Adventures with Backyard Chickens

When people toss around the phrase “Empty Nest Syndrome” never in a million years did I think I would be filling that nest with actual birds…chickens to be exact.

I have looked at the cute little chicks in the local farm stores for a couple of years now and wondered about bringing them home so I could raise my own farm-fresh eggs. I even bought a book called “Backyard Chickens” by Martha Wyse, which I didn’t actually read until I was on the airplane during spring break. My husband Tom read it too and what we discovered was that there is a lot involved in raising chickens and that it is not something to be taken lightly. This book describes the good, bad, and ugly in regards to raising chickens (Pasty butt condition anyone?)  So after reading the book we decided that maybe chicken farming wasn’t for us. Then Tom talked to a guy at work who said “It’s easy! Just build a coop and let ‘em go!” And we were off. Now we have this really excellent coop and Tom has made a big feeder and watering tower.

We are learning as we go along. First of all we learned that if the coop box says “5-7 chickens” what it really means is “3-4 chickens” because while 7 chicks fit nicely in our coop, when they got to be what we call “teenagers” it became quite crowded and we had to adopt-out 3 of our girls. http://www.backyardchickens.com/ is a good one. I learned that you can sprinkle a neat mix of herbs in their roosts to keep the bugs away while old-fashioned fly paper is a necessary evil for the ones who continue to come around. I also planted mint and lavender around the coop, which should help too. And did you know that you can train chickens to come when called? You can! You use chicken treats (a.k.a. birdseed and dried meal worms). However, if you are going to feed the girls treats you need to remember that they have to have grit to digest it. This revelation resulted in a panic-stricken run to Gruler’s to get a bag of grit. Also, chickens, like children, get bored and peck at each other if not kept entertained.

Second, chickens smell and they attract flies…lots of flies. Fortunately there are hundreds of blogs that literally answer any chicken-related question you might have.

Probably the most surprising thing we learned was that we wouldn’t bring home the chicks and wa-la! We’d have eggs. Nope, they apparently don’t start laying for about 6 months. I’m still not sure what pullets, brooders, or bantams are, but I’m learning. We are enjoying our new adventure with Gerrie, Betty, Lola, and The Brown One. Even though they haven’t filled our empty nest with eggs yet, they are helping to ease the transition into sending our boys into the world with a new adventure.

You're Gonna Miss This

Well, it happened again.No matter how hard I try to control myself, I fail. It doesn't matter if I am driving home from work, riding on the back of the motorcycle, or jogging with my iPod. If I hear "You're Gonna Miss This" byTrace Adkins or "It Won't be Like This for Long" by Darius Rucker, I end up in tears, especially if I try to sing along. When my kids were young and I was in the throws of terrible twos or spending entire Saturdays at wrestling tournaments full of screaming kids, I didn't feel like I was "gonna miss this." Sometimes I feel bad that I didn't cherish every moment with my kids when they were young. More than once I stood at the check out line with a screaming child and a cart full of groceries thinking "Just take me now Lord" rather than "It won't be like this for long." I don't beat myself up over it. That's just the way parenting goes. When we are there, we don't always say "Hey, I'm gonna miss this." But something happens to me when I hear certain lines in those songs. I'm taken back to dropping a crying child off at daycare and an angry teenager telling me that I have no idea how he feels. But the line that really gets me every time I hear it is in the Trace Adkins song where the mom is apologizing to the plumber for her screaming kids and he says something like, "I have two babies of my own...ones twenty-six, ones twenty-three." I literally choke on the words every single time I try to sing them. In fact, I have a lump in my throat as I type this. My kids aren't out of the house yet, but they are independent young men who don't depend on me for much of anything anymore. I look at the pictures of them as little boys and wonder why it went by so fast. I hear screaming kids in the store and look at another middle aged mom and we smile at each other because we too had been there. The other night Tom and I were driving in the rain to watch Sammy play football. I was grumbling about having to sit in the stands and be cold and wet for two hours. And suddenly I remembered that it's his junior year. After next fall there won't be anymore football games, rain or shine. And I'm gonna miss this.