This Morning Feels A Little Empty
Originally published at The Apochrypha. You can comment here or there.
I have my routines. If you’ve read my blog over the last year you’ll probably know why but for those that don’t have a clue what I’m talking about 12 months ago I was diagnosed as being dyslexic. My memory sucks and I’m that easily distracted by bright shiny things you might as well call me Blackbird and be done with it. In order to help with this I have a very set routine I go through in the morning to get the day started well.
I get up, sort the kids breakfast out, last nights the dirty dishes in the dishwasher (part of my routine from before the dishwasher as I just never had time at night to do them before), put on a clothes wash, get my wife’s breakfast and then my own followed by topping up all the animals food dishes. I’d then get on with the day specific things which I won’t bore you with.
Around about this time yesterday I stepped into my backgarden to check on the chickens and hang up the wet clothes on the washing line and I found a garden full of feathers. We’d left the coop open last night which with the full benefit of hindsight was stupid but for almost the entirety of last year we’d done the same. Our garden is surrounded by 6′ high fencing on one side and an 8′+ wall on the other. The only way a predator could get in was through the hedge at the bottom of our garden but I fenced that up early last year and even our cats struggle to get over it.We’d only shut them in the run these last few weeks in order to get the give the garden a bit of respite as the plants started to grow again now that spring is here.
Ever single one of our hens was either lying dead on the ground or missing. The two largest hens were out in the open and looked to have been in a real fight file two off the smaller ones were under the hedge with the next largest blocking the entrance to their ’safe haven’. One chicken was completely missing which we assumed had been taken away for dinner. I scoured the garden looking for it but I couldn’t find anything so I went about clearing up the mess as best I could.
Mid afternoon I looked out my daughters window to see the missing chicken hobbling from the woodpile in the opposite corner of the garden. It was cut up and very shocked but I thought it might make it. I picked it up and put it in the shade of the coop but by the time Vonnie got home it was gone.
We’ve kept chickens for two years now and in the case of two of the hens we had we’d had them since they were chicks almost. It feels really strange to not have to go out and feed them this morning. It’s not like they were pets as such, only one of them actually had a name, but they made the garden. Yeah they could get noisy at times they made me want to be in the garde. Now it’s just a muddy lifeless hole that I’m not sure I want to be in.
The cloudy start to this morning hasn’t improved my mood anyway after the last two days sunshine.
