My husband says we are getting a goat. Goats are good. Which of course means, I am getting a goat, because it will be me tending to the goat of things.
We are not getting a goat.
However, back in the beginning of summer, our neighbor built a coop and loaded it up with 25 Rhode Island Reds. 25 chickens. Free ranging at that. And then there were 14. Something about raccoons and coyotes. I did not want to know the details.
They are a funny brood- these chickens. Not a rooster in sight. Just a brood of hens, scratching and pecking in their world of free range. Bugs make the eggs sweeter, so they say. Ticks too. Again, I did not want to know the details.
Sure enough, the hens have come to call our yard their range. And in particular, 4 hens have developed quite the hen crush on my husband. There he will be, working on the barn or stacking wood- doing farm things here and there, and following close behind, the reddettes chuckle and coo. In fact, one little hen laid a dozen eggs in one of his old concrete cylinders-covered now in Joe Pye weed and golden rod. She laid her eggs and then proceeded to sit on them as if she was expecting. No rooster, remember? But there she sat, for days upon days. Only gazing up from her cylinder to coo at my husband. Great, now we have chickens in the yard. Our dog is visibly upset. He is not pleased to see the girls meandering here and there in search of- well, bugs and ticks- or whatever else they find on their newly expanded range. Since our dog is a “farm dog” my husband thought it would be a good idea, and a way to solve the incessant chicken barking, if dog met hen. So, last Sunday, he opened the gate, thinking he was Mr. Green Jeans, I suppose and took dog by the collar to introduce him to hen. Certainly, my husband thought, instinct would play out and dog and hen( or brood of) would become fast farm friends.
Um, no.
Not even close.
Luckily, the meet and greet did not turn out as I know some of you were thinking. Hen, upon seeing close proximity of dog, did her best to fly and my husband did his best to intervene. There are still 14 chickens. They still roam and the dog still barks.
I have given in and now serve the reddettes a daily helping of cracked corn( at least I won’t have visions of tick and bug parts when I scramble up an egg or two) at about the same time I give out sunflower seeds to Mr. Chipmunk-who literally waits for his supply on the tallest rock in our flower garden. I fear if I am late my zinnias will suffer the consequences.
Not quite Green Acres-not quite the Upper West Side-but it is home.