Piece and quiet

Almost two weeks since the chickens left. It's so nice to be able to get a full-night's sleep, not worry about protecting the garden and landscaping, and (best of all) no fresh chicken poop on my truck!

If you are concerned about where they went, last I heard they were enjoying the wide open spaces of a farm about an hour east of here. That's one benefit of my job, most of the other people in my department also have property in the country with various types of farm life. So even though the new owner is a butcher by trade, I don't think they will be ending up in the stew pot any time soon. (Though I did assure him that I wouldn't mind if that was their final fate.)

So what's been happening since then? I've started the big mare on her road back to being a usable riding horse. It's been three months since treatment on her leg wound finished. Being on 24-hour turnout on pasture with rolling terrain has helped in her self-regulated rehab work. Now I'm just playing it smart with her conditioning program - lots of walking, bending, and flexing for now, work up to some trot work in a week or two, and go from there. The broccoli and kohlrabi has taken off in the garden, radishes and lettuce are close to picking, but the recent cold snap may have killed off the potatoes. Something has taken up residence in the new bluebird house but I have yet to see what kind of bird it is.

Will the name of the blog change now that the chickens are gone? I've given it some thought, and decided to keep it.

Is this the end of chicken raising? For the short term, yes. For the long term, who knows. I'm not taking down the coop just yet, but I did give away the remaining chicken feed. The friend who gave me the roosters suggested I might make a good home for one of her laying hens that is going blind. My goal has been to have birds that are relatively self sufficient so I don't know if I want to take on a special-needs case. She assures me that it won't mess with the garden, but then again the previous feathered critters proved that wrong. The only guarantee is that it won't crow.