Entry to the farm. We knew we were in the right place.
Previously, I hinted that I was going to add some chickens to our flock. I’d met a woman at the Master Naturalist Christmas party named Cindy Vek, who told me all about her chicken farm, Bird and Bee Farm, between Rockdale and scenic Milano, Texas. I was intrigued.
A welcoming display from the Tom!
So, yesterday, Mandi and I fired up the big, black pickup and headed over there, first stopping at Tractor Supply for the supplies I’d needed earlier.
Welcoming committee.
I’m always grateful for map apps. It sure makes finding places way in the middle of the country easier. After a drive through some really pretty Milam County countryside, we found the place, conveniently labeled, as you can see from the first photo.
The Raising Chickens for Dummies book told me that coops of free-range chickens need to be cleaned out every six months to a year, and since I couldn’t remember the last time anyone cleaned it, I decided now is the time.
Much less glass is in among those rocks now.
Besides, the massacre appears to be over, egg production up, and I was thinking about enlarging the flock.
My original plan was to replace all the nest box material, but we couldn’t get any straw yesterday. So, instead I cleaned off all the roosting areas and obviously soiled bedding.
Mandi and I are probably the only people who think this is a beautiful sight. Nice smooth dirt.
Then I spent an hour raking up sticks and shards of glass in the chicken run. Y’all, there is a serious glass issue in there. Also pieces of crockery. Sara says that they’d gotten rid of all of it when they lived in the cabin next to the chickens. I’m pretty sure the next renters did, too.
A sample of the variety of debris I picked up.
As it rains and the chickens peck, more glass comes to the surface. The chickens don’t eat it, but it looks bad.
As I raked and stuffed the mess into two huge feed bags, I pondered why people of the past would just throw bottles out like that.
This is how you know I’m not from around here. It suddenly dawned on me that Elaine Laywell, who used to own this ranch when it was much bigger, told me they’d used the cabin as a hunting cabin.
Well, heck! The hunters probably sat around and lined up bottles and crocks for target practice! There’s probably hundreds more shattered bottles in there.
Thank you for your efforts! Now where’s my new cousin?
So, we’re setting a bucket outside the chicken yard, and all of us chicken caregivers will pick up a few pieces every day.
We got bedding in Rockdale today, so we will replace the old stuff tomorrow. Egg-ward and upward!
I think the James Taylor concert I went to gave me strange vibes. I got home a bit late, thanks to having to retrieve my tiny purse from a locker (only clear bags at concerts!), so that probably helped.
In his mind he’s going to Carolina. No clue where MY mind is going!
So I dreamed that my husband, Lee, and I were going to a conference or something (I always dream about conferences) and we were going to join our friend, Jennifer Swan, there.
When we arrived, we startled her on the balcony of the hotel room, in the embrace of a man. We were surprised to see it wasn’t her husband, but a larger fellow with an interesting cheesy skin tone.
They both looked at us guiltily. We can’t help ourselves. It just happened!
Lee and I just looked at each other and went along with it. “Just call me Don,” said Jen’s new beau.
Lee can’t believe Jennifer’s behavior.
The dream proceeded along with “Don” being funny, generous, and gracious. “All that other stuff is just an act,” he confided over a glass of wine.
Later, we each slept in separate beds, with Don serving coffee in the morning. Jen kept giggling happily. I kept saying, “He’s so nice!”As we stepped outside into the morning, I had a question for Don. Then I spotted a perturbed looking man in a dark suit.
That’s it! Where have all the Secret Service people been? “Hee hee, I ditch them all the time!” the Current President of the USA said.
Maybe it was something I ate.
Strange dream. This is the second or third time I’ve dreamed of that fellow being a perfectly nice guy. What is my mind trying to tell me? Don’t analyze this dream!
No matter what your political beliefs are, this has to make you chuckle.
A couple of things lead me to today’s post. First, the combination of Valentine’s Day and the Parkland shooting combine in a weird way to remind all of us to treasure our loved ones, tell them and show them how much we care, and to help out our friends facing mental health challenges (and thereby keep our schools, workplaces, and gathering spots safe).
And you, and you.
Second, there have been some big ole challenges (not blog-eligible) in my personal circle lately, so I have had to be the one to reach out for support while also giving it. I’ve talked to friends from far away (this means YOU friends and family in Michigan and North Carolina) and near. Yesterday, after spilling my guts in a blog post that I didn’t actually post, I found myself repeatedly telling a small group of friends, ranging from young adults to people my age that I loved them. My heart was so full from the support we were giving each other.
And that’s a key to happiness, friends, at least according to Gretchen Rubin, of the Happiness Project: having close relationships. Here’s what she said in her online newsletter yesterday:
Appreciation for important relationships is important for all bonds, not just romance. We need close, long-term relationships of all kinds. We need to be able to confide, and we need to belong. In fact, people who claim to have at least five friends with whom they can discuss important problems are 60% more likely to describe themselves as “very happy.”
Gretchen Rubin – click to subscribe to her newsletter
My close circle of friends in Austin includes people from my church, who I rarely see anymore, friends I’ve met through my kids, work friends, wise counselors, and neighbors. In Cameron I have our little “community” out in Walker’s Creek by the ranch. And online I have a couple of close communities who support each other. They are all important to me. Even when I’m not saying anything, I’m thinking about so many people and sending good thoughts their way (like many of you would do in your prayers).
I added this one just because it made me cringe. I almost spelled you’re wrong yesterday, myself. I know my dear friends would forgive me.
I need to say it more, like I’ve been doing this week. Knowing you all are there helps keep me going, no matter what. You have my back. I have yours.
Everybody: use today as an excuse to tell your support network how much they mean to you. Pick a few to say something specific to. That’s my plan for today. And days to come.
Let’s tell people we care about how much we do care! Every day.
Today I have to renew my driver license. Ah, the humanity. Of course I got gasoline on my hand while filling up. I’ll have to wash my hands again! Ugh.
Nice floor. I guess.
Interesting thing. The Spanish speaking line moves fastest. Bilingual friends, remember this.
There is a faster and newer place to go, but no, I always go to the one near work. I am glad I have my Wordscapes game to entertain me. I’ll be here a while.
PS
It only took an hour. I still don’t need glasses to drive! However, I am definitely older and more rounded in the new photo. Least of my worries though.
I’ve seen bluebonnets on the side of MoPac this week. I heard they are way early. But flowers are supposed to make me happier, not worry about global warming.
Old-fashioned single camellia in Clute
So. Hooray for the camellia blossoms I saw last weekend that reminded me of home and my mom. She hybridized them. She had so many issues, messed up so much, but she was my mom and loved me.
Not quite open yet.
The Hoya plant reminds me of the year I contract worked at 3M. Nobody really talked to me in my department, but I got to have lunch with my friends Bill and Scott sometimes. And that plant bloomed and bloomed. It’s still going.
There’s stuff going on in my family, stuff going on with friends, stuff and more stuff. Ah, but even grocery store flowers remind me that we retreat and rebloom in cycles. Good times will come and the flowers will bloom again.
Hug a friend. I’ll try to write something more profound or fascinating next time.
First of all, I’d like to sincerely thank all of you who have said such kind and supportive things to Mandi after yesterday’s post about Sweetie. I know she feels the love from all of you. And I mean ALL of you. Her post and the one about Brody getting hurt are the two most-read posts since I started this blog. Close behind came dead chickens. Hmm. I sense a theme.
I feel lots better when sitting on Daddy. Harvey is being good, though.
So, here you go, something on both injured dogs AND dead chickens. Something for everybody, huh?
I guess you can tell from my tone that this isn’t all that horrible. Like Mandi said yesterday, when you live out in the country, you see life and death every day. I think it gets you a better perspective; we all are going to go sometime, for some reason, so let’s appreciate what we have now. Platitudes, maybe, but true.
Chickens can be funny
We did have another chicken loss this week. It was really hot, then really cold, and I guess if a chicken had to die of natural causes, the cold time is probably better. Poor little Ameracauna was just sitting on her nest. Sara thinks she was eggbound or had some other issue. At least nothing ate her, and it was peaceful. Poor dear.
For only having nine hens now, we are still getting lots of colors. And the pinkish one in the middle is HUGE.
I mentioned that the egg production had ramped up, but it had settled to four a day, which isn’t many for the number of chickens we had. As we were dealing with the dead chicken, Tyler, who lives in the cabin by the coop, came out. I said feel free to take a few eggs now, since we have enough for at least our community. He said, “Oh, I’ve been finding them in a weird place lately…oh my gosh!” He had turned to the shelves outside his door and found SEVEN eggs from a brown hen on the top shelf. Someone found a nice, warm roost. So, yesterday, everybody got some eggs!
Country life is a special and different kind of life. It is even more important out in the country to form bonds with neighbors and their animals, in case an emergency ever happens. Country life does have some rules that are sometimes very heartbreaking for the families that have to abide by them. My family is one of those families.
Sleepy Maggie
I am, by all accounts, an animal lover. All of them. Even skunks. I believe they all have their own beauty to share. The most special animals in my life are my dogs. We operate by pack law, and it serves us well. We have a big collie named Sarge, a “hefty” husky/collie named Wink, a little furry Pomeranian/Yorkie named Sully, and a tiny piebald dachshund/Chihuahua named Maggie. We adopted a beautiful new dog that was a dalmatian mix named Sweetie.
Fuzzy Sully
The
four other dogs get along rather harmoniously. They don’t fight or get physical
with each other. They will growl over who gets to sleep on which blanket, but
they are called off easily. Sarge and Wink are a protective team. They have
been taught to work together to neutralize a threat by command, or by
recognition. Sully was bottle raised from 3 days old by me after his mother
became sick and passed unexpectedly. Maggie came to me from a cousin of mine.
They are not trained like Sarge and Wink.
King Sarge
We
brought 2 year old Sweetie into the pack, and I had very high hopes of her
joining in the ranks of Wink and Sarge (who are 7 and 8 respectively). Sweetie
seemed like a great fit, and then things turned south. But I want to include
pictures of what she was like before that happened to really capture who she
truly was before the trauma surfaced and took over her mind.
We have no idea what her life was like for the two years before we had her. She was named very well with her personality. She was an astounding cuddler, and loved the kids. She often slept with my two younger kids, as a matter of fact. She got along very well with the other dogs, the cat, and loved her big yard.
Wink, with Patsy Catsy
One day she started getting out of the yard and chasing cows, sheep, and anything else she could find. We worked on making the fence more secure, but it just never seemed to work.
Then that escalated. She attacked Maggie unprovoked. It didn’t leave serious injuries, so I let that slide as a bad day. Then it happened again.
The third time was really bad. Maggie came out of it with no permanent damage, but Sweetie threatened the kids (the same ones you see her cuddling in the pictures) that time as well. Sarge and Wink did their jobs and protected Maggie and the boys. Sweetie had to be locked up in the house and isolated to assure that she wouldn’t hurt anyone. That’s no life at all.
Sweetie with her sleeping buddy
At
some point in her life, she suffered trauma that caused her to just snap. She
was then unpredictable and dangerous. We only had one choice. To take her to
see the vet. February 7th, 2019 I laid on the warm, green grass with Sweetie
(who had to be muzzled for behavior there) and held her, and cried so hard that
I thought for sure I would vomit. Her trusting eyes had looked to me to be
protected, and trusted me fully. I felt like I was plotting her murder behind
her back.
Happy days
The night before she had meat lover’s pizza and chicken wings. I felt like I was the worst person on the face of the planet for not being able to fix this with her. My heart is broken. I took every bit of strength I could muster to tell the vet what had happened, ask about alternatives, then make the final call that I knew had to be made for her own peace. So many people I talked to who are professionals with dogs reassured me that this was the right thing, the only real choice, and most humane thing for her.
Peekaboo
The alternatives of her being hit by a car, or a neighbor shooting her and missing so she suffers, another animal injuring her, Wink and Sarge having to gang up on her 2-1 to protect us, were something that I couldn’t allow her the chance of having to go through. She died next to someone that loved her, who held her, who cried for her, who apologized for whatever had happened to her, and who wished beyond wishes that we were anywhere but there at that moment.
We loved her.
I’m
so heartbroken, and so angry that someone hurt her in such a way that made an
innocent life have to be cut so short. All sorts of mean things against whoever
did that have run through my head. But the main thing I have thought was,
“There. I cleaned up your mess for you. I broke my own heart to bring peace to
hers that you had broken so badly.”
I
wanted to scream “STOP!” when her heart rate and breathing rapidly declined.
She was very heavily sedated before the bad shot came. I just kept saying, “I’m
sorry.” over and over again until the vet told me it was over.
This
isn’t a nice, warm, fuzzy, funny post that we usually try to make. This is a
real life post of what happens when someone is an irresponsible pet owner.
Sweetie’s mother and father were allowed to have a litter of puppies that were
unwanted. Those puppies were given away, and at least one of them was abused,
then tossed on the street to starve. This is the reality of allowing puppies to
be born that you do not want. There is someone like me whose heart is breaking
over making the choice to have a dog put to sleep because someone else made a
bad choice and was not responsible.
Sweetie
stole my heart, and she deserved to grow old with me. She deserved to watch the
boys grow up and meet grandkids to play with one day. She deserved a full,
healthy, happy life with us. She is now at peace under the tree with Ricci (my
old mare who passed in ’17) and my mom’s little dog (also a rescue who lived to
be 18 years old). She belongs under that tree. No matter what man made faults
she had, she was my good girl.
I’ve seen bluebonnets on the side of MoPac this week. I heard they are way early. But flowers are supposed to make me happier, not worry about global warming.
There’s stuff going on in my family, stuff going on with friends, stuff and more stuff. Ah, but even grocery store flowers remind me that we retreat and rebloom in cycles. Good times will come and the flowers will bloom again.
The Hermits' Rest 