They came at dusk, around 8:00pm, on Sunday.
Rob and I had worked the weekend on getting the coop ready, the nesting boxes modified and attached to the wall, the bedding spread, the roosting bars made and secured, the waterer and feeder in place and filled, and we built an outside pen so they could roam and scratch a bit.
After we got them settled in their new home, Rob had to go to the office to do some work. When he came home aroung 10:30pm, he said the girls were all roosting and everything seemed calm. How cute! He had gone in with a flashlight to check and see if they were doing okay before he came home.
And on Monday morning they had their first visitors. They seemed very happy with their new diggs and were very friendly and inquisitive with all the new faces. We have 1 Delaware, she is white with a bit of black and she seems the most standoffish, 2 buff orphingtons, they are both the largest and friendiest of the group, 1 rhode island red who is dark brownish red, 1 golden comet who is the smallest and 1 golden laced wyondotte who is brown with black markings and green tips on her wings...she's the prettiest and my favorite.
And on Monday afternoon we had our first egg.
And on Tuesday we had four.
We had a bit of a scare and calamity of errors on Monday afternoon, but all turned out okay. I had spent the morning entertaining visitors. Christian came with Roger and I immediately put him in the house so Christian could see the hens. I had to spend much of the afternoon with the tech guys on some issues with my bed and breakfast software. Rob had some banking he wanted me to do and I noticied it was getting near to closing time so I rushed back home and got my things together to go out, got Roger and put him in the car and off we went. After some additional errands in the next village we headed home and I realized that Roger had not been out for a walk for most of the day so I knew he was anxious to go out. We got home and I just opened the door for Roger to leave without thinking and off he raced to the chicken coop. I jumped out of the car to chase after him not realizing that I had not put the truck in park, and I could not get back fast enough to stop the slow steady movement right into the support columns of the open porch next to the garage. By that time, my friend Dave, who had been working on the house next to Litengard ran over to tell me that the chickens were out, having jumped the 5 foot fence and were in the neighbors bushes. Then he saw the truck and the semi collapsed roof of the porch.
"Are you okay"? Yes, I was fine but, oh no, my first day on the chicken job after getting special permission from the village and they are already out and about the neighborhood!
It turned out that it was just one, my favorite, the golden laced wyondotte. We secured Roger in the house and went hunting for the loose chicken. We went around the neighbors house several times until he came out and asked what we were doing. "Looking for a chicken" we said. "A chicken?" "Yes" was our only reply as we continued to look everywhere. And then I spotted her, crouched under a bush, almost invisible.
Dave who had chickens when he was growing up said he would get her and he lunged for her and she squirted right out of his hands.
And there we were, the two of us adults, chasing this poor little chicken all around main street, desperately trying to keep her out of the traffic. We finally got her headed back onto our property and towards the barn. Once she got in the barn, Dave ran around to the back and opened the coop door and in she went.
Whew! Safe and sound and no fatalities. The books make it sound so easy.
Dave came back to the house and went to work on getting boards secured under the roof to brace it up until we could get the jacks out and the posts back up. Two came down in tact but one, not so much. I was so glad that Dave was there and knew what to do. He's worked so much around our house that he just got the equipment and went to work, however we could not find the big silver jack that could have solved the problem then and there.
However, now that the posts are down....perhaps I'll do something else with that space. Is that called making lemonade out of lemons?
But today was uneventful!
4 comments:
Wow -- oh, the good ol' days always sound quaint. But we can see they had a life all their own!
Oh dear!!! I hope all goes well with the post-repairs. If one little chicken could cause all that ruckus, she must be a real character!!!
I was reading this and shared with my co-worker and we laughed so hard we almost cried. You could NOT script this !! Where are the America's Funniest Home Videos cameras when you need them ? Glad everything and everyone survived relatively unscathed...other than the porch and vehicle..maybe !
Oh my, what an adventure! Must have been quite entertaining for the neighbors!
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