For the birds

There have been times this summer that I've thrown my hands up in the air deflated by my failure to keep the chickens out of my garden. But then I see them eating grasshoppers and weeds and leaving droppings of fertilizer behind in the dirt and I feel like thanking them. 

Our cucumber plants have produced way, way more cucumbers then we could pickle or consume. I've given bags of them away. And this week I decided I would let the chickens have at 'em. The only trouble is I'm not OK with them pecking my tomatoes and cantelope so it's a bit tricky in our tight garden space. I finally just threw some cucumbers out on the driveway for them - they'd already pecked into them, might as well let them finish the job.

Thank goodness Lindsey & Austin's wedding is behind us. The chickens have demolished the little flower patch that was in the center of the reception! I cannot believe how they've pulled the flowers apart. People weren't kidding when they said chickens will destroy flowers and eat your garden produce. Live and learn.

I was feeling really concerned about the chickens and my pumpkins. The chickens can basically disappear in the pumpkin vines, but I don't like how they were starting to peck at the newly forming pumpkins.

However, an unfortunate thing happened last night. We found a pile of feathers in the grass in my parents' backyard. Then another pile of feathers at the bottom of a tree - with our two cats and dog staring up at the branches. My heart sank. I thought we'd lost two chickens in a 20 minute time span. At dark, I carefully counted the birds - over and over and over - and came up with twenty. We lost one....so why were there two piles of feathers? I finally decided it must have been a raccoon. Caught the bird in the grass, then climbed up the tree.

We've collected around fourteen eggs this week from the chickens, but with them being out and about all day we haven't been sure if we're finding all of them. So now to keep them safe - we've had 6 disappear thanks to other animals eating them - we're keeping them in the barn. I took them some more cucumbers this morning partly because I felt so bad for them being locked up. We'll see what happens...it's a wild, wild world out there.