Wherein I Am Not a Farmer

Something startling and rather amazing happened this weekend: When Mal and I were in the back yard enjoying the cool fall day, a hawk swooped down and tried to grab one of our chickens. I don't know which one, because they scattered. The hawk almost ran into the corner of the back fence, made a swoop, and took a half-hearted second attempt as it flew into the trees behind our yard. It had basically managed to separate AW from the others, but couldn't actually connect.

Because I'm bad, I'm bad. You know it.

D gets really nervous when we have near-misses and scares like this, and wants to build a run, for which we have neither the money nor the expertise to do without much cash. Also, as I might have mentioned, they've been just wandering everywhere.

Now that there are construction crews around, the chickens hear talking and are like, "Hey, what's up? You got snacks?" so they have ended up helping one of our neighbors eliminate an over-abundance of crickets. But there are two new houses being built across the streets where we are on a corner, and I know the new neighbors will not want fowl pulling leaves and tiny flowers off of their as-yet-hypothetical new landscaping.

I was pretty stressed about it last week, but we'd kind of settled in to getting the chickens back behind the house when they venture forth. And then this morning, James heard a guy yelling at his dog, and saw our chickens run through the back yard and into the front side yard. James is on crutches and in a boot because a foot issue he has is acting up, so I went outside to get the birds back in the yard. There were only four. Greybeard was not among them.

This is a very derpy picture of an extremely regal bird.

I went around "back" back and didn't see hide nor feather of her. I checked a few times, and she hadn't joined the others. So, as much as I HATE confrontation (preferring to vent here about stuff), I went over to the house across our side street and asked the guy working on the foundation, "Hey, you've been here all morning. Did you see a dog get one of our chickens? It's missing." The guy looked like I'd just punched him in the gut. He felt SO bad. He said that his dog had gotten back into our forest and that he didn't think the dog could have gotten the chicken because it's just a pup, but he promised to replace it (since they're pets and not livestock for us, that doesn't really work) and to look for the bird before he left for the day. I don't know whether he did or not, because we got out for a while and he was gone by the time we returned.

In the meantime, I contacted the lady from whom we'd gotten the chickens when they were babes and asked if she ever took birds back. She was lovely, and agreed to find a VERY safe place to put them. She has a hoop run with 8 pullets and 4 silkies. So we're going to take the chickens back to her so we know they'll live long and prosperous lives. It's been fun having them, and we'll be sad to see them go. But we agree that their living is the priority.

AND for a happy update to this story: this evening, I went out back to call for Greybeard again, just in case she was hiding and wanted to come home to roost. I kept hearing something crashing far in the back of the property, but I kind of had the same experience when we lost Halfy. I kept calling, though, and when the crashing would stop, I'd walk closer to the fence and call again. I kept hearing it. Finally, I saw that sweet hippogriff-looking head in the foliage on the opposite side of the grotto. I opened the gate so the other birds would walk through and be visible, and as Greybeard came up out of the dense tree cover, I could see that she's none the worse for wear. SUCH a relief. 

Greybeard returns!

So. We never got eggs. We lost one chicken. And we had some scares along the way. But we've laughed so much and had such a great time with these babies. I'm glad to know that they'll be able to live long and prosper on the opposite end of 1431.