Coyotes

It was Tuesday, my husband and I had let the chickens into the yard, fed them, the dogs, the cat and ourselves, and he had just left with our older German Shepherd for a trip down to the city to return some items at the store, which was about 30 miles away. Having time to myself, I had our younger dog, Suzy, who looks like a small Doberman but mixed with something else, in the house with me while I sorted through paperwork and goofed off on the computer.

Both dogs know that when the chickens make a certain type of noise, I bolt out of my chair and run for the deck to see what's wrong. It's an alarm call the chickens make and the dogs now alert bark when they do it because they know I respond to it.

Suzy heard the birds before I did. She alert barked, I bolted for the deck and then we both saw the coyote standing on the opposite side of the chicken yard scaring the birds on the inside. The chicken yard is a massive affair at least 75 feet wide and easily 20 feet deep. It stands about 40 feet downhill from the house which means the coyote was close to 60 if not 70 feet from the back deck which is 20 feet up in the air.

Taking it upon herself, Suzy tore down the steps before I could stop her and ran towards the coyote barking and prepared to chase. Fortunately for her, the coyote gave up his prey easily and turned to run through the brush and trees towards our pond and then the neighbors heavily brushed property. He/she was joined by a second coyote I had not seen, flushed out by Suzy and she managed to chase both of them off as I whistled for her to come back before they turned and attacked her.

She responded after the coyote were off the property and came back to the house where she was rewarded with a cookie. However we were both too pumped with adrenaline to go back inside so we put up a guard on the deck while I called my husband to find out how and where his rifles were. He didn't respond because his phone was dead so I called his hunting buddy and asked how to fire a .22 guage rifle because that's the one that was readily available. Guns are not the same, this rifle was much older than many newer ones and did not operate the same way. I set it aside being familiar enough with weaponry to know that if you can't figure it out, guns are not something to be messed with. Never fingering the trigger I hoped I looked menacing to the coyotes.

My husband came home and the next day took me out to suggest options in riflery for what I had in mind. We went out on the back deck, put the dogs inside, and had demo lessons in operating the .22 which we did not shoot because it is such a powerful and deadly gun, and the shotgun, which he did allow me to shoot because the BBs can wound up close but only sting at a distance (so he explained). There was talk between him and his hunting buddy of filling the loads with corn starch to lessen the kick of the rifles but that's not what I shot off. Demonstrating the checking of chambers, safety mechanisms, pump action, and loading techniques, he chambered a round, directed my aim down the hill (away from the chickens) and told me to fire. I was aiming for an open space between an oak and a pine tree. The rifle kicked as I pulled the trigger and a small branch was amputated from an oak tree. I told him I wasn't aiming for the oak tree, he explained firing patterns for buckshot. We both looked up and circling overhead we counted 30 buzzards in flight. They roost in our pine trees, the loud return from the rifle caused them to take flight. I had no idea we had so many buzzards.

He went on to explain that while he was gone for 2 weeks he felt I'd be better off with the shotgun since if I shot the coyote what would I do with the carcass. I was watching the buzzards and pointed up. "They could probably take care of it." I suggested.

He got a concerned expression in his eyes, "I'm more worried about you shooting one of the dogs accidentally."

That sobered me up. Good point. I eyed the gun, heard the whining of our German Shepherd who does not like gun fire (a neighbor up the hill shoots practice loads into the hillside and she cowers when he does). "Real good point."

"What about an air horn?" I asked. "Wouldn't that accomplish the same thing?"

My husband was busy ejecting loads, emptying chambers and clearing his rifle. He shrugged.

"You might spook them."

When my father-in-law came home from traveling, a retired shipwright, I told him about the coyotes and asked him if he knew where I could find an airhorn. He explained that it's a Coast Guard requirement to have a horn of some kind on your vessels so I might try a boat shop.

I live near 3 lakes, over one hundred miles from the ocean, I didn't think the people on the boats up here minded Maritime Law much. I asked where I might find a boat shop with those kinds of supplies and he said that since I work in a county close to inland harbors, I should try a boat shop there. I had also heard of kids saying they used them as horns in their cars so maybe WalMart had them in their auto section.

My husband left his shotgun accessible and it was nice to know that if the coyotes didn't scare easily with the air horn I could at least drag it out and sting their pelts a little.

I thought I heard a buzzard say go for the .22 since dead meat was dead meat and he wasn't picky...coyote, dog, chicken...

Haven't seen the buzzards up in the trees since firing the shotgun. But then they've predicted a bad wind storm so maybe they've vacated for rockier, sturdier perches.

Buddha and Sierra

Buddha and Sierra
Or How We Helped A Half Blind Pit Bull and His Seeing Chihuahua Find Home

My husband was up before I was, having rescued my sleep from the interruptions of our two shepherds. However, it was a short-lived rescue since the dogs were put out to do their morning ritual on our rural hillside home and acting as a pack had flanked two stray dogs that had wandered into our yard. Barking warnings, their alarm foiled any last vestiges of sleep I could hang onto and I reluctantly relinquished the wisps of dreams as said dream chasers were placed, indignantly, back into the house still barking their warnings leaving me to wonder what they were barking at and where was my husband?

I heard the door to the house open, hushing commands uttered softly, which if I wasn’t so sleepy I would have mocked, and then the door opened again as my dogs picked up the alarm with additional agitation

The visitors, as it turned out, were dogs. Two to be exact I noted with some alarm that one was a Pit Bull that was carrying a withered looking left leg. My husband was talking to it softly, extending a hand and gaining the dogs trust. My first instinct would have been to lock the door and call animal control. As I watched I saw my husband gently taking the paw of the dog and wrapping it in gauze, the self-sticking kind that surgeons use for stitches, a leftover from an injury he had suffered. The dog stood panting letting his paw be wrapped and then I heard my husband asking about cookies and saw, through the window, him putting dog cookies down. A very small, very large eared, Chihuahua type of dog appeared attempting to smell the cookie meant for a larger dog. The Chihuahua was nervous and flighty, prancing and dancing around the Pit Bull but not barking and never going far from him as he allowed my husband to scratch his head and pet his side.

After my husband was done with the bandaging I cautiously stepped out of the front door onto our front patio overlooking the yard and he called to me softly saying he wanted me to write down some phone numbers from the dog’s tag. Living in a rural area we often see wandering deer, Coyote, fox, and even had a herd of goats run down the street; so having stray dogs appear was not unusual and having two of our own we tried to get them back to their owners, normally. Ascertaining that the pit bull wasn’t going to lunge for my husband’s throat, I sat down on our patio loveseat (with a table and patio rail between us) while my husband informed me that the dog was bleeding, the leg had been injured a long time ago from what he could tell, and one eye was completely missing while the remaining one had a cataract developing on it. The Chihuahua, less trusting than the Pit Bull, but obviously well fed and cared for, edged up to me, then ran away watching me while my husband read the tags from the dog and I wrote them down. Neither tag on the large dog supplied us a name or phone number for the owner but gave us the vet and animal control, which concerned me because the dog was well cared for and I didn’t want to have to call animal control to take him away.

The Chihuahua had tags also, I noted as she sidled up to me curiously, and I thought one looked suspiciously like an ID tag, the trick was going to be getting her to trust us enough to let us look at them. I moved to the steps of our patio walkway and sat down on them allowing the dogs to become comfortable with me, knowing the Chihuahua would respond better if I didn't reach out and grab her or try to pet her. I still wasn’t comfortable with the Pit Bull but he was the one who came up and nuzzled me wanting attention first. When I started to scratch him the Chihuahua came up and I began scratching her also. Dogs being dogs most of them love to have the section on their back hips, above their tails scratched, and the Chihuahua wasn’t any different. Scratching her, you could almost see her smile as her back legs danced and skittered stopping only when I paused the scratching. After a little more dancing she let me look at her tag and I found her name and phone number on it

“Her name is Sierra,” I said as if that was such a good thing for her to be named and I recited her phone number. Immediately my husband dialed the number, which was answered just as quickly. Roughly an hour had passed since we had found the dogs, an hour filled with frustration at trying to find identification, or a number to call; an hour of wondering if we would be able to get through at the vet and whether he would have the records and whether we could find the owners.

“Yes,” my husband was saying, “he’s here, too, but his foot is bleeding.”

So both dogs did belong to one person.

I heard my husband tell her the Pit Bull was injured, which we had addressed, and then heard him give directions to our house. An area the owner was unfamiliar with but only a mile away.

As the dogs waited, having received water and some kibble, the Pit Bull, tiring, went up to the front door stoop and laid down on the door mat/ Sheltered from the bright rising sun and comfortable on the mat the exhaustion was evident in his features. I was surprised to see Sierra go up to the massive dog and lick his ear, a custom my dogs followed as well. Wagging her tail, she continued to lick and the Pit Bull leaned his large head over to her more, which caused her to wag more furiously. I was mesmerized by the interplay and had to smile at the contrast of this reputably vicious dog accepting the attention of what could easily have been a snack. It was as though Sierra was communicating that all would be well. They would be going home soon, because the Chihuahua began to pace from the opening of the patio where she could watch the road and driveway, back to the Pit Bull and making sure he was okay, sniffing his foot and his nose.

Because I continued to sit on the steps from the curved driveway, I was able to observe the interaction between the Chihuahua and the Pit Bull without obstruction

A neighbor’s truck went by which caused the Chihuahua to perk up and stand still at the entrance as though wondering “is that them?”

She went back to the Pit Bull still laying on the mat then immediately a second truck was heard coming up the normally quiet street. The sound caused the Chihuahua to come back to the patio entrance and hesitantly wag her tail as she stood at the opening

My husband had explained while we were waiting that the owners lived a mile down the hill from us, she and her husband had been up all night looking for the dogs who had chased after a herd of deer that had run through their backyard. Caught up in the chase they determined that the dogs must’ve simply got lost and wandered onto our property or followed the deer path through our property and were trying to find their way back home.

A woman’s voice could be heard calling for Sierra, a truck having pulled into our driveway, and the Chihuahua, with a burst of energy hurtled our two-foot retaining wall onto the driveway to greet what had to have been her Mom. The woman approached and on seeing her Pit Bull laying on the mat was happy to see that he was okay.

The dog didn't get up except after a lot of coaxing, his movements slow reflecting his tiredness. He approached her with an expression of relief, slowly wagging his tail. But in confusion he looked from me to her and then leaned against me.

In doggy language, as my former Labrador had trained me, this means a hug. The owner explained that the Pit Bull, whose name was Buddha Boy, had been run over several years before, lost his eye, lost the use of his leg which the doctors did not amputate because he still relied on it for balance, and was going blind in the other eye due to a cataract. The animals had disappeared and they had been frantic all night searching for them. She acknowledged that people don't normally approach the Pit Bull and the Chihuahua is very skittish, so she was surprised and relieved that we had been able to find her number, especially since the Pit Bull didn't have his tag on. An accident she was going to quickly remedy since dogs tend to lose tags every once in a while.

After helping a reluctant Buddha Boy get around the truck to leave (the cataracts intensified the early morning sun glare and blinded him completely) he recognized the smell of home and eagerly climbed into the cab

It was a relief to find Buddha Boy's owners and know that here was a beautiful animal despite his scars and his breed’s reputation had a loving home and had such a wonderful buddy, in the form of an attentive Chihuahua, who despite her own fears and reluctance stayed by his side and ended up helping him and them to find their way home.

Wile E. Coyote

Introduction: My husband and I were both born and raised in suburbia. We raised our son in suburbia. As we approached midlife we decided to slow our pace down by moving to the country. We’ve had a goat, but it was stolen. We are learning how to raise chickens and sharing the laughter of the learning process. This is our latest misadventure.

Wile E. Coyote

I walk around shell-shocked.

Three weeks ago I lost my 14-pound Black Jersey Giant rooster, Elvis, to a daylight attack by coyote, fox, or dog (not mine). That morning I had just sold at auction four roosters of Bantam mixes that I didn't want. I was now down to one rooster. I looked at my flock of 22 Black Giant hens that were to be bred to Elvis and wanted to cry. My remaining rooster was a hen-pecked, Americana mix that had a tail protruding from his plucked rump resembling an old feather duster. I sighed. I wanted Elvis…but so did the wildlife.

It being August, most hatcheries were stopping their shipments of baby birds. I found one hatchery in Missouri who was still shipping in what is called "Straight Run" or "non-sexed" assortments. This means a mix of unspecified proportions of male and female. But they called back within a day and said "no more this year".

What was I going to do with 22 Black Jersey Giant hens? Besides sell their eggs?

I wanted a rooster, but everyone was settling in for the winter and not really selling their stock or what they had, had already been sold. I found a hatchery in Florida that was auctioning off a batch of 25 straight run Black Jersey Giant chicks. Going directly to the seller I ordered a batch and was notified they would email me when the order was shipped. I looked at my yard full of chickens and asked myself, “What am I going to do with 25 more chickens?” Buyer’s remorse was setting in.

On the following Monday we received a phone call telling us that a shipment of chicks was waiting for us at the post office. No email had been sent. We were in some shock. We already had some 2 month old Australorps in the brooders so it was just a matter of adding a second water dish and more food dishes. I sighed. I was internally battling myself over the need for a rooster and having to spend 6 months raising these birds to see if we got one. Looking at the baby chicks I asked myself why did I need a rooster? For more chicks? The chicks peeped and fell over on their faces, jumped and pecked at the walls of their bin.

Hah! I resigned myself to raising more chicks.

Friday morning around 2 am I heard strange noises outside the bathroom window. It was a barking/grunting noise that sounded like barking squirrels...foxes? coyotes? I flashed a light towards the chicken runs from my bedroom window. (Yeah, those roosters woke us up in the morning!) All the doors were secure. I shined it towards the dog run where we had some juvenile hens safely locked away. No big bodies in there, gate was secured. Maybe it was just gophers destroying my vegetable garden. Bastards. I wasn't going out at 2 in the morning to shoo them away, and I wasn't going to wake my husband up who had his first job in several months scheduled early the next morning. I lay down and went back to sleep.

The next morning as the crew arrived to load up trucks I awoke with thoughts of the previous night's noises on my mind. I needed to investigate who had been up to what before my husband left in case there was something freaky I would need him to fix or pursue (broken garden fencing, gophers sticking their tongues out at me, dead deer carcasses...)

Outside my bathroom window was a pile of feathers.

Uh-oh.

My husband had let the chickens out already and I went to the kennel where the five juveniles were. I counted only four.

I made my way to the crew who were in the front yard and heard my husband who had cut through the house in the back yard. I turned around and joined him there as he looked in the kennel.

"Where's the Rhode Island Red?" I asked referring to one of our adolescent pullets. I suspected where she was, I was in denial about where she was, I was hoping he’d seen her somewhere else.

He said she usually finds a way out of the kennel and then comes back in the morning.

My heart fell into my toes. I indicated he should follow me and pointed to the pile of feathers by our bathroom window. He frowned and indicated across the yard where more feathers were. I told him about the noises I'd heard last night. He frowned and said it didn't look like the Rhode Island's feather color, this must be a separate bird he concluded.

We then proceeded to the vegetable garden, a short distance away from the pin feather incrimination, only to find that our carefully constructed gopher proof vegetable box had indeed been raided by a gopher...or a vole. Bastards!

The watermelon that was growing on the vine was fine but the gophers had attacked the vine and my husband pulled up the gray limp plant. I brought the watermelon in to ripen it.

An hour later, after my husband had left, I received a call from my mail carrier. "We have 25 baby chicks here for you."

This is when the numbness set in. "You do?" I croaked.

"You sound surprised. Were you expecting them?" She asked pleasantly.

"No." I answered still feeling numb. I looked in the garage where my batch of 24 (2 died within a day of arriving) chicks were cheeping and eating and sleeping.

"Well, it's best if you come down and pick them up." She advised.

"Okay." I respond meekly.

My state of mind was so distracted that I left the house with the dogs still outside, which I never do because they go right under fencing and are basically loose. I went straight to the jobsite where my husband was working, only to see him drive by me in his truck, loaded down with construction debris. He waved, I stuttered, and he kept going.

I managed to track him to the local gas station where he came up to me as I got out of the car and asked "what's wrong?"

I guess my puzzled expression and blank face was a give away.

I actually had difficulty telling him that there were 25 baby chicks waiting for me to pick up at the post office. I couldn't even think how funny a situation this was. Once I got it out he looked at me blankly. "25?"

I nodded. Or I think I nodded, maybe I said yes, it doesn't matter. Animal lover that he is he said, "well you can't leave them there, they'll die. Better pick them up."

He also advised me to get another waterer, feeder, and bin to hold them all. Maybe the feed store would know what to do with them.

I went to the post office, picked up the loudly cheeping birds, and turned to leave. People in the post office smiled at me saying "we know what you've got, baby chicks how cute!" and one old man said, "They still ship those that way? We used to use baby chicks as bait for sharks." He smiled fondly at the memory. I asked "what kind of sharks?"

"Sand sharks" and he explained the process for tying the chick onto the line which in my numbness went in one ear and out the other.

"Isn't that nice?" I mumbled as more people paused to admire my cheeping box.

A woman called from across the parking lot "I know what you have!"

I said, "Would you like to buy some?"

She asked what kind and I answered "an accidental double shipment of Black Jersey Giants."

Her eyebrows rose. "Accidental? Aren't they cute!"

She laughed; I smiled carrying my box to my car.

The feed store explained to me that they couldn't sell chicks in their store due to health concerns and chicken diseases but if we wanted to hang flyers they would be more than happy to help us place some and did I want some chick food?

I walked away from there with a new feeder, a new waterer, a new chick bin, and went home. I didn't bother with a bag of chick food, since I had some at home.

I unpacked and looked at my 50 baby chicks and didn't see the bouncing cute puff balls that they were but the large birds they would become, examples of which were in my poultry yard clucking away right now. Twenty-two of them.

Two separate people had said that with the coyote attacks and the large number of birds I already have that I'm sponsoring wildlife "all you can eat buffet".

I'm still feeling a little numb.

That night after realizing the Rhode Island Red was definitely gone (the Coyote must've eaten the evidential red feathers) we moved the kennelled adolescent birds to the solid chicken houses.

That night when the coyote came he dug up my other watermelon and my cucumber plant.

I haven’t seen anymore gopher mounds in my vegetable garden.

The next night my young dog decided to pursue an interesting new smell. Believing she and my shepherd could chase off the coyote, and that they must need to go out for personal reasons, I let them out. After several washings at 10:30 at night she still has a trace of skunk smell on her face.

It takes 24 hours for a skunk to recover enough scent to spray again. I heard a coyote off in the distance causing the neighbor dogs to sound the alarm. I thought I knew what the coyote would be eating for dinner that night. I almost felt sorry for the skunk.

Life's perspectives

What do you find to laugh about? I’ve been asked. How can you find the world funny? What are you hiding from? Or why do you refuse to see the world more seriously? If I had a nickel for every time somebody had asked me that question, I’d not be wondering how I’m going to afford my next mortgage payment.

Is it faith, then? Is your spiritual belief so strong? They disavow themselves of that notion upon hearing me describe myself as a straddling Catholic, one foot in the door, the other out.

But perhaps we need to re-evaluate that which I call faith first. In a long-standing battle I have harbored the notion that faith is a belief, not a belief system. On one of my many “discussions” with the Lord I’ve told him that the notions of the current faith systems being utilized today are sadly lacking. Of course the Lord laughs and asks, “since when did you become an expert?” It was then brought to my attention that faith systems are designed to unite people into communities. I know a few fundamentalists see church as being in the presence of God and therefore it is a perception of you and God. These are the ones who usually want to go back to having Latin said at the masses and doing ritual services verbatim as they had been done since the Vatican was established. But I digress. Faith then for me is believing that God does exist and He/She has a bizarre sense of humor.

This does not mean that I laugh in the face of suffering. By no means would I express ill will towards those who are battling the disappointment and disillusionment of life bringing pain. There is much that life endures that causes unhappiness. But in that unhappiness can also be joy.

When you look at a life and all you know of it is the misery and suffering, you ask where is the joy? Where is the light? How can this life endure in such pitying darkness? There lies the crux of the problem; there must be a struggle for the light.

I remember being in a state of anger and disappointment, I don’t remember the exact reason why, and being on the verge of tears and just feeling like I was clinging to a profound hatred. I was tired of the anger, I was tired of the disappointment and I most certainly didn’t want to cling to the hatred anymore. I was at a traffic signal, at an intersection and I remembering saying, “Lord, I don’t think this hatred thing is right. I know you preach love and forgiveness, and I don’t feel very loving or forgiving, but I certainly don’t like the feeling of anger and hatred. It’s not a very comfortable companion!” Not the chatty type, I got the impression (because voices of thunder in the clouds just don’t happen on city streets during lunch hour) that the Lord said, “So give them up?” “Well, I responded, if I don’t worry about them, they’ll do it again! I have to hold on to them so that they won’t” Then the reminder was made “the choice is yours always, hang onto the hate or let go and love.”

That battle is a daily one and applies to everything in life.

A Rooster Named Elvis

When I tell people I have a rooster named Elvis it usually causes them to hide a smile behind a hand, smirk, frown, or just ask the simple question, "why?" The obvious answer would be “because he’s black”, but the actual story is that when I brought him home and introduced him to my hens they all started doing a provocative chicken dance. They literally got all shook up.

We got Elvis because I wanted “bigger” chickens. Up until this point I had “beginner chickens” known as Banties. Banties are a self-sufficient breed of chicken, they’ll procreate with a rock. They’re fast and flighty which makes them hard for the predators to get. But they are not prolific egg layers; their eggs are categorized as “small” because they are a small bird. I didn’t have a need for bigger birds until a long time livestock owner came to the house and upon seeing my flock said, “Wow, your chickens are little!” My pride was wounded. She said it almost laughing. My birds are little? You mean there are bigger chickens out there? How big can they get? What’s the biggest breed out there? Can I have one? Do I want one? In the back of my mind I determined to get bigger birds.

It started with Buff Orpingtons. Orpingtons are a wonderful, sweet tempered, friendly, docile chicken. Unlike Banties they are bigger. Also unlike Banties they are prolific egg layers. And they are not flighty or fast. I first realized this might be a problem when I had them free ranging on the property early in the morning and noticed a German Shepherd chasing them. “Hey!” I yelled at the dog. The birds had wandered a good one hundred yards away from the dog run and house. The Orpingtons were doing a great strategy of dodge and serpentine over the open yard scattering in different directions. “Hey!” I yelled at the dog again. He finally halted and looked towards me. Something wasn’t right with his coloring—and the way he carried his tail--I realized that he wasn’t a dog. He quickly assessed me as too far away (which I was thank goodness) to be a threat and continued to try to chase the birds. In the pause of the second ‘hey’ the birds had made a mad rush for the yard and towards me half flying half running over the fence. I have two dogs. They were in the yard with me. And they did not have the scent of the Coyote and so they didn’t act protective of me towards the coyote. Not that I would want them to necessarily, but it was reassuring to have them near even if they were just looking at me after dropping a ball as if to ask “so, are you going to throw the ball or just stand there?” The coyote sauntered off realizing the prey was lost to him that morning. I realized Orpingtons don’t fly and my dogs needed to be trained better to react when I got agitated about coyotes in the yard...or maybe they're just fine because coyotes can do damage to dogs.

Everybody says “you don’t need a rooster to have a bird lay eggs”, which is true. Birds will ovulate with or without a rooster. However, after hearing the warning clucks of my Banty rooster and watching the hens dodge for cover when a big bird flew overhead, I knew that roosters did have a purpose. They protect the flock.

My Orpingtons were supposed to be Pullets (baby female chicks) but low and behold one of them turned out to be a rooster. I was comforted with the knowledge that the Banties had their rooster, and the Orpingtons had theirs. Life was good…until we got a new puppy.

We lost our Orpington rooster, then a hen as we tried to determine whether the puppy was responsible. Resorting to the tried and true farm trick of tying the carcass around the neck of the dog she was broken of any chicken killing after a week of meat bees swarming her on hot days. I needed another big rooster to protect my Orpingtons. And so we discovered the local poultry auction.

I saw an ad in the local paper about a poultry auction held at the beginning of every month and we went to check out the livestock. Among the birds I spotted a large black rooster. I asked the health department inspector who routinely checks all the birds what kind of chicken he was. She told me “a Black Giant”. Black Giants are also known as Jersey Giants. They are one of the largest breeds of domestic chickens, I had read somewhere. Larger breeds are descended from the Jungle fowl of Indonesia, but that’s another story. An adolescent, this rooster was just starting to crow and although he wasn’t full-grown yet, he was big and had already had his spurs clipped once. My eyes greedily took in his massive size and I thought, “Nobody will call my birds little again!” I shelled out $7 for him and took him home and a few other birds to my girls.

When we brought the big black rooster home we had to put him in the chicken run along with a Bar Rock and some Buffs. When my Orpingtons heard him clucking they came running and started shimmying and twitching their tail feathers. These girls liked him, they really liked him. That’s when we decided to name him Elvis. Sleek black feathers, a crooning cluck that brought the girls running, and a cute rooster dance that just had them swooning to the ground in hen delight. Elvis would eventually be king of my roost.

Chicken west side story (a chicken ballet)

The scene opens panning over trees, grass, across a pond surface, up a slope and in the distance we hear a rooster crow! A short hesitation and there is an answering crow. It's early morning, the sun hasn't even peeked over the horizon and the rooster crows again, followed by a quick response. It's early morning in the chicken yard. Dew glistens on the wire fencing. Across one coop, in chicken, is sprayed the word "JETS", across another... "SHARKS". And a rooster crows.

Chickens!

July 2, 2007

It began as a simple quest to acquire four hens to offset the cost of eggs, which in our neck of the woods range from about $2.50 a dozen. I hear squawking, and it’s not from the hen yard. Yes, eggs are outrageous up here in the country, so we took advantage of our agricultural land and got chickens. And what an adventure that was. My husband, Gary, had been working on building a chicken coop for a few weeks with the intent to raise chickens. About a month ago the coop, a fully self-contained (I’m talking solid wood construction and not on the ground) coop with shelves and nesting boxes, and a screened window, was finished. It was our goal to have the birds wander the yard by day, sleep in the hen house at night.

Next step was to purchase/get the birds. We went to the feed store in town and after a lengthy discussion with the locals on the best way to raise chickens was directed to a man who worked in the store whose wife was giving chicks away. Free chickens? It beat paying $2 and $3 per chick. We jumped on the opportunity. The chickens, we were told, were ‘straight run’. For us city folks that means they didn’t turn them upside down, lift up their feathers, and check to see if a little boy woo-woo popped out. We didn’t want little boys, but we figured we could weed them out later.

We arrived at the ranch that had the free chickens only to see the critters everywhere. Somebody had exploded a great egg bomb of chickens and they were all over the yard with little ones running right behind the Moms and chickens could be heard clucking loudly in a hen houses, under houses, in the bushes, around the bushes, amid the crowing of several roosters. It sounded like a factory and it was producing chickens. Bantams were mixed with Orpingtons, which were mixed with little black and yellow ones, and oh my gosh, chicken disaster! No wonder the lady was giving them away!

Gary went to the door of the house and out walked this woman who was in her early forties, I’m guessing, wearing a little chauffer type cap, short shorts, a tank top, bright blonde hair (dare I say encouraged by a bottle?) and muck boots that gave her the appearance of being a biker babe. Gary explained who he was and she gleefully told us that a mother hen had been walking by right after her husband called and she ran outside and rounded up all the chicks she could get her hands on. We clarified that we just wanted four hens for egg laying purposes and she shook her head and said she had thirteen chicks that took her all morning to capture and by gosh we were going to take them. If we wanted their moms she would happily round them up and give them to us too. Nervously we rejected the offer of the mothers and went to inspect the chicks. Sure enough, in a large dog carrier were thirteen squawking, chirping, little birds and she quickly got down and started handing them to us to put into our small cat carrier to bring home. In the melee that ensued, with her handing and my husband grabbing and stuffing, two birds got loose and rather than go after them, (we were assured they would find their way back to their mom) we took the other eleven home with us after graciously turning down her offer to get the mothers. We thanked her and quickly left the chicken ranch heaving a sigh of relief as we escaped.

I know what you’re thinking. But, Mary, I thought you only wanted four!

The way I look at it, I expected to lose some chickens to our stupidity because we’re city folks who have never raised chickens. If we got four, we’d probably accidentally kill one, or one would get sick, or the dogs would eat one, or a raccoon would get to them or coyotes would tear apart the coop, you get the picture. I have seven contingency chickens. In the event we lose a few we have some to spare. But are they all hens? Darn good question. Gary tried turning them upside down and couldn’t get a woo-hoo to show, so we think they’re all hens. Eleven hens. If they survive we’re looking at a dozen eggs a day because chickens will lay an egg a day…I’m going to need more cholesterol medicine.

On the other hand, if some of them are cocklings (baby roosters) then we’re going to be having chicken soup soon. Okay, okay, Gary will be giving chickens away soon…probably to people who will in turn make chicken soup. I’d rather have the chicken soup, but I just know we’re going to get attached to the stupid things.

July 4, 2007

Well we decided to let the chickens out of the coop to get to know their new habitat and explore their run. I didn’t know about it because I was sleeping in, but who could sleep with little birds chirping madly. I had dogs whining outside the bedroom door, chickens chirping outside and I threw in the towel and got up and dressed. When I put my German Shepherd outside, not knowing where my husband and son were (she’s the loudest whiner), she must have been quickly shoved back in the door because as I went into the bathroom to get dressed she appeared in the bathroom doorway. She had sought me out and whined again. Perplexed we looked at each other and I went to the front door to see my son walking down the driveway with a fishing net in one hand. It kind of looked like he was butterfly hunting but I knew the netting was too large.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Keep the dogs inside, the chickens got out.”

This is where I, being the mom, got to do that eye roll thing you always hear about moms doing.

“Dad got six back in the coop but five are still on the loose.” He informed me, his father coming up the drive with a similar fishing net in hand.

“How’d they get out?” I asked.

“They went under the fence.”

They later explained that our efforts to fence in an area for the birds that was screened over the top and big enough for eleven birds to wander around in left one thing out. We didn’t know they could dig! Oh sure, the country folk call it scratching. Those little twits ran around the run, found a gap between the ground and the bottom of the fence and like parochial school children lined up in an orderly fashion and played follow the leader right out of the run.

My shepherd is good at going under our fences. She could actually jump them because they’re short enough, but she prefers to dig. I eyed her indignantly. She looked guiltily back as I thought she and the birds must’ve been talking.

And so the great 4th of July chicken roundup on our Chicken Ranch ensued.

We had volunteered to drive our 1953 Chevy show truck in the 4th of July parade in the local town and had to be at the meeting point by 9:30 am. We locked the dogs up in the house and left to make our rendezvous. Meanwhile our son, had plans to go down to his work at the airport where a BBQ was to be prepared with his hangar buddies. After fulfilling our obligations in the parade and returning the truck back to the garage, Gary made one more effort to round up the birds before joining Steve at the airport. I reminded Gary as he debated leaving that these were the "contingency fowl" and shooed him to the airport (it was expected to be over 100 degrees and the guys were going to hang out on a black topped tarmac and the hangars are not air conditioned, why are you even asking why I didn’t go?)

During the baking afternoon I didn’t worry about the chicks because they had water piped into the coop and the windows and rafters were open to air. If anything, the chicks might sweat, but they’d be okay. The ones wandering around could always access the dog pool for water (Ewww!) And besides they had to learn that food was in the coop, not outside of the coop. I didn’t worry about them.

Anticipating an evening at the neighbor’s house lighting fireworks, (do not ask me why the tinderbox of the Sierra allows fireworks when the Bay Area poo-poos the idea because of fire concerns) the boys arrived home hot and exhausted. (There was no air conditioning and they’d spent the day on the hot tarmac, why do I repeat myself?). Gary tried once more to round up the birds and called out our bird dog, Kelly, a Labrador. Kelly sniffed around and located three of the birds under the deck (near the dog pool) and the hunt was on again. Out came 3 fishing nets, and little chickens went scurrying and flying about the yard. Three more birds were wrestled back into the coop leaving two little ones on the loose. We focused on one bird at a time. By 9:00pm we gave up on the remaining two birds that had roosted for the night in the thick cover of oaks and scrub on the property. I don’t think they knew that the local buzzard population and a hoot owl were also known to roost in those same trees. Dumb birds. I reminded Gary again that they were contingency fowl and we went next door to watch fireworks.

It wasn’t until the next morning that we caught the second to the last bird and that evening that the final chicken was rounded up. Meanwhile a great rock foundation was built around the base of the chicken run. Mishka, our shepherd, likes to move rocks, I was hoping the chickens weren’t learning any more tricks from her.

July 6, 2007

We noticed the pecking order truly at work. A little yellow chicken had been ostracized from the group. It didn’t socialize with the rest of them and seemed to do everything it could to stay out of their way. That night as the chickens were settling to roost Gary took a head count and noticed a chick missing. He had shooed a buzzard away from the chicken run (the buzzard could look but would have to do some serious pecking to get at the chickens in the run the way it’s screened up). Out in the pen in a rocky clump Gary saw the missing chicken with its head buried in the rocks and its feet sticking up. Kind of like the way the kids would dump a small kid in a trash can. The chickens had chased and pecked this little bird to motivate him to get out or be killed. Gary rescued the distressed bird and moved it to the cat carrier where it could be away from the flock (which I later found out is called a “clutch”). Poor little chicken. We still have no idea if he is a he or a she. But our information says we now have to pay more attention to it because it is flockless…That is how we got a pet chicken.

Tresa the flockless, our neighbor called her. Isabella, was another name given. Izzy (Is-He) is what I call it until we know if it’s a he? Or a she? The name will probably not stick, especially if she starts crowing. Then his name is Dinner. Okay, you whiners. We’ll give him away. And someone else can call him dinner.

Billy

Misadventures in the Country

Billy

Since we live on three-plus untamed, weed-cluttered acres it has always been in the back of our mind to get a goat to do some of the simpler weed eating. An opportunity arose to try out a goat when someone, I hesitate to call a friend, offered us the use of his Boer goat. This would be great, we thought. All of our weed eating would be taken care of for the mere cost of a salt lick and bale of alfalfa (it seems they need a bonus for eating weeds). I couldn’t wait to watch him in action. I did mention he was a he? Billy’s his name, as in Billy Goat. (His owner’s choice not mine).

My first full day home with Billy was spent without my husband and son (the boys) around. Being car guys there was a car event that they had planned to attend and so I awoke to the baleful bleating of the goat. Being a city girl I assume all barnyard animals to be like dogs…or cats and his bleating was A) a request for attention, B) a request for food or water, or C) a request for freedom. I chose a combination of A and B wanting to offer food and attention to the lonely little guy. I went to the store and bought the smallest bag of goat grain (a 50# sack), rented a movie (it was my day off), and bought a cup of coffee (Mocha Latte at the gas station, we didn’t have a Starbucks and the gas station mochas are pretty good!). My intent was to go home, drink my coffee make friends with Billy, and then watch my movie.

When I arrived home, I checked the yard for Billy and didn’t see him immediately. I figured he was exploring the brush filled property and the grazing opportunities and I simply couldn’t see him behind my overgrown, weed-cluttered bushes. Going back to my coffee I proceeded to plan out my day deciding whether to watch the movie now or wait until later, get the goat food out of my car or open the bag in the trunk (I wasn’t seriously considering that option). It was half way through that cup that I received a telephone call from my next-door neighbor, Sean. Sean is a very likable character that like me can have a prolific vocabulary and loves to hear himself talk…loudly, okay that part’s not like me.

“Suzy!” he boomed through my phone receiver, “is that Billy up on the hill?”

My house is situated on the top of a hill thinking he meant mine jokingly responded, “Probably.” But there are other hills around me, higher hills. “Which hill are we talking about?”

“I’m looking up the hill where that Spanish looking hotel is.” He said referring to a neighbor’s house across the street from me and up a steep slope. “Do you see the house up there above it? Then the other house to the right?” To my vague uh-huhs (I was still in the kitchen, no where near the view he was directing me) but he continued, “See the outcropping of rocks and the white dog looking animal?”

I finally made it out to my front yard and was scoping the ridgeline above my neighbor’s house trying to find the houses he had referred to. Still not seeing the animal in question I said “uh-huh”.

“Isn’t that Billy?”

“Uh-oh.”

My neighbor had sent his two kids and a visiting friend up the hill and I saw their car weaving along the slope road to a house at the end of the ridge where a precipice of rock outcroppings were capped by a white furry animal. Out of the car they poured scrambling over the rocks with cries of “Billy, here Billy.”

In dismay I ran to my back deck and looked out over my vacant yard. “Uh-oh,” I repeated.

I could hear my neighbor’s booming laughter as he watched his kids try to wrangle the goat. “I think he’s happy up there.” He commented.

Hanging up with Sean I ran out and watched the kids try to work with the goat and wondered why I thought having a goat was such a great idea.

In a panic I called my son at his car show an hour away and when he answered told him that ‘the goat’ got out and was up the hill from us. He asked why these things always happened when he and my husband were gone from the house, and then explained there was nothing they could do, they were an hour away. I told him that Sean’s kids were trying to round him up and he agreed they’d probably get him better than I could. I hung up and scrambled to find rope and remembered the grain in the back of my car. I hauled the bag out of the trunk and attempted to open it without spilling the contents all over the driveway. I grabbed a Tupperware container and put a handful of grain in there, looked up the hill and watched as Billy jumped to a higher rock, tail wagging with kids yelling and coaxing right behind. I added more grain to the container.

Jumping in my car I drove down the road a short distance to where the entrance to the long sloped driveway was and began the foreign-to-me drive up this winding one lane road not appreciating the houses that toggled off to the side and avoiding the cliff like view of the houses below. Finally I arrived at the top where the kids had parked their car, grabbed my Tupperware full of grain and offered it to them.

They had in the meantime chased Billy down from his rocky precipice and were herding him back down the hillside to my house, or at least that was the general direction. I noted that he was in a fenced off yard that had an access road back down the driveway. I hopped in my car, got turned around and headed back down hoping to head off the wandering goat.

Just as I reached the access drive I ran into Sean who was now aboard his riding lawn mower (with wagon in tow) and heading up the ridgeline drive to us. Spotting the goat now escaping the fenced yard and running down the ridgeline driveway he turned his mower around and yelling at the goat started driving back down the driveway. Because it was a one way drive, all I could see was the backside of Billie trotting down the road in front of Sean who was cruising at full lawn mower speed and twirling a rope in his hands like a drunken cowboy yelling “yee-hah!” I was stuck behind his weaving tractor wondering how I was going to catch this animal and trying to avoid hitting my slower paced, lawnmower-driving neighbor.

At one point along the ridge road Billy feinted to the right and started towards an open field as my neighbor hopped off his lawn mower and began tying the rope to a pole. Meanwhile his mower rolled unmanned a little further down the road into a ditch. With a smile he turned to coax Billy to come to him so that he could throw the other end of the rope on him. Billy wasn’t having that and bolted again down the driveway to the entrance where he crossed the street and entered yet another neighbor’s yard. By that time I had pulled over, offered Sean the grain (which I had been assured by Billy’s owner was like candy to him) and watched with increasing horror as the goat bolted away through the neighbor’s yard.

Sean ran after him with another rope and yelled to the neighbors, who happened to be out putting up a fence, “Stop that goat! Don’t let him get away!”

Yeah, right. I watched from the curb not certain what to do.

Sean hurriedly asked the neighbors if the back of the property was fenced off. He learned that the neighbors were just finishing off a major fencing job of the perimeter and confirmed that the property was fenced off at the far end.

“You’re mine!” Sean yelled after the goat and turned around to go back up the hill to retrieve his mower.

Meanwhile I realized that this goat was beyond my abilities to handle and if I wanted it caught I would have to rely on more than my neighbor, I needed his owner to intercede and capture this thing. I drove back to my house, ran in for the phone book, saw the message light blinking on the phone and punched it while searching for the number. Fortunately it was my husband explaining that Billy’s owner’s number was located right by the phone. Talk about good timing. I grabbed the number and my cell phone and started back down the hill again where I had left the goat and my neighbor. Punching the number in I was horror struck when I heard a fax machine beep in my ear. Checking the number again I dialed as I reached the property where Sean’s kids’ car was and I caught a glimpse of them circling a panting, cornered goat. Again I reached a fax machine.

Great! I told myself, I try to get a hold of the owner and I get his fax machine! I looked at the goat and began to get suspicious.

Sean had parked his lawnmower at the opening of the new neighbor’s property where they were hurriedly trying to finish off their fencing project. He grabbed a second rope and was yelling instructions to the kids on how to wrangle the goat. I watched in amazement feeling stupid, frustrated, and wondering yet again, why I wanted the goat (and more importantly what was I doing in the country?)

After several misses the kids finally got the goat tangled up in a bunch of bushes the natives call “deer scrub”. I’ve learned that deer scrub seems to apply to any scrawny low growing shrub in that area. I heard Sean’s daughter scream a “careful, Dad!” some stifled oafs and orders to wrap rope around the horns of the goat. I couldn’t see all that was happening because of all of the deer scrub. Sean came around the edges of some brush grappling a now roped up Billy.

Sean’s son yelled out at me in question if he could have a ride back to the house while his dad wrestled with the goat, which I agreed to but only after I was sure Sean had the goat.

“Your husband owes me a beer!” Sean yelled up at me half dragging half outrunning the goat. I thought my husband owed him more than a case of beer and asked Sean’s son what his dad liked to drink. Sean meanwhile bellowed out, “Someone needs to drive my lawnmower!”

Sean’s son couldn’t do it; unknown to me his daughter had just driven home with her car and that left Sean and me. I yelled back that I would get his wife, and I drove back to Sean’s house to drop off his son and gather reinforcements.

His daughter was at the house and learning of the dilemma ran with her mom back to their car to go and help Sean. Sean’s son meanwhile offered use of one of the trucks which reminded me that I also had a truck, filled with rope and chains and I quickly drove back to my house to retrieve it.

Driving my husband’s 4x4, wanna-be-monster-truck, a twin to the original Big Foot monster truck, less the monster tires, I drove back to catch up with my neighbor. I found his daughter dragging the goat and my neighbor onboard his lawnmower san wagon, riding herd behind them. He took one look at the truck and me in the passenger seat above him and said, “There’s no way in hell I’m loading that goat into the back of this thing!”

I smiled, shrugged and said, “It was an option.”

I turned the truck around. Waved a thanks at my perspiring neighbors who were putting the finishing touches on their hurriedly assembled fence and drove the truck back to my house where I was joined shortly thereafter by Billy, Sean’s daughter, and Sean with mower.

“Now that we’ve got him here, how do you propose we keep him?” Sean bellowed between gasps of breath. I looked around at my backyard which had a lean-to setup for livestock that now housed a ’56 Ford pickup and sighed. My boys were car buffs, not animal people.

“We need chain.” Sean said. Again I looked around at all the motor parts, piles of wood, transmission san car, and he piped up with “I think I have something at my place.”

Sighing yet again I watched him walk around my 4x4 and towards his tractor. His daughter meanwhile was trying to coax Billy to drink some water.

“Here’s some!” Sean bellowed as he pulled out of my 4x4’s bed a twenty-foot long chain that a diesel tow-truck would be proud to own. It must have weighed fifty pounds. I panicked at the thought of tying that around the goat’s neck. I wanted to kill the animal but not like that.

I looked around and spotted my dogs choker chains and grabbed them. “Can we do something with these?” I asked showing him the chains. He grabbed one and began fiddling with it. Before long we had Billy choker chained, then tow chained. But Billy had to put his two cents in and began to drag the chain away in a daring escape that wrapped him around an oak tree. I grabbed the end of the tow chain while instructions were yelled at me to wrap it around myself. I envisioned myself being towed down the road by a stupid goat with people wondering why I was using a tow chain to walk him!

A few more minor adjustments to the chains and we had Billy hooked up to the bumper of the ’56 Ford to share the lean-to and made sure he had a flake of alfalfa and water.

With ever so many thanks that I knew could never be enough; I watched my neighbor and his daughter climb onto the lawn mower and slowly pull away.

With goat safely stowed away, I went inside and grabbed my purse. I was going to town to do some shopping. With the knowledge of what my neighbor’s drink of choice was and an idea on what to get for the wrangling kids I ran down to the local grocery.

Later, I pulled up in front of my neighbor’s gated home and pulled out the case of pale ale, ice cream and root beer for the kids to make floats. They had been swimming when they were interrupted to go goat chasing and I thought what better way to cool off than with root beer floats. I was invited up to the house where we ended up retelling our tales and cross-referencing to try and make sense out of what just happened.

After several drinks the gist of the story went: my goat was on loan. The owner told us he was well behaved. He left it with us then plugged his fax machine into his phone. Try to leave a message now sucker. His goat heard some goats up at the top of the hill. Turns out the people who own the house with the rock outcroppings have four goats of their own. In true “Peppy La Pew” fashion my loaner, un-neutered (not wethered is the goat term) goat was bouncing up the hill to find the love of his life, or at least of the moment. Before the passion-inflamed goat could reach his intended destination the wrangling goat herders thwarted him. Enter the cavalry (Me in her car, Sean on his lawnmower, kids in their car with dripping suits). Goat gets chased, neighbors hurriedly finish a fencing job, kids corner goat, goat gets dragged home and chained by the Titanic’s anchor chain to an old pickup.

Meanwhile we all reek of Billy, the studly goat, as flies buzzed and drinks flowed all around. And that was how my husband found us as they pulled to a stop in front of the gate of my neighbor’s house. My husband popped out and my son drove to our house. My car is parked at the gate; I assumed he’d seen me. My neighbor, sails flying (sheets to the wind) confronts my husband with his fermented cologne (“Au d’goat) and informs him that we have had one hell of a day. At which my husband finally sees me sitting next to my neighbor’s wife where we’d been commiserating about men. With prolific storytelling my neighbor regales our heroic endeavors to recapture Billy the Wayward goat. My son pulls up again on a mini motorcycle to join us, where we all end up laughing over the retelling of our day’s misadventures.

Billy was transferred onto a dog run cable, tied to a tree in a grove of trees, given a bucket of water, a flake of alfalfa and has since tied himself around the tree on an ever shortening leash three times. Some old goats just never learn.