The chicken story

**editors note:  sorry these posts have looked like a giant run on sentence.  I just changed my settings/design and I should be able to have actual paragraphs.  I type it out that way but the universe was rallying against me!

You know, we really are effervescing with some good stories over here! Today a friend was dropping off her daughter for a spendover and she was asking about the chickens and the dogs and how they manage to get along. Great! However, it reminded me of this story of the chickens. When we first got our chickens and visions of eggs were popping in our heads, we never dreamt that we would have to go through an intervention with the dogs and chickens. Ok, well MAYBE there would be a little intervention. But surely they would get along swimmingly in like, days. Right? I mean, so what, we have Labs and they are known to be hunting dogs. And one of our dogs has issues. She looooves to hunt and kill small critters. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that she and Brutus killed Chloe's bunny. Then the next two replacement bunnies. Then the guinea pigs. Countless moles and mice have fallen prey to their noses and the sniffing ability. Quality stalkers. It wasn't always rainbows and pixie dust over here. We had that learning curve to go through. Brutus was only a puppy when we got the chickens. They were these cute little day old peeps! They were so fuzzy and soft. We had four ducks in the mix too. Now they were cute! So we had the peeps in a baby swimming pool with chicken wire around the outside of the pool and a nice little heat lamp to keep them warm. Seriously, it was worse than bringing Josh home from the hospital that first day! We would go out and sit with the chicks. Put our hand in the pool area to make sure they weren't getting too hot or too cold. We had to keep them in the garage because it was still early spring and GOOD HEAVENS, there might be a draft if they were in the barn area! That first night was almost torture. Were they going to all be alive the next morning? Would any of them drown in the watering device we had? The magazine said they could drown... Don't forget you're reading about two city folks. We only ever had dogs and cats. This was my project anyway. They could have all died that night and Rodger would have been like, "Well, guess the chickens didn't work out... So I don't have to make that chicken coop now? Right?" Not that he is cold hearted, he just wasn't giddy over poopy, stinky, fly breeding chickens. However, he humored me. All was going terrifically until that one night. It always happens on "that one night". We were all running around like chickens with our heads cut off (how tacky...) trying to get out the door to go to some spring sporting event. I was in my full O.C.D. mode and was grilling everyone about all the doors being shut and they better all be shut because you know the dogs will DEVOUR the baby chicks in one fell swoop. Furthermore, they might all die of a heart attack if the dogs even so much as bark at them! They are tender, ya know. So after everyone is out of the house and in the car, back in the house for that left behind "must have" item, "are the doors shut to the garage?", back in the car and finally we are on our way. Tell me that someone out there can relate? We are off to our destination and everyone is secure in their little snug homes at our house. I have done my job and protected all my sweet critters. Not. After accomplishing all our events and going to get Sophie at ballet, Rodger called me on the phone. I love it when he calls with devestating news. He is so... sensitive about it. "Hey honey, I think Duke is dead." WHAT?? You THINK Duke is dead? Do you THINK you could verify that before you put him six feet under? That is how it goes. He isn't trying to be mean, he is just an engineer. Just the facts ma'am, just the facts... Well the phone call went something like this: "honey, I have some bad news. Brutus got in the garage and some chickens are dead. Oh, don't worry, they aren't all dead. I just don't know where they all are." OK. I have to tell you I was crushed. I had been so anal retentive about feeding and cleaning, watching and talking in that annoying high pitched voice to my chicks. They were depending on us to care for them and protect them. Hey, I'm just keeping this real. And it all came to a screeching halt the night that Brutus figured out that we had gotten him his very own squeak toys. I could hear him thinking, "OH LOOK!! My own squeaky toys! I'm sooo happy!!! They love me sooooo much!" Apparently that 1017th time that someone had to go in the house to get their necessary item for survival, the side door to the garage was not shut tightly. Brutus went into the garage and had a hayday. In the end he killed three and a half chickens. Gloria died two days later. She was the half. Yes, her name was Gloria! Don't be a hater. We have names for our critters. But friends, this is where the story gets great!!! We ("we" is used VERY loosely here) had to do something with the chickens, so Rodger decided to gather the chickens up and bury them on the property. We have 10 acres of land - almost 11. You would think that finding a spot off in the woods would be any easy thing to do. I mean, I'd say that about 8.5 acres are wooded. Pick a spot and start digging. Rodger decided to go off to the side, back behind our outdoor wood burning stove. There were some open areas that would be good for digging in and hopefully he wouldn't get too many tree roots. By the time he was actually digging in the ground it had gotten dark outside. He only had a small light on at the back door of the walk out basement so he couldn't see to well. The next time I saw Rodger, he was running into the house in his underwear. Where in the world are your clothes?? Why are you running in here mostly naked? Apparently on our 10.8 acres that he decided to bury the chickens on, that was the one place where there was a nest of bees in the ground. He dug them up!!! You can imagine his shock when he was simply trying to get the chickens buried before some fowl disease (more tackyness...) came upon us and he was getting stung! The bees started to get into his clothes, so naturally he started to rip those clothes off and run. He left it all behind! Keys, phone, chickens, shovel. All of it was in the woods. I'm just glad that the neighbors didn't happen to go outside and see him. We might still be paying for counseling for them. Brutus eventually grew out of his desire to eat the chickens and now he and Duchess get along great with them! They just don't share their food with the chickes. That's pushing it just a tad to far.