Tag: chickens

A Mary Jane Update on the Anniversary of Tom Petty’s Death

~ Crystal Sands ~ 3 Comments

I have had three celebrity crushes in my adult life–a scientist (Neil deGrasse Tyson) and two musicians–YoYo Ma and Tom Petty. When I learned that Tom Petty died seven years ago today, I was devastated. His music had been so central in my life, and I adored his back story. He grew up abused and misunderstood and used his creativity and drive to change his life and the lives of so many others. His life and music just spoke to me.

I was already really down that day in 2017 because it was also the day of that terrible mass shooting in Las Vegas, and to top things off, it was meat bird processing day on our homestead. It was just a tough day, so when I asked Ron to please pardon one of the meat bird hens for me to keep and add to our flock, he agreed. He agreed that we needed something good on such a no-good, terrible day. I understood that, as a meat bird, the hen would likely just live a couple of years, but we needed a layer or two, and Freedom Ranger hens are pretty good layers. I would be happy just to have her for a couple of years.

The bird who was pardoned was named Mary Jane, in honor of Tom Petty’s famous song, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” Ron said she was the one who outsmarted him all day, so he knew she was a smart bird. We had no idea just how smart she was going to be or how long her dance would be.

I feel certain she must be at some kind of record for a Freedom Ranger meat bird, but Mary Jane turned seven this summer, and she’s still going strong. She is also one of the smartest, if not the smartest, hens I have ever met. Over the years, she and I have formed a powerful bond. She talks to me. She asks me for help when she needs it, and she lets me know when she is just fine by herself. She used to be about the size of a small turkey thanks to those meat bird genes, but in her older age, she is smaller. She’s still larger than our other hens, and she actually talks in a gobble.

Every morning, she waits in the coop for food while the other chickens run out the door for the outside food bowl. Mary Jane is patient and smart and waits for her food bowl. When she sees me coming, she almost always gobbles this cute little gobble talk. I realized this morning, as I was thinking about the anniversary of Tom Petty’s death and Mary Jane’s pardon, that I have to get a recording of her voice. I had another hen who was very vocal and talkative, and I regret that I never got a recording of her talking. I have to record Mary Jane.

The cutest thing is that Mary Jane has a daughter, Petty. Petty is also a fantastic hen and is so smart. She raised a clutch of babies last fall, and she was not just a magnificent mama but probably the most magnificent mama hen I have seen. She did so well. She was chill but loving and so good to her babies. She let me get involved too, so I was thankful to her. When Petty went broody in the late summer this year, I was sad we had decided to downsize our flock and couldn’t let her raise babies.

Interestingly, Petty has a voice similar to Mary Jane’s. Just the other morning, I heard a little gobble run across the yard, but it surprised me because I thought Mary Jane was still in the coop waiting for me. It turns out it was Petty. She doesn’t talk a lot like Mary Jane does, but she has a voice like her mama. How fantastic is that?

So far, both Mary Jane and Petty are doing great. Mary Jane’s health has its ups and downs, but right now, she seems to be in really good health. She quit laying somewhere around age four or five, so she’s retired but helps keep order in the flock. She’s so old for a meat bird that I have thought on more than one occasion that she was surely near her end, but that hen always pulls through. I know she has a heart condition, but it seems her will to live is stronger than her heart condition. I guess a better way to put it is that her heart is stronger than her heart condition.

She has not yet molted for the fall, so I definitely worry about that for her. The molt is hard on birds. Rooster is molting right now, and he’s so tired that I am having to help him off the top roost some mornings. He is also a very old bird.

But the winter before last, I thought surely he and Mary Jane would not make it through another winter. They showed me. I have learned to never underestimate Mary Jane, and though I always open the coop in the mornings with a little bit of worry that today might be the day that Mary Jane passes, so far, she’s always there, greeting me. Usually, she gives me her little gobble.

Every year on this day, October 2, I spend a little time thinking about how much Tom Petty meant to me, and then I turn my thoughts to Mary Jane and think about how much she continues to mean to me.

The first raspberries, the last strawberries, and other updates

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Mary Jane made it to the raspberries for another year! I hoped she would this spring when I was thinning the branches. She sat with me for hours, looking hopeful for raspberries. I think raspberries might be her favorite–maybe even more than watermelon. This morning, when I picked raspberries for breakfast, I kept out a handful just for her. She gobbled them up with satisfaction. I can tell she surely knows how much I love her.

I am hopeful for the raspberries. They look really good this year, and we need a good year after our strawberries did not do so well. I don’t know if it was just a weird year or if our plants are about done. I think it’s the latter. We have had five great seasons with those plants. I read they should be replaced after three to five years, so I guess it’s time. I think we will try to replace them in the fall, so we can hopefully have berries again next summer. That’s a big task though. Hopefully, I will be up to it. And it wasn’t a terrible year for them. I still made two batches of jam and got five quarts frozen for the winter.

Things have been busy here on the farm this summer but not nearly as busy as usual. Ron has been slow and steady planting the garden and just finished planting the last of things this week. It’s the latest he’s ever finished planting, but COVID has take a toll on all of us for sure. And, with long COVID in mind, we have no music camps this summer for our son. He just rests a lot, sleeps a lot, and I can see that he tries to stay positive. It was hopeful that he started playing his cello again this week, though he has to pace himself and can’t play more than 15 minutes per day. Still, slow and steady, right?

I am less busy than usual with the chickens because we had no babies this year. It’s been hard. The babies always bring so much joy, so long COVID plus no baby chicks has equalled a bit of a tough summer. On the bright side, I have been working on a Swedish death cleanse (though I hope I am not dying anytime soon), and I have made amazing progress. My struggle is books though. How can I get rid of books? I have more work to do, but our home is feeling much better, much less cluttered.It’s very helpful to my mental state.

We have still have our son’s pet mouse, who requires a lot of attention because mice are social animals and need company. I have also learned that mice will eat pretty much as much as you give them, so our little mouse has grown a little chubby eating so many treats from the garden along with homemade bread. I knew we were in trouble the first time I gave him some homemade bread and a fresh strawberry on the same day. He was half asleep with the bread in his hand and the strawberry right next to him. I watched as he would wake up, take a few bites of each item, get a joyful look on his face, and go back to sleep. I also had no idea mice were SO expressive, but he is!

He has a wheel, but we are going to have to build a bigger space for him–and in the last two days, he’s just had his mouse food and lettuce. Poor baby!

I have also been writing, just not as much as I would like here in the blog. I am actually working on a book. It’s a collection of essays, some of which I am revising from old blog posts and some of which are new. I plan to call it Chicken Stories, and I hope it will be worthy of a read. We’ll see. I hope to have it finished by the end of December. I will take any and all advice as well as words of encouragement.

Tell me how you’re doing if you get a chance. How is your garden growing? How are your chickens? What are you learning this year? And do you know anything about raising a mouse?

The Tough Days

~ Crystal Sands ~ 4 Comments

I have never buried a chicken before. Ron has always saved me that sadness. I have delivered to the woods a chicken who passed in order to feed the wildlife, but when we have a hen who passes in the summers when we have little chickens running around, to be safe, we bury her on the property. 

Last week, I dug my first hole and buried our sweet Silver. It was heartbreaking. 

On the same day Silver passed away, we found out our son has long COVID, and I am pretty sure Ron and I are having own own struggles with something along those lines. Ron has been so busy working in slow motion (at least slow motion for him, he’s still faster than I am) planting the garden that I realized it was going to be up to me to bury Silver. 

The last time I wrote, I mentioned that Silver was very sick. She had a terribly sour crop and a terrible water belly, and it had come on pretty fast. It had been a long time since we had water belly troubles, so I decided, if Silver made it through the first night, I would try to drain her water belly to buy her more time. 

This level of veterinary care is not my strong suit, which is why I had never done it before, but I felt I had to try to learn in order to get Silver more time. She was such a great hen. I spent the day watching video after video and asking for help from more experienced farmer friends. That afternoon, I went and bought the materials, and that evening, my son and I completed the procedure on Silver. 

It was a success, but I did not have much hope. Silver was in pretty bad shape. I think I waited too long. I think, if I had known what to do and done it earlier in that day, she might have had a chance. My anxiety and over-thinking delayed me, and I hate myself for that. 

It was hard day burying that poor baby. Ron had to come help me after I started hitting rocks and root, but I dug for a long time, so slowly because, right now, I am in a “down” time from COVID and do pretty much everything in slow motion. When I was putting the dirt back over her, I just broke down. 

I read a long time ago that the backyard chicken movement in the United States wasn’t exactly great for the welfare of chickens because a lot of people who don’t know what they’re doing keep chickens. I wondered about my own inability to help Silver, and my mind went back to that article I read. 

As I sat crying over Silver, I had the urge to just stop, to quit keeping chickens. Maybe I am too sensitive for this. Maybe I need more veterinary skill, as there are not many vets who will see a chicken, and vet bills are so outrageous now that corporations have bought up vet offices that most people can’t afford to take a chicken to the vet anyway. 

I remembered the last time I truly felt like giving up on chicken keeping. It was the day of our first hawk attack, and we lost Lucy’s twin to the hawk. Pumpkin had been raising babies at the time, and I could find neither Pumpkin or her babies. After searching for at least half an hour, I remember dropping to my knees and swearing I was done with keeping chickens, that my heart was too soft for this job, but then, by some miracle, we found Pumpkin’s babies frozen and hiding in a pile of leaves. It was an extra miracle that we had not stepped on them as we had been back and forth through the area many times. And then Pumpkin returned as well. 

I kept going. I decided to keep going after Silver too. I had new knowledge, another skill, and I would do better for the next one, I thought. 

After I finished burying her, I found a flat stone, wrote her name and dates with a paint pen, and drew little chicken feet on the stone, so, if we sell our property, the next people will know who Silver was. Silver is buried in the same area that Schubert is buried. Schubert was Silver’s mother. 

There have been many tough days of late for our family, it seems. I didn’t fully understand how serious long COVID is, but finding out that our son has it and reading more about what this means for him has been a blow. I have written about my son before. He’s a cellist, and he’s good. Right now, he can hardly play more than half an hour without being in pain and/or then collapsing in exhaustion afterwards. The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is real, but that’s only part of it. His lungs are still struggling, and brain damage is almost always likely with long COVID. The COVID literally shrinks the brain. I can seem some cognitive struggles. I feel some of them in myself, and they are scary. What a mean, mean thing to do to such a young boy. 

It has been nearly three months since our son had COVID, and the struggle is still so serious. After he “went down,” as I call it, from exhaustion again this weekend, we made the difficult decision to pull him out of all his music activities for the whole summer.

I think we all feel a little bit lost in the world right now. We had been downsizing our farm in anticipation of travel to Boston for his music in the upcoming year. Now, we don’t know what to do but be shocked and worried. On top of this, our son was just getting to the point where he was a help to us on our homestead. He could mow and turn over soil, and he was the best wood chopper. Now, we’ve lost him for some time. What a devastating thing all the way around.

But, today, as I write this, it is a beautiful day. My son is resting, and Ron decided to rest today since it is Father’s Day. The sun is warm, but the breeze is cool. The shadows are long from the trees, and the chickens are enjoying a few more gorgeous days before the heat dome comes. I am going to close my eyes and hope the universe will tell me what to do, help me heal our son because wester medicine really doesn’t know a lot about this. I am going to try to rest too. 

And, tomorrow, I will go to the store and get watermelon for the chickens and ducks because some serious heat is coming. I hope Mary Jane and Rooster can make it. I don’t want any more tough days right now.

Good News and Bad News

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

I am going to start with the good news because it’s really good news. On Saturday, Mary Jane celebrated her 7th birthday! Mary Jane is a giant Freedom Ranger meat chicken who was pardoned the day Tom Petty died in 2017. There were so many times I thought I was going to lose her, but mostly, I thought she was surely going to pass when the entire flock came down with a terrible respiratory illness in the fall of 2019, but she just keeps going and is doing quite well overall right now.

This is Mary Jane front and center with Kate next to her and then Hector on the left. That’s Eleanor on the right.

In fact, I just the other day saw her settle down a rowdy broody hen. The broody hen (it was Marshmallow) tried to attack her because broody hens attack anyone who accidentally comes near them, and Mary Jane just bonked her on the head and gobbled a bunch at her. When Mary Jane talks, she really does kind of “gobble” like a turkey. I wish so badly I could get it on video because it’s so cute. I am so glad to know that bird, and I am so glad she made it to 7. I am pretty sure that has to be some kind of record for a bird with her genetics.

Sadly, I have some really bad news too.

The morning of Mary Jane’s birthday this Saturday, when I went to the coop to open the little door to let the flock out into the big chicken yard, I thought people were acting a little strange. Rooster seemed upset, but I think he’s getting some senility in his old age, so I didn’t think too much about it. However, when I went around to open the big coop door, I walked in to find Poe Jr. Jr. had passed away fairly recently. I was heartbroken on this one.

Poe Jr. Jr. was Poe’s grand baby and was such a great girl. She didn’t fit in too well with the flock and had struggled with her lack of feathers because she didn’t molt for two years, which was really strange. I have never seen it happen to another hen. But, finally, last fall, she molted and grew the most beautiful feathers. She was mostly black, but there were brown and green feathers in there. I remember how proud she was when she final molted and grew her feathers. You could tell she knew. She let me take so many pictures of her even though she had always been so shy.

This was little Poe Jr. Jr. right after she grew her new feathers finally. She was so proud of them. She knew she was beautiful, and I was so happy for that little hen.

It feels like such a tragedy that she passed away. She just seemed to get things figured out, so I am devastated by her loss. I thought I wasn’t going to cry very much anymore about the loss of our girls, but I cried hard for Poe Jr. Jr.. I couldn’t even understand why I was so broken down over losing her. She was not sick and so did not suffer. I checked her over carefully when I picked up her little body. She was a good weight, looked healthy, had no sign of mites. She just passed. She was only 3. It happens sometimes. It just happens. Her father was Poe’s son Edgar, but I do not know her mother, as she came to me in a hatching egg from the farm where Edgar lived.

I think I cried extra because my younger brother is very sick. Very sick. I am very worried about him. Very worried. But I haven’t been able to cry. Maybe it came with some with the loss of Poe Jr. Jr. I am crying again as I write about her. Catharsis, right? The only good thing about it was that, I swear, she looked so peaceful, like unusually so.

There is more bad news though.

Last week, I noticed Silver was sleeping in the nest boxes instead of on the perches, but I thought she was maybe just going broody. She tends to go broody every summer. I just did a health and mite check last Wednesday, and she was on the perch then and seemed fine.

But, this morning when I was leaving for my cello lessons, I saw her standing in the sick chicken pose. When I got home, I found her, and I knew things were bad because she just let me catch her.

She is in very, very bad shape. Very bad. Her crop is bad, and her belly is swollen. I was barely able to give her a bath and get her cleaned up. I ran to the store to get her some medicine, though I wasn’t hopeful.

When I got home, I couldn’t get her to take it, and I thought I had better research and get more information about this, as I have never had a hen be this sick. It was as bad as I thought, and it seems she has ascites or some kind of tumor blockage. Either way, there is nothing to be done. Silver is going to pass, and because she is struggling so much, if she doesn’t pass by tomorrow morning, Ron will have to cull her. I hate for Ron to have to do this, but he knows how to do it quick, very quick and with no stress to the bird. This is the hardest part of keeping chickens, and I can’t believe we are dealing with this. But we do not want Silver to suffer more than she already is.

I have been pretty good in my breeding program here on the farm to make sure we don’t have to deal with ascites. I haven’t seen it in some years, though it was common in our first flock we got from a production bird line. Silver’s father is Rooster, who obviously has the best genes, and her mother was Schubert. I got Schubert from a very reputable breeder her in Maine, but she ended up passing last year when she was just 5 years old, which is not bad at all but not great. This is a hard day.

Silver has such unique coloring. She is Welsummer in the front, like her dad, and gray in the back like her mom. In the sunlight, she just always looked gold in the front and silver in the back. You just knew she might lay a golden egg. She didn’t, but it was a beautiful green.

Silver is like her father and so noble. She has never liked to be touched but has always been smart and curious. She has always been more serious, anxious for treats when I bring them–but never too anxious. She would never get into a fray over anything. She just kept her distance if necessary.

I am going to miss her terribly. When she was born, she was so shiny and silver. I wished so badly for her to be a girl, and she was. Now I wish for more time with her, but unless some kind of miracle happens tonight, this will be her last night.

I didn’t know what to do but drop everything and just sit with her this afternoon. I played Tom Petty’s Time to Move On for her. I couldn’t even hold her. She is too swollen for it. So I just held her little foot while we listened to the words. We love this song around here. My son, the musician, says it’s magnificent because the music sounds like it’s time to move on before you even hear the words. It’s a good one. It’s the best I could think of for a magnificent bird like Silver.

I hope she moves on to something great, something magnificent like she deserves.

Which way to love land?
Which way to something better?
Which way to forgiveness?
Which way do I go?

Yeah, it’s time to move on, time to get going
What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing
But under my feet, baby, grass is growing
It’s time to move on, time to get going

~Tom Petty

Mary Jane, Raspberries, and Trying to Be a Good Human

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

I haven’t written in a bit because it’s on right now for spring planting and preparation. I will have to write more about this soon, but Ron has had some health struggles related to his round with COVID. Tests are ongoing, and I am hopeful all will be well; however, he’s been moving slower than before, which means he needs more help to get the epic tasks of spring completed.

Last week, my task was to prune all the fruit trees and bushes. Pruning the blueberries is easy. Pruning the raspberries is tough because, as you know, raspberry bushes are prickly and mean. I have learned to wear a thick coat and thick gloves, but they still attack my hair. Sometimes, I just end up stuck. During harvest in June and July, I always wish for more raspberry bushes, but when I am pruning, I am thankful we have just about a 25-foot row. The whole process is normally very frustrating to me, but it wasn’t too bad this year because I had good company.

Mary Jane loves raspberries more than I can express. She has two favorite foods that I have discovered–raspberries and oatmeal with raisins. Come to think of it, maybe it’s just raisins, but raspberries are her joy every summer.

She is doing pretty well despite her very old age and meat bird DNA. If she makes it to age 7, which happens in just three weeks, I’m convinced she has to be close to a record for a Freedom Ranger meat bird. I mean, she’s definitely showing her age, and I think surely she won’t make it through a long, hot summer. However, we switched feed to some awesome organic feed I found from Vermont, and it seems to have given her an extra little boost. It’s really good food, and Mary Jane has a really strong will to live, which, if you follow this blog, you know so well. It seems like a hopeful combination. Mary Jane will turn 7 on June 1.

Anyway, I was down on the ground fighting through the prickly branches to get to the back side of our row of when I saw Mary Jane watching me so hopefully.

“Oh, baby, I have no raspberries yet,” I told her. “But I’m doing this, so you can have some soon.”

And it was exactly that thought that made me feel less grumpy about all of the raspberry bush attacks on my hair. Seeing that hopeful face reminded me that there is joy coming. There is some pain now. My hair was pulled about a million times, and I was sweating like crazy on the hot day wearing my coat and gloves, and oh my gosh my poor back–but the reward is coming. Mary Jane reminded me of that, and she made me think about my place in the world.

This was my view from underneath the raspberries. That’s Mary Jane on the left and Arwen on the right. Mary Jane stayed with me the entire time I worked, more than two hours.

Last week, I also had the chance to see a beautiful symphony performed by the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. The symphony, entitled This Will Be Our Reply, was composed by the conductor of the BSO, Lucas Richman. The piece was powerful and important. Before the performance, Richman offered some background on the piece and said he was inspired to write it by a speech Leonard Bernstein gave after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In his speech, Bernstein said that the response to violence had to be to “make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”

In the symphony, the inner circle of musicians, which is the first row of violins, violas, and cellos, play this beautiful music and come back to it throughout the piece, all the while, you hear the outer symphony doing something else, including bombs and guns going off from the percussion. When the bombs and guns got louder, the inner circle played even harder. It was an important work–a reminder that, though humans can be so terrible, we can also be so very beautiful. We just need the artists to remind us.

I was so moved by the experience that I was still thinking about it that day in the raspberry bushes. I was thinking about how I sometimes feel so inadequate. I have such a big heart for art and beauty and making the world better yet have no idea how to do it and really no talent for doing so.

But, as I talked to Mary Jane, I thought maybe that’s okay. I’m never going to make beautiful art that will be remembered throughout the ages, but I am going to raise beautiful raspberries. These raspberries are not only beautiful, but they are also healthy and contain cancer-fighting chemicals that, as of yet, humans cannot fully replicate. They are magic, for lack of a better word. I am going to give those raspberries to my family and some of my friends–and to Mary Jane.

To Mary Jane, I think I might just be the best of humans and a good friend to have around.

And that has to be worth something–maybe an awful lot.

Ruby & Tuesday Eggs

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

Almost every day, I see this in the dog crate I leave out for Ruby and Tuesday as they run around outside of the chicken pasture. The crate right by the garage, so every time we go out for a walk in the evening, I see their little eggs, side by side. I have no words for how happy this makes me. The green one is Ruby’s; the cream one is Tuesday’s.

Ruby & Tuesday

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

If you have followed my blog any at all over the past couple of years, you will know all about Ruby, but just in case you are new, Ruby is a highly-intelligent, high-maintenance chicken. She has no friends because she is not a people person at all. People in the flock do not like her, and she gets picked on sometimes. Mainly, I have seen that this is because Ruby doesn’t seem to want friends. She does nothing to fit in. She’s a lone wolf, a free spirit, and she demands her independence.

She is also demanding of me. To me, she is bossy, difficult, and will peck the heck out of me when I am trying to collect eggs. It doesn’t even have to be when I am getting eggs from under her (she sleeps in a private nest box because she won’t be near people on the roost). She will give me a hard peck for good measure just for being close to her. She keeps me in line, and I don’t mind doing her bidding because she’s so smart, so funny, and so unique.

This is Tuesday on the left and Ruby on the right. Look at how similar their combs are, and they both have that super smart look about them.

When Petty went broody late last summer and we decided to let her raise a clutch of fall babies, I debated about getting an egg from Ruby. The chicken would surely be smart, but would it be just too quirky or weird to fit in? How high maintenance would it be? My curiosity got the better of me, and I let Petty hatch a Ruby egg. The result has been magnificent–the result is Tuesday.

Tuesday was raised by the calmest, most patient mom in the world. Petty was so trusting, so nurturing, and the most chill little mama I have ever seen. This has been so good for all of her babies. All six turned out to be hens; they are all great hens, but I believe Tuesday is the greatest. It’s like she has all of Ruby’s fantastic characteristics–smart, independent, unique–without all of the negatives. Tuesday is not neurotic at all. She’s just different, and she’s at peace with herself about it.

Tuesday, like Ruby, spends most of her day away from the flock. She flies over the gate and hangs out in the front driveway area with Ruby. I do not worry about her wandering off, as she is too smart. She stays close, dodges any mail deliveries, and I set up a dog crate for her to lay eggs in. Pretty much every single day, I find a little cream-colored egg in the dog crate–a gift from Tuesday.

But the most interesting thing she does is that she is friends with Ruby! About a month ago, I noticed Ruby was hanging out a lot with a black chicken. They were under the trees, scratching around together for many hours one day when I decided to see which black chicken it was because, for a time, all three of Petty’s black chickens were hanging out in the front yard. When I got closer, I could see it was Tuesday. I guess the only person who could “get” Ruby would be someone related to Ruby.

When I told Ron about it, he said, “I guess we just had a grow a friend for Ruby,” and I guess that is right. Mother and daughter hang out a lot every day, and I just love to see it. I am thankful Ruby has a friend in this world. She’s still neurotic, but it’s maybe a little less than usual right now.

And Tuesday is just a dream. She’s so calm and smart and beautiful. She reminds me so very much of Poe. Ron spent yesterday working out front, and he said Tuesday followed him around just watching what he was doing all day (he was repairing an old wheelbarrow). Ron said she just studied him for hours.

What a gift from the universe! I am looking forward to getting to know Tuesday more, and since we letting nature take its course and naturally downsizing our flock, I am excited that Tuesday will be able to get extra attention and study. I think she’s a pretty magnificent bird. I’ll keep you posted!

In memory of plain Jane and sweet Charlotte

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment
That’s our sweet Charlotte right in front.

In the last week, we have lost two members of our flock. One was a bit of a surprise, and the other came suddenly but was a very old girl.

First, last Saturday evening, I had just been out giving treats to the flock and all had been well, but when I went out to close up the chickens, right in the front door I saw a dead hen. It was a big girl, and in the dark, I panicked and thought it might be Mary Jane. I went inside to get the flashlight and came back to find that it was Jane, Mary Jane’s daughter. She was only four year old, so it was hard to lose her. I am not sure why she passed. I could find nothing wrong with her. It looked like it was just that her heart had given out.

Jane was not supposed to be with us. During the start of the pandemic in 2020, there was a chick shortage, so I used our incubator and hatched quite a few baby chicks for people, probably about 100 in total. Some were given as chicks; others were raised by us until they were ready for a coop. We gave them to people and never charged money, but sometimes, people gave us gifts in return. We got a whole cord of wood from a couple of guys, so that was really nice. Jane was supposed to go out to those guys, but in the end, we decided to keep her.

I had tried really hard not to get attached to all those babies because I knew they were for other people, but Jane was a stand out. She was so curious, always checking me out. One day, Ron said, “There’s one hen in out there I think I’d like to keep.” As he began to describe her, I knew it was Jane! I was so excited that we agreed on keeping her, and so Jane, named so because she was the plainest hen in terms of looks, became a part of our flock.

She fit in so well, and in 2021, when I drove up north to get Poe grand baby eggs, it was Jane who went broody first and raised those babies. Jane raised Cora, Bertha, and Poe Jr. Jr. She did a great job–really too good of job–because Juliet was also raising a clutch at the same time, and Jane bossed Juliet around so badly that Juliet and her babies could barely move around with Jane’s permission.

Interestingly, Juliet had two hens she raised during that time. One was Ophelia who Juliet ended up rejecting early for some reason, and the other one was the only and only Ruby. I feel like Jane may have caused a lot of stress during Ruby’s upbringing, which goes a long way in explaining Ruby.

I am going to miss Jane so much. I assume she died a bit on the young side because she was a big girl with meat-bird genes, but she had a very, very good life in the flock, and I am so glad she stayed with us, especially since every single chicken we gave to those guys for the wood ended up being eaten by a fox. I think a lot of people got chickens during the pandemic, even when they weren’t quite ready for them. I quit hatching chicks for people after that because you know how I am, and the fox stories made me very sad.

This is Jane when she got to be a mama–a fierce mama. That baby chick next to her is Poe Jr. Jr.

Our sweet Charlotte died yesterday in the evening. It was also very sudden with no signs of illness at all. She was just old; she was out in there in the pasture with her people and then just died. She has been with us for a long time. She was a Buff Orpington I bought from a man in early 2017. He was selling them because his daughter had bought too many chicks, and as they grew up, she was overwhelmed. I bought Charlotte and Emily from him and immediately fell in love with them. I don’t know if they were sisters, but when you get a pair of hens, you just have to name them as if they are, so I named them Charlotte and Emily, after the Brontes.

I had hoped I was buying from a local breeder but was too naive to ask. I was more than a little disappointed when I found out they came from Tractor Supply, but it turned out to be okay. Charlotte was seven years old when she passed. Emily is still going, though I expect we won’t have her much longer. Still, that’s a pretty good run for some Tractor Supply chickens.

Emily and Charlotte were very close. They were inseparable for years, and in later years, still hung out a lot. Saint-Saens is either Emily or Charlotte’s daughter, and she always hung out with them as well. It’s one of the most fascinating things to me about chickens, but they tend to hang out with the people who look like them.

It was also interesting to me that both Emily and Charlotte got grumpy in their older age–a little mean sometimes. Buff Opringtons are such a docile breed, and those hens were so sweet most of their lives. Still, about two years ago, I noticed they were both just pecking everyone on the head like they owned the place. I guess they did. They were officially a part of the old guard in the coop, and I am so sad to have lost Charlotte.

But she was out pecking and scratching in the pasture and doing what she loved when she passed. She lived a very, very good life.

Last night, I tried to show her to Emily, to make sure Emily understood, but Rooster was too out of sorts about it. So, this morning, when Ron was about to take Charlotte out to the deep woods to feed a fox or someone in need, he held her down and showed her to the flock. He said the flock got very quiet and that Emily looked for a long time.

For various reasons I hope to write about soon, we can’t get any baby chickens this year and maybe next year. We also have several older hens. I am coming upon a time of loss–death without any new life–in this cycle of our farm as we try to downside our flock.

It’s going to be hard on my heart.

I miss Luna–and other updates

~ Crystal Sands ~ 3 Comments

Tomorrow will mark the two week anniversary of Luna returning to the flock. We had to keep the bully duck separated for a week, but Mean Girl has now returned to the flock as well. Our plan worked, and Mean Girl is no longer Mean Girl and is now just Carmelita again. Luna is getting along very well, though, I swear, in all of the snow and ice here yesterday, I think she looked at me with a certain kind of longing for her warm fire and Back cello suites.

Still, she is doing very well overall. The other ducks will not let me touch them unless they need some kind of help, but every night, when I deliver the bowl of peas at bedtime, I just touch Luna all over her little feathers and tell her I love her so much. She lets me. And that’s the extent of our relationship now. I can’t stop missing her, and I am definitely changed for the better by my experience with her. This summer, I’m going to make our son play some Bach on his cello outside on the deck where she can hear. I want to see if she remembers.

In other news, the ducks and chickens are laying in full force. I have been too worn out to try to sell eggs, even to most of our regular customers, so I think right now we have about 10 dozen eggs in the house–and that’s with our son eating many, many eggs every day. He loves fresh eggs. It’s a good thing he lives on a chicken farm.

Look at these beautiful duck eggs. That striped one is the little miracle Luna left for us the last night she was in the house. I did pretty well keeping her out of the light, and she only laid an egg about twice per week. I guess her “ink” was doing funny things. What a treasure!

We have had some terrible weather the last couple of days. Everything was all spring like, and I was ready for it. Then, we got snow and then more snow and wind and rain and ice and then some more snow. Ron and I spent all of yesterday shoveling trying to keep the ducks comfortable and trying to stay ahead of the ice. We did pretty well overall, but still, this morning, I had to use warm water to open the doors on the chicken coop and shed with the straw.

I told Ron this morning that I had never seen anything quite like this morning, but then I realized I remember saying that last year when we had the -50 degrees with the wind chill and that this is what climate change is all about–a whole bunch of “I have never seen anything like this before.”

Speaking of climate change, I actually went back to really writing this week. I have been in a drought for a long time. I have much to write in the blog, but I spent last week working on an article about climate change in Maine that will be published next month. The article was interesting to research, and I learned so much. It also felt good to be back to work in that way. When I was really struggling with COVID, I made a bunch of deals with myself and the universe that, if I could just get better, I was going to focus my energy on things I love much more. I am happy to be back to writing.

I sure miss Luna though.

Ruby showed up, like there was no big deal.

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

Friends, I just had to write this morning to update you on Ruby and Luna. First of all, Ruby showed up this morning. She appeared from under the chicken house acting like there was no problem at all. She must have been chilly out there, but she’s just fine this morning. I am so thankful for that chicken and also sometimes worn of her antics. She just can’t seem to be like everyone else though, and I guess you can’t blame her for that.

Also, Luna was just fine last night for her first night in the duck house. Of course, our bully is still being separated, but it’s a great start for Luna. Hopefully, a week of separation will help Mean Girl (her real name is Carmelita, but I think she’s just going to be Mean Girl for now on) find her inner kindness. Let’s hope!

Though I miss Luna, one perk is that I now seem to have time to write. Luna was a lot of work these three months. It was worth it to get to know her on such a deep level, but I am kind of looking forward to getting back to writing.