Heartbreak

A few weeks ago we had a duck that decided to stay on her eggs. She was pretty determined so we let her do her thing.  We provided her a temporary shelter around her nest and waited to see what would happen.

Broody duck behavior turned out to be quite interesting.  Ducks are pretty funny as it is.  A broody duck will only get off her eggs about twice a day to do all her business: her eating, her drinking, her swimming, and her pooping.  Watching her run off her nest in a snit every morning, waddling as fast as she could, pecking at any ducks or chickens who got in her way was entertaining.  The other ducks learned to back away from the food when she came speed-waddling by.   I'm pretty sure that I recognized those mama hormones at work.

She sat for about a week and a half when one of her sisters decided to share the nest with her.  I freaked out!  Was this ok?  Would this ruin things?  I searched the internet, and it seemed that this happens all the time.  I didn't want to lose a layer, so we tried to force her off the nest, until we finally gave up.  We decided to let nature take it's course.  She was determined to sit on those eggs too, and they cuddled up together and shared duties.

The kids and I were excited.  They were sitting on about 14 eggs or so.  This was of course, right after we had purchased and brooded eight new ducklings from the co-op North of us.  Of course!  I should have just waited for nature to do it's thing.

There are no guarantees with nature though, and I heard and read stories of mama's pecking their babies to death, or quitting halfway through and deciding not to finish sitting.  I warned the kids, we'd be lucky if one hatched, and even luckier if one survived.

You know how the saying goes, Prepare for the worst, but expect the best.

I had my hopes up just a little bit.

This week when I walked out things were different.  Instead of the hissing I usually received from the mamas when I approached the nest, they were quacking really loud.  Hmmmm.  Why?  I wondered if they were covering up the sounds of a little peeper.  I stood by, not too close, and waited awhile.  And then I saw, a flash of bright yellow movement under one of the mamas!  From what I could tell, just one little guy.  So adorable!  Such a tiny miracle.

OK, dang it, I cried a little!  What the heck has happened to me?  I'm no stranger to reproduction.  I don't think I realized until that moment how much anxiety I had been feeling and how caught up in this I had been.  I had been waiting in suspense to see if this whole thing really works.

I wandered around the farm in a happy daze.  It worked, it really worked!  Bird lays egg, bird sits on egg, egg hatches.  Seriously so cool!

The next morning I rushed out to see if there were more little peepers, but noticed that the duckling that was perky yesterday was maybe asleep, or lying flat, or well...

Yep, dead.  It's death, it's a silly little bird, I know, and at this point I have several chicken killings under my belt so you'd think I'd just grow up about the whole thing.

But I was so disappointed.

I needed this a little too much, I think.  While the kids sometimes enjoy the funny farm here and sometimes don't, I have to admit that It's for me that I'm doing this stuff.  It's good for them in a million ways, but this extra work, this dirty work, this all-weather, never-ending caring for animals. It's for me.  And the little miracles and joys, well, I live for them.  All the more when the other stuff in my family life is tough.

My garden has been gradually eaten by something at night (wild bunnies we think) .  My broccoli and salad greens have been skeletonized.  My tomatoes and potatoes and some other things are surviving. I have pumpkins growing that we didn't plant, leftover seeds from dumping haloween leftovers out there two years ago.  They sprung up in the space where my peas were before they were eaten by the chickens.

It's all part of one giant, crazy, experiment.  It's completely unpredictable, and it's one of the most awesome things I've ever done with my entire life.  Once in awhile, I remember all these other things I wanted to do with my life before, and for now I just shrug them off without a single regret.

Accidental Homesteaders

It's not easy around here to find a 5-bedroom house on a budget.  I love living in the country and all, but I never intended to go down this farming path we now seem to be on.

Sometimes life doesn't give us what we want we get something else instead.  God knows what we need in our lives better than we do, I think.  The right house for us happened not to be a pretty new one on a regular-size lot, the right house for us (and the budget) was an old, brown, 1968 house on three acres with a barn, a pond, a creek, and blueberries.

I am not a morning person.  I wake up with good intentions, but often find myself a little overwhelmed.  After I get going, I realize my neck is sore, my kitchen sink is full of dirty dishes, there are piles of laundry waiting to be done, and bills to pay.  What do I find myself doing first?

Of course: I am feeding the ducks, the chickens, and gathering the eggs.

I slip on a robe, still in my morning pajamas, pop on my garden clogs and I walk. Down the back stairs, across the driveway, past the barn, and out across the green field.

Then something happens: no matter the weather or rain, I stop and slowly breathe in fresh air. My body feels stronger after the walk out to the pond.  If there's sunshine I feel it on my back, if there's fog, I notice it's beauty.  I feel the natural world all around me. No seasonal change goes unnoticed.  The first spring flowers are seen, as are the first golden leaves in the fall.

I forget what was bothering me before.  I listen to the happy quacks of my ducks as I let them out of their night shelter, and I feel their joy as they fly off the bank to dive in the water.

I hear my chickens in the coop calling to be let outside as well.  I let them free to forage, and peek into the nesting boxes to see how many eggs have been laid. The eggs are beautiful in all their natural colors.  It is a miracle, to be a part of this.  I never felt like eggs were a miracle before, but these eggs I gather here feel like little, round, blessings.  I gather the blessings each one, feeling grateful, and put them into a pretty basket.

Some mornings when my four-year-old struggles to get my attention, I'm a little cranky about it.  Very often though, I take her out with me for that first round of animal chores.

She laughs at the ducks.  She cradles each egg like a treasure.  She holds her favorite chicken.  She runs in the wind, she doesn't mind the weather, either. Sometimes she sings made-up songs along the way.  She draws me into her world and I feel her joy. We share this joy together.

All told, it usually takes me about 30 minutes of every morning to do the animal rounds.  Some mornings things take longer. Waterers must be refilled, nest boxes refreshed, grit put out for the chickens, feed hauled out to the barn.

Most days it's not too bad, this poultry stuff.  But sometimes, when we are tired or sick or busy, we all wonder what we got ourselves into.

Yet each morning, I go out the back door overwhelmed and come back enlightened. The dishes and laundry don't seem like such a big deal anymore. My little ones aren't annoying, they are endearing.  I feel peace.

I feel like my life is in tune with an old time-worn rhythm of things as they are really supposed to be.

The Ups and Downs of the Family Farm

I had longed for a simpler life, more connected to nature, to animals, to my food. Farm animals had always seemed the way to achieve this state.  Besides the pretty pictures in magazines, there was this idyllic family feeling to it all.  I always heard people's farming stories with pleasure.  I knew there would be ups and downs.  But I don't think I realized what a roller coaster it would be, exactly.

I can still remember walking out the other evening.  I had the baby in the carrier, lulled to sleep by the sound of my husband's mowing the pasture.  The sweet smell of fresh-cut grass and honeysuckle were hanging in the evening air.   There was the warm glow of the setting sun breaking through on a perfect summer evening. The ducks were happily honking in the pond.  The hens had laid five total eggs - the most we've had in a day yet.   It was one perfect moment, savored all the more because it was well, very short-lived.

One moment all is perfect with the world, the next moment you are looking for your lost, beautiful ducks, wondering what animal destroyed them, or dealing with one hundred other things that need your attention. It's work, for sure.  It's stress, for sure.  It's cheaper to buy your eggs at the grocery store, for sure.  Even with the heartbreak and the stress all I can say about this farm thing for now is that, so far, It's all been worth it.

But,
Nothing could have prepared me for all of this.

The delight I felt when I first brought home a cardboard box of little peeping chicks.  I felt I had finally crossed a line somewhere into a world I had only dreamed about.

The redneck coop we built by patching up an old outbuilding.  We even found the perfect sign among the junk in the old barn, that said, Egg-stractor.  It went over the door.

The first crowing of the rooster.  That sound, first thing in the morning, connected me to all the generations of women before me who've done this too.  It said farm to me like nothing else.

Blazing a trail through 8-foot-high blackberries while 9 months-pregnant to chase down our rooster, who managed to get himeslf stuck on the other side of the creek.

Our kids having to deal with the harsh reality of the animal world:  Their favorite bird, Ninja the rooster, is no child's pet anymore - he's mean, and if you don't play by his rules (aggression first, baby) he'll even attack you. He's needed though, to keep our hens safe.

OUR FIRST EGG!!!!  My boy went to fry his hard-earned prize, and as he picked it up to crack it into the hot pan, it slipped from his fingers and fell onto the floor!

Trying to figure out why our hens wouldn't lay in our nesting boxes, and instead preferred to make their own nests in the coop, bringing new meaning to the term, 'Easter Egg Hunt.'

And finally, as far as chickens go,

We are starting to get more eggs, about 4 per day on average.  Enough to fill up an actual egg carton with our own eggs!

Yes, that olive-green egg is actually speckled - I didn't know that was possible.

Then of course, there are the Ducks.

While in the course of learning all about chickens this year, I hoped that maybe ducks would find their way to us.  As fate would seem, some friends had an opportunity for us to own some.  We brought them home: beautiful, white Welsh Harlequins.  While I thought the chickens were charming, I was unprepared for these creatures.  They were beautiful, peaceful, and so happy to be in our pond!  It was like watching a bunch of toddlers splashing around in a wading pool!  The kids and I would sit on the bank of the pond in the sunshine, lulled into tranquility by these creatures.

For us, the ducks presented a unique opportunity to work together as a family. The tricky part was herding them back into their house at night.  It was a job where all hands became necessary.  All of us took up positions around the pond to turn them into the direction we wanted them to go.  Even my little four-year-old.  The more of us that were out there, the less likely the ducks would turn and 'duck' (I know) under the blackberries instead of going up into the crate. It took several nights of fumbling around before we got the hang of it.  And while all the kids wanted to do things differently, in the end, it was a job that required listening, leadership and all hands working together in a very coordinated manner, leading the ducks to where they needed to go for protection.

This week we set a family record, only 3 minutes to get the ducks into the crate.

That was before we lost them, of course.

They have never left their pond yet, so it's all still a mystery. But for now, they're gone.  I've shed a few tears, and said a few prayers, and I'm still clinging to some hope that they are hiding and not dead.

And for an update:  (This was written this morning, now it's 3:00 pm)  I just found them!  Seems last evening they wandered off.  Some neighbors down the road saw them crossing the street and put them behind their fence in with their own ducks.  As I drove by (right after uttering a prayer for help finding them, no kidding) I saw them behind the fence.  They had put up a 'Lost Ducks' sign!  (Now, you don't see that everywhere.) That's country living for you!

I guess this is the reality of the Family Farm experience.  One moment we are learning together, lessons that we could not learn any other way, the next moment, we are frantically chasing something, other times dealing with disappointment.  

I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, and this 'Farm' of ours is no doubt a comedy of errors more often than anything else. I don't think I knew what I was getting into, and I still don't.  I have heard many people recount their farm experiences with pleasure, and others with disdain.  Either way, they had the experience of it all. And crazy as all this is, I still haven't completely dismissed the dreams of goats and sheep looming in the back of my mind.........

Maybe, as my sister-in-law says, "Chickens are the gateway drug of farm animals." If that's the case, I think I might be addicted now.