Anchor Struck

With the world (series) now made safe by my beloved Giants, I won’t bug you with sports

reporting for awhile.  LSU and the 49ers have plenty of football left, and KU hasn’t even

begun its basketball season.

I have farm news to report anyway.  We recently lost another chicken.

The circumstances were similar to the loss of Maxine August 31st.  That day Maxine and

Rosie found a breach in the fence netting and headed out for some renegade free ranging.

At dusk I went out to put the girls up and found Rosie outside the gate, desperately trying

to rejoin the others.

I rapidly rejoined them and started looking for Maxine.  When Jude got home she searched,

too, but we couldn’t find her in the usual places and we ran out of daylight.  We hoped that

Maxine found a safe hiding place for the night.

Nope.  Jude found her body a few days later by the creek.  We think a raccoon killed her.

This time, two of the newer hens — Garbo and Princess II — escaped.  I found Garbo squawking

outside the garden gate when I went out for birdie bedtime.  Jude found Prin in the side yard

with a large puncture mark in her chest.  We believe a raptor got her with a talon but couldn’t

carry her off.

We put the body in the freezer and gave it to our friend Lee the next day.  We haven’t seen him

since to hear his autopsy findings.

Prin II was named in honour of Princess Layer, one of our favourites.  We are retiring that name.

That puts the flock at 12.  That will likely be the maximum from now on.  Since the nights are

getting cold, we’ve started putting all the ladies in the larger side of the coop so they’ll stay

warmer.  It’s taken them some time to figure out that they don’t all have to be on the same roost.

A few nights ago, there were six on one roost and six on the other at the same height.  They were

all facing each other and chatting as if they were negotiating a game of Red Rover.

I love country living.