"Just try to ignore him."

Some alert Reds notice the intruder.

A quick strategy conference ensues.

The strategy? Ignore the snapping turtle and try to eat as much as possible. You never know.

I recently took down the fencing that was meant to keep the ducks from exploring the pond too precipitously. Tommy the turtle immediately decided that the lawn near the duck shelter was a good place to sunbathe, and for the last two days he's come up to loll around and check out the poultry. Snapping turtles can eat small ducks apparently, so out of an excess of caution, the ducks haven't been in the pond since Tommy made his first appearance. I've begun chasing him away so our Rouens can have their little corner of the pond back. After all, if anyone's going to have duck soup around here, it's going to be me.

J'accuse ! ! !

Giselle casts an accusing eye in my direction after the untimely death of her friend, Gertrude.

The ducks hasten to the safety of their shelter as I approach.

Sauve qui peut! (every chicken for herself!) the Wyandottes shriek as I saunter up.

An impromptu memorial for the dearly departed Gertrude.

Our poultry plan has run into something of a headwind. Originally we intended to eat 10 of the 20 birds we recently acquired and keep the rest as our laying flock. Things started well. The 10 Wyandottes were scraggly and a bit wild. Just the thing for roast chicken. The 10 Rhode Island Reds on the other hand were handsome, tame and two of them have just started laying. Wonderful how the stars align sometimes! So yesterday we decided to put the plan into action and butcher our first "roaster". The deal was that I would kill the bird and Catherine would pluck and clean it. (As deals go, I think I did O.K. on this one.) We identified a particularly unsympathetic chicken; I caught and killed it and proudly presented the headless fowl to Catherine. (No heads was another part of the deal on her part.) Then the trouble began. Catherine it turns out couldn't see her way clear to pluck and clean a chicken that "she knows". I'm not sure what she means by "knows" but I suppose that after 3 weeks our chickens are at least passing acquaintances and that apparently qualifies. Catherine also claims that she didn't know that "cleaning" a chicken meant removing the innards. So after beheading this unfortunate chicken I found myself finishing the plucking and doing all of the cleaning. The whole operation took just under a couple of hours. The bird itself was scragglier than we had suspected when we originally identified it. It may weigh 8 ounces, but I think that's optimistic. The moral of this story is that we now have a new plan which works wonderfully for everyone. All of our chickens now are "layers" as opposed to "roasters". As a result none of them are looking at imminent death. Catherine is relieved that she won't have to pluck and clean any of her new-found friends. And I'm happy I won't lose another two hours of my life butchering an animal that barely has enough meat on it to make a good fajita. We'll still eat chicken of course. All we'll have to "pluck" however will be the plastic it comes wrapped in.

The Chicken Slave

The grandkids preparing to help catch our chickens at the farm on pickup day.

The ladies inspect their new home.

The flock looks over the park of Chateau Poulet.

The four Rouen ducks. Much cuter than the chickens.

You may have noticed, dear reader, that there haven't been many posts of late. There is a simple explanation that can be summarized in one word - chickens. For the past several weeks I appear to be working full-time for the chickens. And when I say full-time I mean 20 hour days, 7 days a week. We picked the demanding birds up 10 days ago and since then there has been no rest for your hero. First I had to work feverishly to finish the fence around the park of Chateau Poulet, so our new residents could leave the coop without running off. My oldest son was here to help me or else I would still be working on that darn fence. Then there has been a constant back and forth at all hours of the day to feed, water and otherwise tend to the demanding flock. Toss in the 4 ducks who have their own special demands and you can understand why I'm exhausted. To add insult to injury, 10 of the birds we got (the Wyandottes) are pretty scraggly. They were raised in a very small coop and got to picking each other's feathers out. They're the black and white ones in the photo above. The Rhode Island Reds on the other hand are pretty handsome birds. All of these young chickens should start laying any day now. So far however we have seen zero eggs. Nada, zilch, rien, etc. If they don't start laying soon, starvation could well start gnawing at our innards and then the inevitable will inevitably arrive. One of those scraggly Wyandottes will find its way into our oven. Not a pretty thought I admit. But then again neither is starvation. Pray for eggs because I'm not very practiced at butchering chickens.