Another fairly foul fiasco

This is what I thought raising chickens was going to be like: 

Sometimes, I wonder what people would think if they would just drop in on random moments of life.  Picture this: me walking through the woods, one barefoot with the baby in one arm and a soggy chicken under the other, trying to keep the two apart.  The dog and cat trail behind and all of us are filthy.  Ok, now here's the back up:


We're out feeding the chickens as usual and one escapes.  No biggie, it's happened before and we just play a nice game of ring around the coop until I catch her (always the same bird).  Well, she got a little braver this time and strayed into the woods.  Meanwhile, Fynn crawls off the blanket I had him set on onto a patch of ground where I had spread fertilizer from the coop over the winter!  


Aagh! No!!!
(Plop Fynn back on blanket)
Clancey stay!!  Do not chase the chicken!
(Resume hunt)
(Fynn crawls after bird)
(Bird runs at Fynn)
Repeat, this time add cat chasing chicken
Repeat...


Eventually Clancy decided he was done obeying and I hear squawking and thrashing trailing back into the woods.   So I pick up my dirty boy and we track them, expecting the worst.  Finally, I caught up with them at the pond a ways back.  The chicken, undoubtedly with help from the dog and cat, had broken through the remaining ice in the pond, but was quite alive.  Oh boy.  I set Fynn down on a lump of tundra moss, took off one shoe and sock, and was able to reach her after only one chilly wade in.  


And here we arrive at the aforementioned scenario.   She's not looking too good, and I don't know if she'll make it, but I got her fairly dried and turned on the heat lamp for her.  I took Fynn in and we both had a bath with lots of soap.  And he stuck his face in it, giving himself the most adorable little baby bubble beard!  And again, I had no camera.  It makes me wish we just had one built in our memories that we could print out photos of anything we saw.


(Note: painting by Robert Duncan)

Permanent Marker Removal

Oh that dog!  Clancey is loved but sometimes drive me crazy!  He found a permanent marker during Fynn's nap today, so I found this lovely orange stain some time later:

Inspired by Mrs. Treadway (find her awesome blog "When Life Happens" here) and her couch cleaning method, I decided to post my handy fix for this kind of incident here.  This is not the first time we've had awful pen stains. 

I'm not one to use any products on my hair.  Not that I'm against it by any means, I just don't find the need (or time! =)  but I keep a small canister on hand for situations such as these.  That's it really.  I soaked the stain down with a generic hairspray, then scrubbed with a damp washcloth: gone!  I love it!

Peculiar Poultry Predicament

What an unusual winter!  We just got out of a 2 month stretch of really cold (I'm guessing we averaged 25 below for that length) and now it's above freezing!  Most lower 48-ers might think that's a good thing, but here it's dreaded in the winter.  Thawing snow and ice means that the roads get slicker than snot and all the melting turns into a big mess, then when it freezes again, you have all the bad ice to worry about.  I consider myself blessed to be able to stay at home today, but I find myself with my own set of challenges accompanying this heat wave.   The ice and snow have apparently cracked the caulking around our chimney, so we're getting some leaking with the melting roof snow there.

And then there's my chickens.  Oh, I am learning so much with these girls this year!  I had been attempting the deep litter method with them (see this article), but with this thaw came an awful stench in there coop!  So I started digging it all out (I couldn't before as the lower layers were completely frozen) and unearthed at least a half dozen eggs.  Apparently, during our really cold months, they had buried some of their eggs (normal chicken behavior?)  The eggs then froze, cracking the shell.  And now these eggs were rotten and thawing--yuk!  I got it all cleaned up now, but what an ordeal.  I think I'm going to have to adjust my game plan for next year.

Proverbs 12: 10a " A righteous man cares for the needs of his animals"  I love that God chose to include this in His Word!  He did give us dominion over His creatures and I think that's a great commission.  Obviously I don't believe this means we shouldn't hunt or butcher, but that we should not be cruel to the critters we come across or choose to care for.