, trees, and random implements in the dusk of evening.

Sunday was their first moment of daylight, first step onto the real earth, grass, and great outside the chicken coop. It only took about three hours for them to venture out that open door and then about an hour later the majority of them to meet their maker.

I know they're just chickens and there will be more. Good thing is the demon dog is gone. Now I just have to work on a more substantial fence so demon animals can't climb under and get to my chickens. I want some freakin awesome eggs to eat!

Finally, a photo of the chicken coop.

Yes, that little demon killed half my flock in a matter of minutes. He has a dead chicken tied around his neck as somebody said this method would freak them out and they would never do it again. However, the joke was on me as morning after chicken is tied to neck, chicken is no longer, feathers only litter the ground. I never liked that dog anyway.