Yes, this my friends is a true statement, my dog almost ate a chicken today. Now to be perfectly clear and open here, it was a LIVE chicken. No, this was no cooked beauty sitting on my counter taken down by the dog. This was my dog chased down and almost gave the poor thing a heart attack.
I am new to this country thing, if you couldn't guess, even though I lived between two farms as a child. I'm not really counting the time because childhood country living is like magic land with fairies and shit. No this was cold blooded death as a reality country living. We are doing the "homestead" thing. Raising our food...pounds chest...getting all down and self-reliant with our bad selves. We're engineers, logical people how hard could it possibly be??
Only thing is, it's WAAAAAAAAAAAY different and significantly harder than I ever thought it could possibly be!! WAAAAAHHHHH, no wait, I wanted this. Suck it up, rub dirt on it, close your eyes and pray for the best, right? Well, sort of.
Anyway, as I will go on many tangents about my newly established "homestead" try to stay with me.
It all really started with, how great would it be to have a bunch of acres to run our kids out and have animals and grow organic food ourselves instead of paying the premium. Maybe we could even sell some and help out with like a co-op oh how romantic.
Soooooo, we started with getting some chickens. Hubster promised (I mean swore) we would only get ten (10) chickens to see how it goes. So, off he and the kidlings went off to the never never land place where my head imagined baby chickens came from (much like buying chicken legs in the store, it's just not the whole back story). How many did he come home with? Anyone care to guess? Make a wager? Any of you who know my Hubster, don't answer!! He brought home, no lie, 33 baby chickens!!!!! OMG, panic attack number one ensued, and this was only about the animals. Don't get me started on all the land that needs tending! Ok, ok calm down, it will be fine.
I swear there's a point, stay with me...
So, we coddled and raised these chickens and lost a few along the way of natural causes. This is when I discovered I would indeed cry like a baby of the death of an animal, it was so unfair!!! Every. Single. Time. Then came time to slaughter the part of the flock meant only for meat. Remember I said we are self sufficient engineers turned farmers. My husband had experience with the bloodshed part in his childhood and so I let him take the wheel. So, over 2 weekends and a lot of sobbing tears, we filled our freezer and I plucked about 17 chickens. Come on over, the Hubster will so proudly show you how full our freezer is and if there's ever a chicken famine, we are covered. We'll serve you soup!
So, the reality of the farming has hit...but why Momma did you tell me about a dog trying to kill a chicken then? Getting there.
Over the past week, we have obtained 5 goats, of which we still have 4, and a dog. Last night, two of these goats just jumped right through the barbed wire in front of my face. I panicked like a child yelling for her father with no idea how to wrangle a goat. The MEN got it handled and fixed the fences late into the evening.
The Dog...He is the sweetest, gentlest, most squishy love face dog ever. He is by my side at all times and will do whatever the kids need, protect, collect, kill (apparently).
Here it comes... So, as my overzealous two year old daughter chased happily after the chickens (the ususal) while my very responsible four year old son checked out the chicken coop, the dog decided he had to follow suit in his responsibility. Dog proceeded to enter said coop and terrorize the chickens and then catch up to my daughter happily toddling after a chicken who was not afraid until it saw THE HUGE DOG! My daughter, bless her heart, told him 'no hurt chicken', which tells me she's been listening, WIN!
When I arrived at the poor scared (probably will never lay eggs for us in a million years) hen, I thought she was dead. Tears once again started to fall. I reached down and gently brought her to my breast. She was fine, but would not let me put her down shaking and confused (both of us), we walked to the coop and run and counted...yep, there's 13 and I locked them back in, scolded the dog (as if he gets it) and proceeded to have breakdown number, well I stopped counting (but they're not as intense, thank you).
Ok now...WTF do I do? Here I was all proud this morning as my dog lay near the chickens in the yard all enjoying the shady tree and eating bugs. I can't cage the children...right? Can I? So, I've decided I'm just going to rub some dirt on it and look forward to the talk that the Hubster is planning to have with the Dog and the Children. I may even make a video so we can laugh at it some day at the absurdity of the whole thing.
Because as you can see...my life has become quite absurd. Oh and of course my daughter had to show us all up by dropping trou and squatting in the yard like the dog. But that's therapy for another session. Cluck a freaking doodle do!! Lost just a teeny bit of my mind today, let me know if you find it, you can keep it!
MWAH
MommaD
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