A Photo About Loss

Had a good cry this morning seeing Teddy's empty apartment while feeding the sheep. I'm in a funk. I know she was frustrated by her physical limitations and now she is free.

A tiny kitten appeared in the carport when I got back from the vet's as if there was a vacancy sign. Maybe I can train it to eat the field mice in the pumpkin patch so I don't attract any more foxes.

This is a photo I took of Crow Poison, Nothoscordum bivalve, and altered through digital manipulation. I turned the white flowers black to show how I will miss Teddy Bird's presence.

Speaking of crows, I read an interesting article yesterday about how a UK study proved crows rival chimpanzees in their intelligence. Although these birds in the wild don't make tools, the captive crows were taught to use them in order to get their food, and when the tools were taken away, developed their own tools to do the same tasks.

Not only do animals have the capacity for love and life enjoyment, they are also a lot smarter than given credit.

Teddy Bird

This morning I discovered our disabled hen, Teddy Bird, had passed. As much as I would like to bury her, I feel I need to send her off for a necropsy to better understand what paralyzed her in the first place and what ended her life.

She was not in pain or visibly sick. In fact, she had a great appetite. She'd slipped during the torrential downpour the other day (usually she stayed under the covered portion when it rained) and I brought her in for a warm bath and blow dry. She was back to her normal self the next day.

You may recall, Teddy made a miraculous recovery to a shuffle-walk back in October last year, after months of physical therapy on my part. We converted the chicken tractor into her home by putting a floor on it and raising it up on legs. I checked on her needs every couple hours, and she would always purr the "I love you" sound and I would purr back. I have probably spent more time with this chicken than any of the others.

She will be greatly missed.

I Am the Crazy Chicken Lady!

I should mention that--in case you are following along on the coop construction and are considering building one yourself--neither of us has constructed a structure out of wood this size before. In college I took architectural construction courses--which is to say I have a lot of book sense without much practical application and Farmer Rick was a City Boy in a previous life and has admirably worked his way up from building our chicken tractor a couple years ago.


(If you are unfamiliar with chicken tractors you should google the term). This one has since had a floor installed to become the Chickens With Disabilities Unit, namely Teddy Bird's house. The book we have found most helpful in our building process is Building a Shed: Siting and Planning a Shed, Building Shed Foundations, Adding Custom Details (Build Like a Pro Series) from Taunton Press. It's very well illustrated and written for the layperson. We bought several books on coop design first but they were not detailed enough for actual construction.

OK, so we've underestimated how long it will take to build the coop. We were certainly not expecting a week of rain after being in a drought. Or that these chicks would grow faster than our previous ones. So, I've had to do a little ahem redecorating...(if you are terribly fastidious and tidy, you'd best close this post ASAP!)...





Truthfully, I have disliked this bathroom since the day we met. For one, the tile job (very unprofessional) goes right over the window and blocks the handle! I removed a sliding glass tub door because I could never keep the lime off it and it made the room--which is twice as long as what you see--even narrower. Because the room was carved out of an old post office, the pipes are on top of the floor! The electrical outlets are really extension cords from other rooms. I even had to remove a phone jack for goodness sake! This room is going to be entirely remodeled even if I have to take the Sawzall to it!

The Crazy Sheep Lady once told me something had to be really wrong before she'd have chickens in her house. However, the Crazy Sheep Lady has sheep in her house. That must make me the Crazy Chicken Lady. (Fortunately, we do have our own bathroom).

So now the race is on! Will Farmer Rick finish the new coop before the chickens spill into my studio? Stay tuned!

And You Thought Your Job Was Tough

Today in cleaning out Teddy Bird's house (the Chickens With Disabilities Unit) I noticed I had some helpers in keeping things tidy.



These dung beetles are known as "rollers" (as opposed to "tunnelers" and "dwellers") as this is what they do with their treasure. Dung beetles can roll up to 50 times their weight. By consuming and burying dung, they keep the ground clean around our animals, and help fertilize the soil, thus helping out the garden. They also provide an excellent model for determination!