carving it
the elaborate plan (This is going to be a character from Doors.)
some of the many results
My son keeps asking me to buy more pumpkins cause he keeps getting more ideas. I don’t mind; pumpkins are cheap this time of year. Jack o’lanterns are no longer a measure to keep evil spirits away. (We don’t need that; we have Christ!) They are now a whimsical autumn art form. My son is an artist and I can’t restrain him from doing artist things.
This is their first trip outside in the grazer after being in the garage under the red heat lamp. As you can see, their main concern is to drink water.
After the Great Chicken Massacre of 2023, we waited impatiently until we could buy more chickens at the farm store. This time, we bought one of each kind of layer they had. With these seven, plus Jane Wayne, our run will be full up.
If they all survive to adulthood, we will have …
… in addition to big sister Jane Wayne.
Here it is. I made this from wheat stalks that I cut from a wheat field literally yards from my front door.
I mounted them on a $2 wire wreath frame, using a $3 roll of florist’s wire.
Just one thing I’d do differently … projects with wheat are best done outdoors. Those spines are really difficult to get out of the carpet.
I won’t actually be living away from electricity. I just a need a moment to catch my breath.
Jane Wayne, the sole survivor of the Great Chicken Massacre of 2023, did not appear outwardly traumatized. She hung out in the cool darkness under the lilac bushes just as she used to do when her sisters were alive, taking a dust bath and watching the humans dash around cleaning up blood and feathers. She remained in the yard all day, making periodic forays to her usual haunts, scratching in the pile of grass clippings, hiding under the camper. But when night fell and it was time to put Jane in the coop (and make it secure this time!), she suddenly was nowhere to be found.
My son and I wandered all around looking for her: first our yard, then the farm and machine yard, then as far as the bridge over the irrigation canal. Our hearts were sinking. We figured that the predator had probably returned and dragged Jane off as well. We were still raw from the massacre, but had been taking comfort in the fact that we still had one chicken to care for. Now, with heavy hearts and against the background of a brilliant red Idaho sunset, we trudged home.
The next morning, clinging to some faint hope, we wandered to the back to see whether Jane had reappeared. And there she was! Roosting in the upper branches of the lilac bush by the wood pile! Jane had apparently spent the night in the bush. This is normal wild chicken behavior. We are not sure whether Jane found the coop too full of distressing memories, or whether, without the crowd to remind her, she has forgotten that her normal routine is to go into the coop at night and rest on its upper rafters. (Another theory is that she had already been spending the night in the lilac bushes, and this is what enabled her to survive the massacre. This theory is disfavored, because we would usually do a visual check that the Barred Rocks were in the coop, and there were always four black butts faintly visible, perched up in the peak of the structure.)
Since her newly acquired status as Only Chicken, Jane has continued retiring to the lilacs on a nightly basis. Ordinarily, the humans will pluck her down from there, put her in the coop, and close the doors. (The small human is particularly good at this.) We want her to get used to spending the night in the coop, so that she will lay eggs there when she starts laying, and as an example to the next batch of chickens we already plan to buy. Once or twice, she has evaded us of an evening. There was a second vanishing, and a second despairing walk to the bridge and back along the canal. She may have a hiding place that we still haven’t discovered. Jane has unexpected depths. But so far, she can still be counted on to show up when a human emerges from the house bearing something tempting, like yoghurt.
So it was my fault.
Now that I no longer have to get up early to teach, I like to sleep in a little bit in the mornings. In the summertime, this means that I am getting up well after it is light outside.
I didn’t want the chickens to be trapped in their tiny run for two hours between 6 and 8 when I finally got out there.
I thought they would be overcrowded and start pecking each other.
So I left the door to the run open, allowing them to let themselves out in the morning.
*deep sigh*
That worked great for a few weeks. Then, disaster struck! A raccoon, a raider, a being of violence, came in the dark of the night, in the wee hours of the morning, probably around 5 a.m. He slaughtered my poor girls in their beds. I feel the worst about my three sweet silky bantams. Their heads were bitten off literally in the coop where they sleep. They were the only ones who had started laying, and who would crouch down when they saw a human, in case the human wanted to pick them up.
The Barred Rocks put up a fight. One, either Ginny Cash or Andrea, was dragged away without a trace (possibly she had been taken the day before). Another was found, partially eaten, near the lilac bushes.
But the rooster — ah, the rooster. Meriadoc Brandybuck. He seems to have fought the predator. His carcass was found, mostly eaten, in the small tunnel-like pass-through between house and garage. Damp raccoon tracks led away from it towards the front of the house. And … still alive, hiding under the lilac bushes, was the smallest of the Barred Rocks, Jane Wayne.
We don’t know, but we imagine that he gave his life for her. “You go! I’ll hold him off!” he cried, dashing into the gap while Jane, clucking and shedding feathers, fled. Merry, as we call him, had previously shown signs of behaving like a rooster in the sense of pushing the hens around a bit and being selfish about the food, but he had never yet displayed any protective behavior. But in the darkest hour, Meriadoc rose to the occasion – so we imagine – and showed his quality: the very best.
Tears were shed. Carcasses were gathered up. Blood was cleaned from the inside of the coop, which looked like a crime scene, which in fact it was. Certain members of the family wanted to give the chickens a “Viking” funeral, where we would put them on a small, flammable boat, push it out into the irrigation canal, and then shoot an arrow (this step was unclear) to set the boat on fire. This was felt to be impractical, so we settled for a pyre in the burn barrel that involved firewood and a little bit of gasoline. A funeral was held. Prayers were said. The brave deeds of Meriadoc were recited (this is how stories help us make sense of tragedy). We also recalled the endearing little habits of the dead, particularly Jasmine, the black bantam silky, who was our sweetest, the most reliable layer, and will always remain “the bestest of chaekens.”
And, lesson learned. Just because a predator hasn’t come so far, does not mean that one never will. I will make the coop more secure, and will lock it in the future.
I’m a Luddite, all right. A really, really bad one.
I got this fantastic mug at university. I bought it from a sale the Art Dept students were having. Back then, buying anything at all was a big decision that I had to justify. When my Japanese roommate saw it, she got all excited and said the mug looked Japanese. I probably should have given it to her (sorry, Makiko!), but I didn’t. I am still treasuring it all these years later.
Faithful OOB readers have seen this mug before, in my “I Like Bears” post. I think my husband got it for me during a trip to Yellowstone years ago, then it spent several years in storage, then I re-discovered it, with new appreciation, after our most recent move. I use it now because my book The Strange Land features a Bear of Justice.
This lovely thing was purchased at the Fantasy Faire, from a stonewear booth (advertising slogan: “Get Stoned”). I asked the potter, an older lady, about her process, and she said, “I take some clay. I throw it on the wheel. I make a cup. I glaze it, and then I fire it.”
Do you like stonewear?
2) Measure and cut four panels of black felt. (Three can be cut whole out of the fabric we purchased; one needs to be pieced together from two end pieces.)
As I worked in the yard, the chickens kept coming up and I had to chase them away from the felt. The rooster tried to eat one of my pins.
3) Join panels together with a whip stitch, using yarn in a contrasting color. Besides making the tent look sort of cool, this will allow us to locate the corners of the felt cover more easily.
(This is the biggest sewing project I have ever worked on. It’s very physical handling these big pieces of cloth. Still, the pressure is less than when making tailored clothes. The biggest mistake I have made so far was I began to join one of the panels with the wrong side facing out. I had to pull out the whip stitch and turn the panel over.
The felt has a pleasant odor. I’ve always like fiber smells. Unfortunately, I don’t know whether this odor is a property of felt itself, or whether it comes from chemicals perhaps used in the modern but not the ancient felt-making process.)
4) Put the cover over the modern tent to see whether it fits.
When we got the tent out this time, we were confronted with a problem. Two screws from the frame had fallen out. I was able to locate & replace one. Looks like the other will have to be a substitute screw from our junk drawer. We suspect a chicken ate it.
Yay! The cover fits! And is even a little roomy. Now, to patch pieces of felt to complete the peak.
5) Put the cover back on again. It looks okay
The tops of the pieces don’t join in a perfect cone, but it’s got a nice witch hat/smoke hole look, so I think I’m going to leave it. Fixing it won’t be worth the extra time, when there is so much more prep to do.
6) Pin star fabric to corners to make sure you have enough.
7) Sew large washers to the sides of the canopy to hold it down in windy conditions.
8) LEDs
9) Set everything up exactly as it is going to look the next day.
We had a late Spring this year.
Out of Babel Books 