Hen-venture...

Today was my day off, and the calendar was delightfully blank. Sometimes my Monday's get filled up with appointments, errands, meeting with friends.  All good things, but there is something special about a day with absolutely no agenda.

When I did morning chores, it was 35 degrees. A much higher temperature than we've had lately, and it felt terrific.  I took the goats coats off and hung them up in the garage, letting the girls feel the sun and breeze.

I had an article due, so spent a few hours at my computer, doing research, interviewing some folks, and shaping the idea I had into an understandable piece. At some point the words looked like a lot of hash, so I went outside to have a change of scenery. To my delight, the thermometer was hovering at springtime.

I shucked off my coat and gloves, and decided it was a perfect day to clean the chicken coops. When the weather is bad, the birds stay in almost all the time, and the coops get dirty quickly.  I was pleased to get them cleaned out, and filled with fresh, sweet smelling pine shavings. I filled up food and water bowls, and thought happily of how the birds would be able to sleep in nice, clean, homes tonight.

 Once I was done with that project, I went back inside to do a final tidy up on my article and get it submitted. At dusk I went out to do evening chores and shut the coops up to keep the birds safe.  I was disconcerted to see 7 or 8 of the big chickens pacing and muttering grumpily in the snowy pasture. They should have been tucked happily into their fresh digs. I went out across the ice to help usher them through the hole in the fence that gives them access to the hen yard and their coop. I slipped and slid and made my way there, only to find that the ice and snow were deep enough to have that particular entrance firmly blocked.  The birds had gotten to the pasture by way of the back yard, but had not headed to the coop for the evening in the same direction. Now it was almost dark, and since chickens lack the ability to see without light, they were effectively stuck.  It was just light enough that they could evade me, but not light enough for them to be able to figure out a way home.  I went inside for a while, until it got darker.  Then I put my head lamp on and headed on my rescue mission. I had to turn off all the helpful exterior lights so the birds would stay put. This made navigating a little sporty.  Most of the hens had tucked themselves into the branches of  the tired Christmas tree, trying to find safety as the gloom gathered. They were wedged in like so many corks in  bottles, and it was a neat trick to wiggle them out.

Now these are substantial chickens. They weigh in at 7 or more pounds. And they do not take kindly to being plucked up off their roost. If I didn't grab them just right, they'd pummel me with their wings, and feathers or no feathers, those things can land a serious blow. They also scream bloody murder, alerting every fox within a 2 mile radius that there were chickens in distress at FairWinds, and they might want to come investigate.  One or two of the birds were wandering blindly in the dark, getting further and further from safety.

I plucked the first hen, squawking  and trying to flap to safety, from the dead tree. Then I teetered on my ice grips and headed back through the pasture to the gate.  The nosy goats wanted to help me in any way they could, so they wove back and forth in front of me, nudged the bird with their noses, and hip checked me to see just how secure my footing was.

I wrestled the gate latch with one hand, elbowing the goats and donkeys back and shouting unpleasantries to keep them where they belonged, then made my way precariously across the back yard, lugging the heavy bird, through the gate to the hen yard, and deposited her into the safe coop. I had to rig a light up in there so the poor, blind, things could see to get up on a roost. I trudged back for another. I got the ones roosting in the evergreen first, going back and forth from pasture to coop. Now mind you, I was wearing my beloved muck boots, with aggressive ice grips strapped to them. These are warm, waterproof and practical, but they don't exactly lend arch or ankle support. And the pasture is patches of slick, mushy snow, ice and, lets be honest, a lot of poop. Not exactly stable footing.  After my 14th trip back and forth, my feet and legs were complaining.

The last bird had wandered into the middle of the pasture, down at the bottom of a small, icy, slope. There she huddled, miserable, feet in the wet snow, set up to be fox food. I slipped and slid to get her, and gently placed my hands on either side of her wings so I could heft her up and tuck her under my arm. She screamed the scream of a tortured, dying animal. This bird had some good pipes, and my ears were thrumming under the assault.  Even the donkeys stopped chewing to look in our direction. I half expected the neighbors to call and see what the uproar was about. I put one hand over her head to hush her. There was no hushing. She cranked up the volume. I tried tucking her head to one side to calm her, but she shrieked louder. There was nothing to do but walk faster.  I careened around the last, perilous corner, and flung  her with little ceremony into the coop. She hit with an impressive thud and did a graceless somersault. Her uproarious hollering stopped like I'd flipped a switch.

My new Fitbit informed me that my heart rate was elevated to the level where calories are best burned, and that my little chicken escapade had gained me an extra 4,500 steps. My blank calendar had hidden untold adventures.