Leaving Home

Some of us have to be pushed out of the nest. Others can’t wait to fly the coop. I did it to get married at 19. My mother never got over it since I was her last baby, born on her birthday. I finally understood when my last child left us when he was 18. But he didn’t choose to stay local. He left for university on another island, a plane ride away or a long drive plus a ferry journey. Connections wither over time no matter how good our intentions start out to be.
So, with a heavy heart we caught the two mother hens and all their surviving chicks, nine of them, and gave them to our nearest neighbor, who is starting to raise chickens again, after a long lapse. She’ll also take one cockerel and two hens at some point, probably after the little ones get a bit bigger and adjust to their new surroundings.
This was a big production but necessary nonetheless. Yesterday our friend visited us with a cage to put the hen in, which John managed to catch after diving around a corner in the henhouse. The chicks were easier there to put into a tall bucket with a lid and off they went to her house down the road.
The other hen was outside on a large paddock covered in native grasses and the chicks ran helter-skelter in every direction and it was so wet, John couldn’t catch the mother. Last night she took her little guys to the nest to sleep but by then it was a little too dark to want to take the chance that the chicks might get away and not be found again. So, in the morning, which was only foggy, not raining like yesterday, we caught the hen behind the house after throwing down some mash. She complained loudly and her babies ran all over the place but eventually all were inside of the bucket thanks to a large towel quickly tossed over the last escapee. This time we took them ourselves to their new digs.
Joyce had a major revelation about using an alternate shed from the one that the other hen was in with her hatchlings. This one wasn’t exactly ready for our second group of immigrants arriving, so hasty repairs were made to ensure that once inside the mother couldn’t escape. It only took a few minutes for the birds to calm down as they were again put back into one group, with the babies scurrying to get under their mommy. This shed was also lined with straw and safe and warm with a corrugated surround. It still needed some fixing up to fully insulate them from any danger in case of ferrets or rats getting in, but it was way too high for hedgehogs who are known to eat chicks right in front of the mother hen. In comparison here, our girl was living outside with no protection from the cold wind, the driving rain or the hungry predators, which is why she might have only four babies left. But in any case, they will not be our problem any longer. We must reduce the size of this flock and make it much more manageable.
Actually, we are also leaving the comfort of our nest, temporarily to travel overseas and visit family for the first time since November of 2019. And we are leaving our son in charge, who out of the kindness of his heart, is going to stay here. So, I’ve been attempting to lessen his responsibilities, if I could, by reducing the amount of clutter both inside and outside. Doing this today I again failed to pack for our imminent flights. We leave Thursday to arrive Thursday even though it’s the following day in the Northern Hemisphere.
Such is life here at the House of Cluck-Cluck. A few less cluckers for Jake to feed and worry about will be more manageable aside from the endless mess the huge flock makes and keeping up with the fire in winter to avoid freezing one’s ass off and the inside felines who also need particular attention with feeding and medications and time spent on laps. This is such a big ask but he answered the call. There was no way we could find anyone willing to do this and if we could have, it’d be very costly aside from being rather impossible for strangers to navigate through all of this. Five weeks away is a long time to spend in relative isolation and freezing temperatures with too many animals to care for, so we felt it was vital to reduce our bird population now, even if it’s minimal. Tomorrow may be brutal as John intends to cull even more animals. I am numb just thinking about it but I must think of the welfare of the hens and they are being brutalized by some of these ruffians. So, I must let it happen whether it’s before we leave or after we come back home.
I must also say that an upcoming trip has never felt this strange. Normally, I leave here sadly but filled with eager anticipation of seeing my dearest family. But life lately and not so lately has been so very stressful as we attempt to come out of the horrendous lockdowns and mandates and changes made to our very existence.
Although I sense that something really big and really positive is just around the corner, getting there will be very bumpy and painful. And it will take a very long time to adjust to a whole new world as we figure out our lives anew.
All this means to me that if I reduce the common denominator down to the barest minimum then life will be easier in the short term and the long run.
At least that’s my hope. And now I must go pack. I’ve been threatening to do so everyday and I’ve so far found everything else to do rather than that for weeks now. Knowing that I usually bring my entire wardrobe including purses and shoes and undies to match every conceivable outfit I own, I must pare down my expectations so I can close the suitcases and will not have some sort of EXTRA HEAVY label stuck onto my bags this trip. Personally, I detest putting all of my age defying, beautifying potions and lotions into mini containers as I swear like a sailor when they spill out over the sides. I really could use a personal assistant to follow me around and do my bidding so I can just sit back and eat bonbons. But life, my life, went way past that stage early on. And for some reason I never got past doing everything the hard way. So, with that said, tallyho, I must go.
Author’s note. I have never uttered the word tallyho in my entire life. I think it is time to sit back and take stock of my mental state, before packing for this trip. And that alone is quite daunting to even ponder. By the way, the photos enclosed will show the indignity of being put into a cage while the young ones are not even that lucky. They’re in the dirtiest bucket John could find. But of course, it’s all for a good purpose. Now they will live with a young girl and older brother, a horse, Maximus, a pony, behind him, one duck, nameless, Sassy the little dog, Chunky the bigger dog and a cat whose name I don’t recall. Our chickens will have to learn about the new land with all its meandering pathways, muddy now after so much rain, but quite beautiful in the spring and summer months and even the fall. At this writing both mother hens are happy to be in the same shed and another sweetie was added yesterday after getting her leg stuck in a wire table. She was hanging upside down and squawking her head off. Luckily John was outside and ran to her aid. Then he just put her in the cage and took her over there too, since she would have needed some quiet time to heal from that fright and might even be limping for a while. And soon enough we’ll bring them a rooster and a couple more hens. In the meantime, our flock has calmed down a little. On our drive over it was very foggy and light rain was falling. The cloud of fog seemed to be sitting on the earth in the low spots. I had to photograph it and made John stop the car several times. He complied reluctantly as he wanted to get the feathered passengers over there, even though it only took a minute more. Men.