Counting Down...

At present I have a number of different things sitting in my yard: a roll of small gauge wire; 3 carrier
cages; a treadle feeder; 2 water containers; a bale of mulch & another of hemp...because we are that much closer to these chickens actually arriving.  Tentatively next Friday..?

Tentatively next Friday I will pick up ODD & head north ~ tentatively because it all depends a bit on the money because money is what will make this all go round merrily but just as I had everything nicely on track the bills started coming in, as they do, derailing all my plans.  It is all a bit iffy. If Beautiful Chickens have the birds I want... If I don't completely lose my head & opt for a beautiful Campine Girl even though they are flighty fliers...If I have enough carriers [even though 3 is all I can fit on my back seat]...if  I can't afford the 5 I want can I manage the 3 Rocks I want & 2 cheaper breeds...If ODD doesn't beg for the one bird I just know will be all sorts of trouble... ☺ 

And it gives me something to obsess about just now because we have packed Chile Girl & her bags back to Santiago & saying goodbye just never gets any easier.  After nearly 8 years you'd think we would be used to it  but this is the side of missionary work no~one ever sees.  We are, for all intents & purposes, invisible.  We are not on the field.  We are not the sending church.  So often we find ourselves waaaay, way down the list, especially on short visits because there are so many calls on Chile Girl's time & her funding so much depends on keeping  people  in touch & up to speed on what is happening so it can feel a little as if we've not had any time with her @ all.  I run her to & from boats, put her washing through the machine & hug her goodbye on the jetty in front of strangers ~ which is so not good because I don't do goodbyes well...

Fifteen months then she is coming home indefinitely because her grandparents are rapidly getting older & she wants to invest the time while she still has them.  She will do some study, find some work & eventually, I expect, head back on the field but as yet only God knows where that might be & what will happen in the interim.

...to All who Sail in Her....

Saturday was the BIG DAY. 

 Their service was a lovely mix of traditional & modern, fun & serious & as neither party is very young they were calm & composed throughout ~ & very, very sure of each other.

However I love this bunch of lads more than words can say! They have known each other literally all their lives. They went to the island school together; played soccer & cricket together; & then, as they grew up they stood beside each other as Best Men & groomsmen. T1 was Best Man for OT as OT was for him & all the lads wore something from each of the other weddings where they were there for each other, which I though was super special, really thoughtful & a quiet nod to all the other marriages they represented.

Now we can all get on with the serious business of walking out this marriage before God.

Cluck, Cluck, Chuck, Duck.

 The chook pen landed early Thursday morning.  Our wonderful island delivery man lugged it into the side yard for me where it was easiest for me to dismantle the packages & start the assembly process.  Everything was much lighter to handle than I was expecting & on cue, Chile Girl arrived, still in her PJs & quite unable to resist the temptation of putting it all together.

The first panels went together easily.  Unfortunately one piece of perspex is missing from a window  & the MOTH is still negotiating with the seller to have it replaced. It needs to be done for safety reasons, snakes being way too clever & with an unholy love of fresh eggs!

The assembly process was quite quick.  Everything is preassembled, lightweight & factory made to all fit together.  I am visual & Libby is hands on so between us we had the best of all possible worlds as I could *see* what needed doing & she had no trouble with the doing!  We did need the MOTH  for one or two things & we do have one minor hiccup requiring the roof to come back off so we can string the coop door string through so we can actually open & shut the door. Other than that I am pretty happy with it.

The only other thing is this particular pen didn't come with a wire floor but as that is easily rectified we aren't overly stressed & will just pick up the necessary wire on Monday.  Once that is done  I will purchase the cane mulch as we will do a deep mulch pen & the food & work out where we want the feeder & water dishes.  I haven't really decided what to do about the water.  Chooks need rather a lot of it but are notorious for knocking it over, pooping in it, scrabbling mulch into it & otherwise turning fresh clean water into something very nasty indeed. I have considered a hanging water feeder but there are 2 strikes against this: firstly I don't think there is anywhere really suitable to hang one  & secondly they are prone to green algae & hard to clean! For the present it will be dishes with pebbles in the bottom to make them that much harder to tip over.

My Dilly is also very interested in my as yet non~existent chickens.  Like me, she knows her son will be very interested when he visits.  I have lined ODD up to pick up these birds ~ partly because ODD has always loved her chickens, partly because she has named her own special one already: Nugget, as in Chicken Nugget.  As the girl is vegetarian I can only wonder where her mind goes!  Hopefully another fortnight will see us happily clucking about our brand new chooks.

Arrivals.

The chicken coop has landed @ T1's where I am sure it is being an absolute nuisance, parked as it is in his driveway. It should be here either Monday or Tuesday, which is very exciting in its own way.  Meanwhile the feeder, hemp bedding & bin have all arrived safely some time after the tracking assured me they had been delivered.  The joys of living on a small island!  People seem to think once an item has left the mainland it has somehow arrived here automatically despite the fact we have roads & mailboxes just like anyone else that still have to be located & accessed.

And somewhere in the hoo~ha Chile Girl arrived ~ & departed & came back & departed as she tries to catch up on a life un~lived in Australia.  We haven't seen much of her yet but she is cheerful & the healthiest we've seen her in a while.

Meanwhile the wedding that CG has arrived for inches imperceptibly closer.  I can't wait for the whole nightmare to be over.  The MOTH & I did ours so quietly no~one except our 2 witnesses even knew about it & I find all the drama prone to surrounding these events terribly wearing. Chatting to OT last night he mentioned his fiance's mother has bought 3 new dresses & is yet to decide which one she will wear on the day.  I, on the other hand, have pointed out I will NOT be wearing a dress of any description!  I don't own one.  I will not be buying one specially when I will never wear it again.  I am not dressing up like a twopenny guy for anyone.  I will be modest, seemly & comfortable sans makeup, hairspray & high heels.  And  will be very, very glad to depart @ the first possible moment. Sadly,  really am not the life of anyone's party, not even for something as important & life~changing as a wedding.

Henny~Penny & Lucky~Ducky

I can be a little obsessive when I get involved in things so having decided we would keep chooks again, & having ordered our chook pen, I turned my attention to the object of this exercise: the chooks themselves.

Last time, over quite a number of years, we had 2 bantams [who never once laid], an Australorp & 1/2 a dozen ISA Brown rescues. I loved my Australorp. The bantams were pretty but anti~social.  The rescues were prone to dropping dead for no reason @ all & they are not a colour I am fussed on. Not their fault I know but there you have it.

Now the ISA Browns I can get easily.  The island nursery stocks them @ POL but having kept them once I don't want them again.   I wanted birds that were friendly ~ yet large enough to not be put off by small children; I wanted excellent layers, hardy & long lived; I wanted chooks that could cope well in a pen with limited free ranging [in case our neighbours object] ~ and I didn't want fliers!  They go up trees to roost & can be the devil to get down again for the night!

So I began researching & it didn't take me too long to decide on the 2 best breeds that met most of my requirements: the Australorps & Plymouth Rocks.  Rocks are lovely speckly chooks, large, placid & good layers who are happy in a pen. And they are pretty.  Pretty is good.  Big enough the cats will think twice before tangling with them.

So I began making enquiries you know & before long it was obvious I shouldn't have set my heart on any particular breed because what I wanted was not going to be so easily come by.  Part of the difficulty of course is I am not yet *in the loop* so to speak so don't know the closest breeders who might have extra birds they want to off~load.  Part of the problem is that not everyone has what you want when you want it. Part of the problem is cost.  Heritage breeds are more expensive.  POLs are more expensive than chicks but chicks are dodgy & I'm not that brave!

I shot off a series of emails.  Only one breeder replied &, you guessed it, she is on the north side of Brisbane, but she expects to have what I want when I want it & is prepared to chat to me.  So nice when experts will take the time & trouble to chat with us plebs. So I think I have my chook supply sorted.  I have said 3 Rocks & 2 Australorps even though my coop will hold 7 chooks comfortably.  I figure I can add to the flock @ a later date & it will allow for some staggering as birds age & stop laying. The MOTH thinks I am quite demented. Having looked @ the map I am prepared to look @ it as a wonderful day trip through pretty countryside.

Meanwhile my long coveted coop has run into difficulties. The company won't deliver to the island so it is going to the boys & I will have to arrange for the courier to get it from there. Nothing deterred I ordered my treadmill feeder, a large feed bin & some hemp bedding for the nesting boxes.  The hardest part is practising patience as I wait on all the various bibs & bobs coming together but eventually it all WILL happen.

What's coming my way.

When our kiddies were little we kept chooks ~ mostly rescues who were semi naked on arrival & ever so grateful to be allowed to free roam.  They roosted in an upended trampoline frame covered in chicken wire & for the years we had them they provided us with lots of deep golden yolked eggs. 

What's more they kept our surrounds absolutely tick free.  Loved them for that alone ~ but lugging chooks from the mainland is a dodgy business.  Buying locally, Russian Roulette unless you are very, very sure of your sexing.  Our first batch all turned out to be young cockerels who went to a far, far better place & no doubt landed in the pot but 6 young cockerels we could not keep. They were great *guard dogs* & terribly aggressive. All the kids friends were terrified of them.  And they crowed ~ sort of.  All of them.  All the time.  No.  Just no.

We did better as we learnt & our ODD loved her chookies,  though they were far less enamoured of her, scuttling for safety as she swooped on one for cuddles before tucking it neatly under one arm to go adventuring.  What I  loved was the compost, the scrap binners, the eggs ~ & I have been hankering for chooks again: Australorps; Rhodesian Reds; Plymouth Rocks . 

I made noises about getting a *proper* chook run.  After all, we now have neighbours on all sides so it is better if we look semi respectable. Dearest hemmed.  Dearest hawed.  Dearest promised to build me one.  I sighed but one does not look a gift horse in the mouth.  I had my spot all picked out ~ the gap between our house & what used to be the MOTH's parent's place.  Perfect spot!  The right size.  Easy to get to but not in the way of anything else. 

And nothing happened.  Zero. Zilch. Nado.

Then today, out of the blue, we were on eBay & I made my chook noises & now one of these lovely delux chook houses is on its way here to me! Oh, me. Oh my! However, having kept chooks before, I am far more cautious this time. I have to wait for spring & point~of~lay which gives me time to buy the extras, things I never thought about first time round: a proper feeder because we have snakes & I know how many males it takes to remove a snake from a chook pen: every male you can find & then some!!!  A water drip because otherwise the stupid birds will sit & poop in the water, which is just disgusting.  Hemp bedding for the nests because that's cleaner & drier than anything else.  Cane mulch for the run. Shell grit so your eggs have nice hard shells.  Food, because kitchen scraps are never enough.  Worse than the cats ~ & they are spoiled rotten as it is.

But seriously, there is nothing quite like the soft chucking of happy hens  scratching in the garden or putting your hand into a nest & finding an egg, still warm. Little things make me so happy.