Montaroos and Capullets

Let's get one thing straight before we go any deeper into our relationship: this ain't a griping blog, it's a reality blog. It's going to sound a whole lot like a griping blog at times, but the point of it is more to capture our first few years trying to get the homesteading thing down than to sob out a "poor me" laundry list. No one reads those. My goal is to give information and, in doing so, try to at least make my reality-list-of-quasi-gripes-observations-and-mere-truths-of-fact as fun to read as I possibly can.

The chickens have hit puberty. Who would have thought this? The oddest part might be that chickuberty occurs at about three months of age. Thank goodness the same cannot be said for humans, though the lack of vocabulary and reliance on diapers might make things a lot easier. A few facts remain the same though, and I can speak to this not only because I went through the scourge of puberty myself, but also because I work with young people who, by fifth or sixth grade, are evidencing some of the very same behaviors as my three-month-old pullets are.

The females are incredibly skittish and won't go anywhere unless all of them go together (school dance bathroom trips, anyone?). This is fine when it's two or three chickens, but when you're talking about 10 confused, angsty chickitas, things can get pretty hairy. The other peculiar, but strangely familiar, observation I have made about my girls is that they could be grazing and foraging, digging in the dirt for worms and grass and all the good stuff the backyard has to offer, but as soon as one of them gets sketchy, she tweaks and they all follow suite. If that isn't 'tween groupthink, I don't know what is. And talk! Do they ever talk. I feel like my dad shouting down through the heat vent during one of my sleepovers. "Keep it down!" I find myself saying when I am trying to get in, get the food and water stocked up, throw down some extra pine shavings, stack wood, or just potter around the coop in general. They are the Pickalittle Talkalittle Girls if I ever saw them and I'm pretty sure they're talking about me, which only makes it worse.

This is all remarkably cute and quaint, sure. But the males are a roobescent breed all their own. As I mentioned, we have two of the fellas. Don (formerly Donna, named after my favorite aunt until we realized differently) is a roo I would equate to the sensitive New Age guy on your college's quad/green/student center lawn. Let's just say, if he could hold an old acoustic guitar and strum Smashing Pumpkins tunes 'neath the shade of an ancient oak, he would. The girls love him. He's big and ruddy and fairly quiet. He likes to snuggle. MAnn (formerly Ann, named after a wonderful friend) is that same college quad's aggro, football-tossing jock who, as he is walking to the gym (legs today, tomorrow chest and back), steps on the book of 13th century Italian poetry that Don had propped up against his fair trade organic hemp backpack. He doesn't say "Sorry bro" or even look back. MAnn is a JErk and an evil one at that. One night, I was trolling a Mag-Lite beam across the shed to get a head count before bed and, when the light hit MAnn, it was as if Alex DeLarge had taken up residency inside my chicken coop.

In my Facebook profile, I call myself a "chicken chaperone" because I really couldn't think of a better name for what I do than that. Today, however, I realized that I can't keep chasing them around and trying to keep MAnn and Don away from the ladies. At least not for a few days. It causes so much stress (for me or them, I can't decide who gets it more) and they just can't stand to be apart. Tonight, I finally had the [French breakfast] radish and let them all bunk up together again, after two nights of keeping them separated. MAnn and Don took a perch on the roofline of the coop and the girls all clamored to get next to each. (The fact that they totally ignored the nesting boxes I installed this afternoon was more than hurtful.) I can't compete with that, so I guess I won't.

That's it for now!
~Kate