Tag: farm animals

A Rough Day 1

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Today is Day 2, and it was a good day. Yesterday, however, Day 1, was the roughest Day 1 ever.

I did a thing. For my birthday, I finally ordered some heritage Rhode Island Red hatching eggs. I have looked for about two years for some heritage Rhode Island Red baby chicks or hatching eggs. It took me so long that, when I finally found some reputable breeders, I couldn’t find anyone willing to ship eggs instead of chicks, and I was too afraid, given the state of the post office, to take a chance on live chicks. I had just about given up until I found a little farm in Minnesota that specializes in heritage breed chickens.

The eggs were about $10 an egg with shipping, but that was a pretty good deal I thought considering a heritage Rhode Island baby chick can cost between $30 and $40. Plus, I wouldn’t have to worry about a baby dying during shipping. Plus, I have a really good incubator and have learned its nuances. The last broiler hatch I did, I hatched 39 of 41 eggs. That’s an amazing hatch rate! So, if I didn’t have a broody hen handy when the eggs arrived, I would have great chances with my incubator.

The lowest amount I could order was a dozen, which is a fancy birthday present for sure, but I told myself that I would probably never find this perfect deal again. I placed the order.

Shortly after I placed the order, I received a text confirming my order and explaining the process. The woman who texted me was very matter of fact at first, but when I wrote back and told her how much I loved Rhode Island Reds, it was like we were old friends. We texted back and forth a long time–both of us sharing stories of love for Rhode Island Reds.

On Wednesday, just a few days after my birthday, the eggs arrived. I had big plans. I have so many broody hens right now. We can’t handle 10 or 12 more chickens, so I thought I would just put 7 or 8 eggs under one of my broody hens and throw away the rest. But then the woman told me her hatching rate hasn’t been great and that she was sending me extra eggs.

With the low hatching rate in mind, it would be pretty risky to just put just 7 or 8 eggs under my broody hen. And I only have space for one broody hen right now because we have a turkey mama in one crate, a hen on turkey eggs in another crate, and we only have the three. Dog crates are so valuable.

Thursday night, I decided to try 9 eggs under a little Ameraucana hen who has been broody forever. She seemed to accept the eggs that night, but when I woke up yesterday and went to check on her, she was banging her head on the crate door. The eggs were spread around everywhere, but none were broken. Still, I thought this was not a good Day 1. I wanted to treasure every day of this 21-day process. These eggs are full of so much hope for me. Still, I had no idea what was in store for me just a few minutes later.

I decided to let my broody hen out of the crate and try another hen. The coop is full of broody hens right now, but I was a little disappointed because that little Ameraucana (her name is Priscilla) is one of my favorites. Then, I went to check on our mama turkey, Maggie. She has had a tough go being a mama, and I will try to tell her full story in a few days.

For now, I’ll tell you that she hatched four babies, but one just barely made it out of the egg and died within a few hours. Still, three babies seemed pretty good, and the babies were very difficult. Three seemed like more than enough to handle for Maggie and for me and Ron. This is our first time trying to hatch eggs with a mama turkey. The learning curve has been steep.

It was steeper than I could have imagined.

I thought Maggie was acting strangely yesterday morning. I opened her crate, set out fresh food and water, and she didn’t come out. I went to let out the chickens and started to have a really bad feeling. I had terrible trouble sleeping the night before. I felt unsettled. As I looked across the yard and saw Maggie still in the crate, the bad feeling grew stronger.

I ran to the crate and started looking for babies. There were only two. Two babies.

I searched in the straw and then searched all around outside for a little body because it had been so cold that night, but there was nothing. The baby was just gone, and Maggie wasn’t letting the two she had left out of the crate. It was all maddening and so confusing.

I thought we would never know for sure what happened, but my guess was that the baby chick wandered into the nearby woodpile and got lost in there. Later that day, I saw one of Maggie’s two remaining babies find a spot we missed after Ron and I spent the morning both searching the wood pile and then covering the wood pile to prevent any further loss. Maggie got hysterical when her baby tried to go into the wood pile, so I knew. I made sure I covered the remaining hole.

That kind of devastating loss is terrible for my long COVID. As I sat on the ground, worn from a morning of crying and searching, I could feel my body head toward a crash, so I tried to calm myself down.

“This is life on the farm,” Ron said. “We’re all learning. Maggie. Us.”

I knew he was right. I just had to pick myself up and do everything I could to make sure Maggie didn’t lose another baby and maybe try to find another broody hen for my Rhode Island Red eggs.

We have one of our Salmon Faverolle hens sitting on some turkey eggs right now (another long story), and she went right to it–no questions asked. So I thought I would try another Salmon Faverolle who has been broody about a week. I put her in the crate with the eggs, and she was having none of it. Sometimes, it can take them a bit, so I left her in there for a couple of hours. She said nope.

So I let her out and wondered who was next on the roster.

I had two hens left, and both of them were just barely broody for maybe just a few days. I decided to go with our little Welsummer because Welsummers are the second best chickens in the world. Plus, she is a bigger girl and could probably handle at least 10 eggs. Also, her name is Lilibeth.

I put her in the crate with the eggs, and she was not happy. I decided to give her at least an hour, but when I came back to check on her, she was sitting at the back of the crate with the eggs in the middle, acting like she didn’t want to touch them. I started to wonder if maybe the eggs looked or smelled funny. I have NEVER had broody hens reject eggs like this. Never.

I decided get an egg from the coop and sit it in the middle of the eggs to make it feel like these were our eggs. I grabbed a green one and sat in the pile. Then, Ron took me to our favorite greenhouse to buy some flowers to help cheer me up after the rough morning with Maggie’s baby.

“If that hen is still rejecting those eggs when we get home, I’m going to let her out and just use the incubator,” I said to Ron. “I guess I’ll just have to raise those babies myself.” It’s always better if a mama hen can raise babies, but I was beginning to think I wasn’t going to have a mama hen for this job.

We were gone a good bit. The owners of the greenhouse are our friends. They are from Ireland, and I could just sit and listen to them talk all day. When we got home with our flowers, I went straight to the crate. Lilibeth was still in the back of the crate, and all the eggs were gone except for the green one! It was sitting there all alone.

Then, I realized what happened. Lilibeth had rolled every single one of those eggs, except for the green one, across the dog crate and put them under her where she wanted them.

It was a rough Day 1, but in the end, there was hope.

Today, Day 2, was much easier. Maggie’s two babies are doing great, and Lilibeth is set hard on those Rhode Island Red eggs.

A chicken in the house and other stuff…

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

Last fall, we ordered some chickens from a hatchery, which is against a rule I made a few years ago, but Ron insisted I needed some babies to cheer me up. They are the sweetest little chickens I think I have ever seen, but one of them came a little runty and sick. She seemed to hang in there okay though until recently. She got into the sick chicken pose and was sleeping in the corner of coop, so I brought her into the house. Her name is Bernice, and she has made herself quite at home.

She walks around the house, pooping periodically, so I have to go behind her and clean pretty regularly. It’s fortunate the cats sleep throughout the day, as they probably wouldn’t be kind to Bernice–at least I am pretty sure Betty would not be. Bella would be curious, but Betty might be too curious.

I am not sure Bernice is going to get better. I have been able to treat some of her symptoms, but I think there is something deeply wrong. Ron keeps thinking she’s getting better, but I am not as hopeful. I am just resigned to the fact that she seems to be enjoying herself and likes the wood stove and maybe is going to get to spend the last weeks of her life getting pampered. I hope I am wrong about her.

I don’t know if you remember Luna, our runner duck. A little over three years ago, when Bairre was a puppy, he ran over Luna and broke her leg. Luna had to live in the house for months, and I fell in love with her extra. She loved to pretend fly (since she couldn’t walk, I would carry her around and she would flap her wings like she flew where she wanted to go), and when she was resting, she would sit in her bin and watch television with me while I graded papers.

She’s eight years old now and seems to be winding down. I saw her sitting outside alone yesterday and the day before. I have checked her everywhere, and I can’t see anything wrong. I was hoping she had bumble foot, but she doesn’t. I think she’s just getting really old. I was so down about Luna last night (that plus the apocalypse, I think) that I think it triggered another long COVID episode, which is both miserable and frustrating. I’m having a really slow day–hence the time to write.

But it’s not all bad news around here. There are good things, of course.

I finally figured out how to make sourdough bread! It has been a journey, and it took me about ten loaves to figure out how to do it well with my limited equipment. It was worth it! It’s so good and so beautiful, and I am more than a little proud of myself. I will have to write about it more soon.

And the new hens started to really lay this month, and the eggs are beautiful. We have two little Cuckoo Marans, and they lay the most magnificent chocolate eggs. Also, one of them, Genevieve, still lets me pick her up and give her a hug. I adore her. The turkeys also started laying eggs, and the eggs are gorgeous. I am a huge fan of speckled eggs, so I am just so proud of these turkeys and their art.

Oh, and my son, the cellist, won the state high school concerto competition a few weeks ago. I was so happy for him. Interestingly, however, I found myself not only extremely empathetic to him but to the other kids as well. I sat in the front, so I could get a good video of my son for an audition for a radio program. Because I was so close, I could feel all of that energy–like too much. I was especially panicked for the kids who were playing from memory. As I have mentioned, my son also has long COVID, and it causes some memory issues. This makes me just have a kind of terror when he has to play from memory. Somehow, that terror applies to other people’s children as well.

There was one little boy playing who seemed to get a little lost for a second. My whole body tensed up as I did everything in my witchy power to will him to remember his spot. He remembered and pulled it together and kept playing. I was so relieved. I don’t know if I helped him or not, but for real, I was spending some energy on it.

Needless to say, for about three days after the concerto competition, I could barely get off the couch, but I was still so darn happy for my son and so darn happy all the kids played so well.

I hope you are all doing as well during these hard times. Sending love to you all, and I hope to see some of you Sunday morning when I’ll be talking about gardening.

My Holiday Week in Pictures

~ Crystal Sands ~ 3 Comments

I hope you are having a restful holiday season. It has been quite the year for all of us, but here we are, figuring it out somehow, aren’t we?

It has been terribly, terribly cold here. We lost one of our young chickens, one of our two roosters, so that was a blow. I think it was mostly just unlucky genetics, but truly, it has been unusually cold unusually early here. I don’t think we have seen a December this cold since we started homesteading, so when we got baby chickens in August, we thought they would be plenty big before the bad cold hit. Of course, we thought wrong, and the cold has been hard on our little ones. They are fully feathered, but still.

The cold is hard on the young ones and the old ones. We mostly have the young ones and the old ones now, so Ron has been running the ceramic heater in the coop on the worst nights. I know you are not supposed to heat your coop, but we try to make careful exceptions to the rule.

On the bright side, it has been amazing for making ice lanterns, and I have made several. I have been using candle light both inside and outside to keep me in good spirits, and it has worked. I decided to take a lesson from the Nordic folk and just lean into the candlelight this year. It has been so helpful that I want to see if there is any science behind it.

I hope you are staying warm and cozy. It’s -1 here right now in our part of Maine, so I am doing my best. I hope you are doing your best wherever you are. I hope these photos make you smile. They are presented in random order with some random thoughts. I would love to see some of your holiday photos or at least hear some of your stories. Please share as well if you can!

I’ll start with Boudica. Here, she is asking me to come out to play in the snow, and I am telling her there is no way I am going out in that cold. I am telling her to come in the house and sit on the couch with me. She eventually came inside and slept next to me on the couch. She has been doing that a lot lately. Her tiredness worries me, but I am trying to treasure our snuggle time. She will be 10 this coming year.
I found out this year that I have a Jewish ancestor on my mom’s side, and I have always been so fascinated with Judaism and have studied a bit over the years. This year, I decided to try to learn how to celebrate Hanukkah officially, and my dear friend brought a menorah for me. I learned after this photo that you aren’t supposed to put all the candles in at once and that you burn the candles all the way down each night. I have much to learn, but this year, we celebrated Hanukkah, Yule, and Christmas, and it felt right to me. It seemed important to have all that focus on the light.
I was worried we were not going to have a Christmas tree this year. It was just a few days before Christmas, and I hoped a little tree from our property. It seems wrong to just cut down a tree for my own enjoyment, so I told Ron my idea of taking a tree from a patch of trees because they won’t all make it when they are too close. This tree has zero on the backside, but this side was perfect. I love her! We could not find a single tree stand for a live tree here in our part of Maine, so Ron bought a small bucket, filled it with rocks and water, and it worked! I was grateful.
The only perk I can see to this hard cold we have had this December is that I get to make ice lanterns. Aren’t they magnificent? If you live where it is cold you can make them too. I created directions for making them in the Winter Solstice issue of the journal.
I spent a good bit of this week making gifts for friends. This is one of the tiny Solstice cakes I made to share with others.
The tiny cake was inspired by this big cake. I make one every year and use the same snowmen candle holders every year.
I did my best at making a witch bowl candle, and it’s pretty good. However, I have much to learn. Hopefully, I will have them perfected by next year. They include oranges I dried plus cinnamon sticks, star anise, and whole cloves.
I also make these light balls made from Christmas lights and Solo cups. I gave this one to a dear friend to brighten her spirits. These balls of light are just lovely. I had hoped to make a bunch for our yard but rest took priority. Hopefully, next year, I can make more!
I made cranberry and popcorn strings for the turkeys on Christmas Eve. They loved them but not as much as they love Craisins (that’s a whole other story). The chickens LOVED theirs though, and that made my heart happy. The baby chickens were like, oh, we like popcorn!
This is my favorite stocking and favorite candle, so I felt they deserved a picture. Ron calls this candle my Ebenezer Scrooge candle. : )
It seemed proper to close my photos with one of Bairre on the couch on Christmas. He’s so happy when he’s on the pillows. Happy winter holidays, no matter what you celebrate, from all of us and Bairre. I hope you get some good rest like Bairre. He’s an expert at taking it easy.

An Update in Pictures

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

I have been very busy with the animals. Cynthia passed away last week, and both Jeremiah and I were devastated. On Halloween, we went to Petco and purchased Jeremiah a new girl, but he was very upset about it. It took me a week, but Jeremiah and the new girl (named Samhain because that’s when we got her) are now living happily. I will have to share pictures and tell her story soon because Samhain is beautiful and is the same color as Jeremiah, even though she is a fancy mouse. I thought all fancy mice were white. Samhain looks like a cross between a mouse and a teddy bear.

Also, in the fall, male ducks always get too frisky, and our male duck, Spyro, injured Anna Maria pretty badly. It has been an epic few weeks of my working daily to keep Anna Maria safe and separate and healing. I am happy to report that she has healed and is able to sleep with the flock again. As you may remember, Anna Maria hates me on a regular day, but when she’s injured, she’s just on the edge and hates me extra.

Because I have also been sick due to a terrible flare of my autoimmune struggles, I was starting to wonder if I still had it in me to care for Anna Maria. But we did it! I am now back to just having to help her stay with the flock when she loses everyone because she’s blind. Just this morning, I picked her up when she got caught up in the turkeys and carried her to the rest of the ducks.

I held her like a baby over my shoulder and said, “I know you hate me, but I will love you until the day I die.” She can’t have too much longer in this world. She is moving more slowly and getting lost all the time. There must be something I am supposed to learn from my service to her. Maybe it’s just service. I am weary though. Thankfully, she is better again now.

And despite the challenges this fall, it has been a lovely harvest season. The baby chickens are good for my soul, and I love getting to know them. Ron has harvested so much good food from the garden. I made a ton of apple butter, finally mastered the cherry pie thanks to a cheat, and learned how to make homemade English muffins. It is more than a little joyful watching that dough puff up in the skillet.

I took some pictures of the baby chickens today, so I thought I would share an update of them along with a few pictures from around here. Wait until you see one of the male turkeys. Those turkeys are magnificent creatures!

This is my favorite baby. She is a Welsummer like our dear Rooster was. She lets me hold her still. When she was little, she was the only one who would come to me. I have no name for her yet. It has to be the best name. I wish to honor Rooster in some way, but that poor boy did not have a good name. Please help with ideas!
This is Bernice. She is the tiniest of all of the Delaware chickens we have, and she is so sweet. She likes to be wild and free though and will not let me hold her very much.
This is Pingvin. She is named for the Swedish word for penguin because she had a creamy white face when she was a baby and looked like a penguin. I spent the spring learning a little bit of Swedish. The main words that stuck were the words for bread, strawberry, thank you, you’re welcome, and penguin.
And this is Pumpkin, an old girl who came to visit with me while I took baby pictures this morning. She is about 7 years old and is the hen who disappeared for weeks and returned squawking outside our bedroom window one night in the middle of the night. Oh, I wish she could tell me her stories! She is just getting over a molt, so she looks a little worse for wear right now. What a magnificent girl she is!
These are the English muffins I learned how to make. They were inconsistent in thickness but consistent in their yumminess.
And look at this cauliflower harvest last week! I told Ron that October and November must be cauliflower’s favorite months. I have never seen him grow more beautiful cauliflower.
This beautiful boy shows out like this all the time. All three boys do. I learned they will not mate unless the females submit and allow it. So far, the hens seem like they won’t be ready until next spring, so the boys just walk around showing off like 80% of the day. I keep asking them if they get tired of it. I guess they just do not. What a beautiful boy! I have to write more about the turkeys. It’s hard though because they deserve much time and effort. I’ll just share this: Their heads change colors depending upon their mood. They have red, blue, white, and colors in between!
We had a banner harvest this year. We put up more food than ever, and the onions were so gorgeous this year. We keep learning a little more each year about how to put by food. The onions have been a staple for years, but they were so beautiful I had to share a picture of them in our cold room.
And definitely not least, this is the cherry pie I made. I cheated. I used the new Bonne Maman cherry pie filling, and now I can finally make a cherry pie. It’s still not as good as my grandmother’s though. Oh, to have her recipes!

Ruby and the Fall Babies

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

I realize I haven’t written much since Rooster passed away. There was such a depression around here. I thought we were going to lose our other rooster, Dvorak. He was so down. He didn’t crow for weeks and just sat around with his head hanging low. I didn’t know if he was sick or if maybe he just had a broken heart like I did. I guess that was accurate because after at time, he started to crow again. He seems to be doing well now.

I am not sure what helped Dvorak’s depression, but mine wasn’t getting better on its own. Ron decided some baby chicks might help, and so we stayed up late one night and looked through the online catalog of a big hatchery. So late in the season, there were not a lot of options, but he wanted dual purpose birds while I wanted heritage. I wasn’t sure if we were really going to order them because we have been trying to downsize for a couple of years, but I guess a couple of years without baby chicks was too much for Ron too because, the next day, he told me he had placed the order.

We got nine Delawares (an old-timey, dual purpose bird), two Cuckoo Marans (a French heritage bird that lays dark brown eggs), two Welsummers (a heritage bird and the same breed as our beloved Rooster), and two blue Ameraucanas (not heritage but beautiful birds with a blue tint to the feathers; they lay blue eggs).

These birds are gorgeous–all of them.

The first couple of weeks we had them, I was working a lot and really sick. I did not get to enjoy them nearly as much as I had hoped, but I started to get better and was able to spend more time with them. I am getting to know them all now, and they are magnificent because of course they are.

But the most interesting thing about getting these babies is Ruby’s reaction to them.

Last year, we did not let Ruby raise babies when she went broody. She was always the most fierce mama and so quick to go broody. She loved being a mama and would spend the whole summer raising babies and then would just go broody again, but downsizing meant no babies for Ruby. This year, Ruby did not go broody. I assume it’s because of her likely ovarian cancer but maybe also because she’s getting older.

Either way, I was thinking just a month or so ago as I looked down at a poop Ruby had left in the garage–a poop that is the calling card of the ovarian cancer–that I have to treasure every day I have left with Ruby. Every day.

I am happy to report that Ruby is treasuring every day too.

When we put the babies in the brood box in the garage, Ruby would visit with them every morning. She watched them through the window and would make noises at them. They, of course, adored her, but Ruby would get busy and go on about her day after a while.

However, when we put the babies into a small fenced area connected to the main chicken yard, Ruby went to work. She would sit the babies for hours. She would show them how to scratch through the fence. The best thing was listening to her make mama noises at them. Ruby is so fantastic. Both Kate and Juliet run around the driveway too. but neither of them seem to care one bit about those babies. Ruby loves them.

Just today Ron was outside making kindling when he popped into the house to tell me a Ruby story.

He said she was scratching at the earth, working hard to get something. She was making all kinds of mama tidbitting noises. The babies were waiting through the fence to see wha she would come up with. Ron said, when she got whatever it was she got, she threw it through the fence with her beak, and one of the babies ate it!

How fantastic is that?

I want to let the babies out to be with her more, but there are too many. Plus, Ruby doesn’t seem interested in full-time care. Still, the fall babies are getting big, and after Halloween, they will go into the big run with everyone else.

I can’t wait to see what Ruby does.

Boudica Caught a Rat and Other News

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Well, Rooster lives, but I do not know how. Well, I do know how. Ron and I are feeding him. I don’t know if this is the right thing to do, because he is having a very hard time, but he seems to really want to keep going. He still has his spirit. He bawked at me a little bit today when I was in the garden picking tomatoes for the sauce. He wanted his own tomato.

When bit it into small pieces, so he could eat it. I cupped it in my hand, so the hens couldn’t steal it. And he struggled, but he managed to get it all down. We are having to carry him into the coop at night because he can’t make it up the ramp. And he made himself a little nest in the straw on the floor because he can’t get on the roosts.

Somehow, despite everything, he is managing to maintain his dignity. He still does everything, even get carried to the coop, with dignity. What are we going to do without him? I just cry every night, and Ron keeps playing his favorite music for him. Rooster really loves music.

And we both try to be so thankful we have had the honor of knowing this noble bird for the last nine years.

***I feel I should post a warning that, below, I discuss the death of rats. It’s a reality of farm life, but not everyone wants to read about the death of beautiful creatures. I don’t like it myself, so you may want to stop reading if you are against the death of rats. I can only tell you that we try everything in our power not to kill them, but they are overrunning most of Maine. Climate change is a part of it, but apparently, people have over-killed coyotes, who eat the rats, and well, you know how humans manage to mess everything up. ***

Boudica caught her first rat tonight! She has been after those rats for years. Years. They are quick, and she is old, which makes tonight’s kill very impressive. Those rats are magnificent, and I hate for them to have to die. However, we think the drought has brought them in like we have never seen in the summer.

About a month ago, we had some big ones running around near the coop, like so big I was absolutely terrified of them. So Ron got out his .22 and just shot at them for about a week in a row. He never killed one and just wanted them to move on. “Just make them feel unwanted,” he said. They did. We didn’t see rats for nearly two weeks, but then a new group moved in.

They were small and cute but were legion. They arrived just last week, and they were so adorable, but they were everywhere. They appeared while Ron and our son were on a mini vacation last weekend. Just when I was thinking how awesome it was that the rats moved on, I went out to the coop Saturday evening to bring in the food and water, and all I could see were cute little rat butts and tails flying out the door and under the nest boxes.

When Ron got home, he decided it was time to set the traps. He set them everywhere, and the first night, he got five rats. That’s a record. The next night, just one, which seems hopeful, although it could be that everyone who was left just got wise. Tonight, Boudica got one on her own.

Ron said she was near the chicken coop and made a super quick move and then just had one. Ron said she was so proud. This was a life goal for Boudica. I wonder how she feels now. Was it rewarding? Anticlimactic? I mean, she has been after a rat off and on for her whole 9 years. I wonder what she will do with herself now? Probably just try to get another. However, I did talk to her tonight when I put up the ducks, and she seemed quite pleased with herself.

Anyway, on the garden front, we are making the spaghetti and pizza sauce this week, and I am beat. I spent this weekend processing one big batch, and then today, I helped Ron peel the tomatoes on my lunch break from work, and then I have spent all evening with the sauce.

I have been back and forth to the kitchen while writing this. I am down to the first round of water bathing right now and am just waiting for the giant pot to boil.

How have you been? What’s up on your farms or homesteads?

I hate this part…

~ Crystal Sands ~ 4 Comments

Our ducks turned seven this May, and I knew this would be coming, that we would start to lose them. Still, I hate this part more than I can say.

Four nights ago, one of the hens didn’t come for the nightly bowl of peas and the duck game. I knew that was a bad sign, and when I went to pick her up, she was so thin.

I examined her and saw she had a minor bumble on a toe, so I wrapped it but had a very bad feeling. I put her back outside and decided the next morning to bring her in the house to examine her more thoroughly.

I don’t for sure which duck she is. I know Anna Sophia and Luna because they lived in the house for some months, but I can’t tell the other two ducks apart. Of course, there’s Anna Maria, our blind duck, but she is a chocolate runner. The two remaining fawn runners look a lot alike. This duck is either Carmen or Isabella. Those are the other two left.

I brought her into the guest bathroom where I have soaked and bandaged and treated and healed many things over the last seven years with our ducks. She had definitely been in the house before because she wanted in the tub. I took the bandage off of her toe and ran some cool water for her. I put her in the tub and got her all the favorite treats of ducks, and she wasn’t having any of them. I sat with her a bit, and then I saw it.

She pooped in the water a poop that I have seen before. It’s the poop of ovarian cancer. I saw it with Poe, with Broody Hen. I read about it online. I broke down because I knew, for sure, this duck was about to die.

She still had some strength and acted like she wanted to go back outside with her people when they would quack, so I decided to let her stay outside until she just couldn’t.

This is my little duck tonight. I am going to miss her.

Tonight, I decided she just couldn’t.

I have been checking on her many times a day the last couple of days, but today, I just couldn’t find her. In between meetings at work, I would look and never found her. I figured she was probably going off alone to die.

I finally found her in the corner of the turkey house, and tonight after dinner, I decided to scoop her up, bring her in, and go into hospice care.

I really, really hate this part.

She leaned into me so hard when I picked her up. I made up a bin for her with fresh straw and put a bowl of water and peas in for her. I know she won’t eat the peas, but I have been giving her peas every single night of her life for seven years. I wanted her to at least have them.

And then I remembered that ducks love cello. I found a piece my son played, a meditation on Tom Petty’s “Wild Flowers,” and I played it for her on my phone. It is has that beautiful, deep cello sound, so I knew she would love it. She did. She watched the video and just closed her eyes to relax. It was the best final gift I could give her.

I cried the gross kind of cry and held the phone for her, so she could listen to it twice. I kissed her goodnight and told her goodbye in case she passes tonight. I hope she passes tonight. Please say a little prayer that she passes tonight. She has had a good, very long life. I know this. I wish for her passing to be easy.

Also, Tuesday, Ruby’s daughter, is gone again. I think it’s been nearly two weeks since she’s been gone. I have looked and looked. She went off broody, as she has done before.

I deeply understand there is nothing I can do about her at this point. She has either passed or will come home in a few weeks with babies. I know the odds are that she will never come home. I hate writing that sentence.

There is much heartbreak to this life. Sometimes, I am not sure I am cut out for it.

Just this sweet little turkey…

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

I now have eight little turkeys to mother. The other nine are with fantastic parents. I will write more about this journey so far later in the week, but I just had to write quickly tonight because we had our first field trip outside today. I hope to have the video to share soon, but I do have this picture. This one is a girl, I am pretty sure–at least I hope–because she’s the biggest mama’s baby. She comes up to me when everyone else is playing and just wants to be held. She’s working hard in this picture. I think she got a bug!

Oh, my heart. I needed some babies. I haven’t had time to read the news in two days.

Look Out the Window

~ Crystal Sands ~ 4 Comments

Well, friends, I did it. I successfully hatched a batch of baby chicks, and they are now all in the brand new brood box Ron made for them. That brood box is a masterpiece, and I must write about it one day. However, for my story today, you just need to know that it has a large window in the front, so it literally looks like a giant chicken tv.

And, as such, my husband, son, and I have found ourselves watching the baby chickens on “television” several times a day. Last night, we all happened to be out there together watching through the window at how the baby chicks interacted with their world.

“It’s so interesting to think about how their whole world is in that box right now,” my teenager said. “They don’t even know to look out the window.” Oh, that kid has a beautiful mind!

We all talked about how they have everything a baby chick could need or want (besides a mama) right there in that little box–it’s warm, it’s spacious, there’s fresh food and water. And there are many friends to be had. I think I hatched 29 chicks.

“Every now and then the hand of ‘God’ reaches in and adds fresh food and water, and then they are go on their little ways” my son said.

And this led us to a discussion of humans.

Open window with a wooden frame looking out onto a misty green landscape.

We talked about how much there is that humans can’t see or understand, which relates to how we define “God,” though my son pointed out that there are plenty of scientists who have been trying to “look out the window” and see what all is out there. Still, most of us probably don’t even have time to stop and look up at the stars.

I just spent the last four months working non-stop to try to save money and pay off debt before things get really tough economically. Thankfully, we did not have much debt. We are lucky. But we do not own our property outright, so that’s a worry. So, pretty much, for the last several months, if my eyes were open, I was working. I was exhausted mentally and physically and could not move my right arm very well from the repetitive motions. I noticed I was getting more and more grumpy, and I don’t like myself that way.

And then, last week, my jobs were cut back, as I knew they eventually would be. I didn’t “lose” the jobs, but there is just less work–fewer students in college means fewer classes. So, last week, for first time in a long time, I felt like I could breathe a little. As scary as it all is, I was just so thankful to not have to work so much.

The other night, when I went outside to put the ducks to bed, instead of rushing them into the duck house, so I could get back to work, I just stood outside and looked up at the stars. When I did, I realized I had not looked up at the stars in months. What a tragedy that is, right? The stars make me think of our Great Pyrenees Gus, who loved to sit outside and just look up at the stars at night, or the clouds during the day, or a cool bird on the fence. But, right before he died, we sat out under the stars for a long time and just took them in together.

The stars are lovely and remind me of how small I am and how small my problems are and how small even the cruel people in charge really are. They don’t know they’re small–well, maybe on some level they do and it scares them and that’s why they behave as they do. But I guess that’s a whole other issue. Still, doesn’t the vastness of the galaxy just give you some perspective?

Looking up at the stars made me think about how I am just a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. I am a human animal, a mother doing my best to protect my children, keep them safe, ensure the survival of my species because that’s what I am programmed to do, I suppose–and, because I seem to have been born with an urge, make some human art along the way.

But I also have to remember there are so many things I don’t quite understand, how it all fits together, why things fall apart, why cruelty seems to be such a part of it all, but maybe, if I take time to look out the window, I will find some answers. Of course, the older I get, the more I realize that the answer might be that there are no answers.

In the meantime, I am watching the baby chicks. It’s been a few days, and they haven’t looked out the window yet, but give them time, they will soon. And, then, their curious minds will want to know what is outside of that brood box, and the day their feathers come in and they no longer need heat and they get go outside to touch the earth and eat bugs and play in the grass will be the best day.

photo credit: Hannah Tims, Unsplash

Last Dance with Mary Jane

~ Crystal Sands ~ 6 Comments

To the many of you who have followed Mary Jane’s story over the last nearly 8 years, I wanted to let you know that she passed the night before last. I found her in the coop yesterday morning, and my heart is broken, of course.

The night before, we had been out pretty late because our son had a performance in Portland. When we got home, I went out to close up the chickens and put away the food and found that Mary Jane was not in her usual spot. I went to her and touched her. She got up and was moving slowly, but she went to the food dish and started eating and eating. I thought this was unusual.

I went about doing everything else for the evening chores–closing up the ducks, dumping waters, busting ice, etc.–and came back and told her I was going to have to take away the food dish because it was bed time. Because she was so old and so wise, she understood a lot of language and understood I had to take the bowl. I gave her some pets and kept the flashlight on, so she could make her way over to her usual spot in the coop. She was moving so very slowly heading to her spot, but she has slow been all winter. At some point, I just quit worrying about her quite so much. I think I just thought she might live forever.

I said good night to her and told her she was a good girl. I wish I would have hugged her, though she was only sometimes in the mood for hugs. I keep thinking about seeing her slowly making her way in the coop in the light of the flashlight. That’s the last time I got to see her. I wish I would have said more, but I know in my bones she knew I loved her. I made it clear so, so many times.

When I went to the coop yesterday morning, she was in her spot and had passed sometime during the night. The flock wasn’t acting weird at all, as they sometimes will when someone dies in the coop, and Mary Jane just looked like she passed in her sleep. She looked peaceful. I think it must have been a quiet death, as the flock was not disturbed until later when I was holding her and crying. .

I held her for the longest time and angry cried a lot, though I do not know why I was angry–other than I am just angry at the world, I guess.

When I went to get Ron and let him know, Boudica found me. She had heard me crying and was so worried about me. She did all she could to make me feel better–and I did feel better. I was reminded that I still have Boudica, and that, as much as losing Mary Jane hurts, it will pale in comparison to losing Boudica. So I had better treasure my time with that amazing girl.

I picked a feather from Mary Jane to save forever. Ron said he took her by the coop to say goodbye to the flocks, and Rooster was visibly upset. That old boy is also moving very, very slowly himself. Ron took her about a half mile into the woods to feed a hungry someone, maybe a fox, maybe a hawk. He lay her at the base of a big, beautiful Ash tree and told her how much he loved her and how thankful he was to know her. He told her the story of the day she was pardoned from processing and why she stood out from the others. That trauma was a part of her story, and she always carried herself with the wisdom of having seen some things.

There are so many lessons there that I don’t know if I will ever learn them all in this lifetime, but I will try.

I am going to miss her terribly. It feels like the end of an era.

She would have been 8 years old at the first of June. She was a Freedom Ranger meat chicken and one of the most intelligent creatures I have ever met. And one of my dear friends reminded me of this important lyric in Tom Petty’s song:

“She said, ‘I dig you, baby, but I got to keep movin’ on, keep movin’ on'”

But I’ll see her again. I know I will.