Minna goes missing

Less than a month after Sophie went missing, we are now faced with a missing duck. Minna is small, brown, and rather inconspicuous to begin with and when she wants to secret herself away she is remarkably good at staying quiet and going unnoticed even if you happen to be standing right next to her. She does this frequently, actually. I'm not sure if she is hiding from me or trying to stay under the radar of the boys (Fern and Aida) and Gretchen, all of whom I suspect of trying to mate with her although I have only actually seen Gretchen attempting it. At any rate it is not an uncommon occurrence here on the Unfarm for me to wander around the backyard calling Minna's name while she sits in whatever spot she has chosen and waits me out. I suspect she also laughs merrily at my increasingly frantic searches as the ducks seem to have very little sympathy for my nerves.

Usually, the evening routine is that the ducks will get dinner after the chickens go to bed and then they waddle on in to their own coop for the night. This is usually when Minna decides to make her appearance: as soon as she hears the lid to the food bin opening up. The other night, however, she failed to show up so I went in search of her, fearing the worst (as anxiety is my forte.) I searched in all the usual places: under the deck, behind the wheelbarrow and beneath the fronds of the day lily. No Minna. So I widened my search and as I was nearing the gate separating the relatively safe backyard from the hugely unsafe (and therefore off limits to all unsupervised birds) front yard, where any wandering coyote or neighborhood dog could spell disaster, I saw Minna's head poking underneath the gate. It seems she had decided to exile herself from the backyard and was enjoying life in the front yard, sans any birds of the male persuasion. Which was, I may have mentioned, hugely unsafe. Mystery one: where is Minna? Solved. Mystery two: how did she get out? Unsolved. At any rate, she was found relatively quickly and I didn't have to spend a sleepless night worrying about her. 

What I thought was an isolated incident turned out not to be when Minna was discovered missing again the next day. This time, the first place I looked was the front yard as time was of the essence if she was wandering rather slowly through it (she walks with a limp from an old injury and so does not move very fast and is, therefore, one of our most vulnerable animals.) I found her almost immediately, sitting underneath the trailer right outside the gate. How exactly she got there was still anyone's guess because recent tilling and weeding activity in the side garden had exposed several gaps along the bottom of the fence line that were just big enough for an enterprising duck of Minna's size could fit through, not to mention the gap and the bottom of the gate. We blocked off the bottom of the gate with a block of wood and that seems to have stopped Minna's forays into the front yard for now (solving mystery two) but I fear it is only a matter of time before she finds a new escape hatch. She is, after all, highly motivated to keep out of the way of the Gretchen, Fern and Aida; despite explaining numerous times to them that "no means no," they refuse to listen to me.

Chicken harness

Penny, currently our oldest hen, gets picked on. A lot. By pretty much everyone. She is definitely low hen down in the pecking order here on the Unfarm. I don't know if it is because she sports spurs (nothing like Gretchen, the rooster, of course but spurs nonetheless) or because she walks with a limp from an old injury she sustained when she was still young (let it not be said that we neglect the health care of our animals: the vet tried putting a cast of sorts on it but it still healed up crooked) or simply because she didn't grow up with the rest of the chickens and is thus outnumbered. But whatever the reason, she gets chased and pecked at and harassed on a daily basis. This has led her to spend most of her days hanging out in safety zones: the grape arbor, behind the old screens from the failed catio, or up on the deck. 

Feeling bad for her and inspired after a trip to Coastal Farm and Home Supply, I decided to sew our feathered friend a harness so that I could more safely take her out in the front yard to get a break from the constant harassment in the back yard. You can simply purchase ready made hen harnesses from Coastal but Mom vetoed that idea and I was too impatient to order one online and have it shipped so I broke out the sewing machine and cobbled together a harness using whatever we had on hand: mesh fabric, a D-ring, a buckle, and some nylon strapping. After a bit of trial and error, and several fittings which Penny (fairly) patiently sat through, we had a working harness. 

A neck loop goes over her neck and is attached to a back strap and then an apron like piece covers her belly and attaches to two side straps that connect through the back strap, holding the whole harness on her. A D-ring on the back strap allows me to attach a leash and take her for "walks" which don't look like walking so much as wandering around and pecking at the plants, but she seems to not mind it too much. Unless I drop her leash and let it trail behind her, then she runs squawking around the yard in circles until I pick her up again. The only reason for this behavior that I can think of is that she thinks the leash is somehow chasing her and it freaks her out. At any rate, Penny seems to enjoy her newfound freedom away from the rest of the flock and if the neighbors didn't think we were crazy before, they do now that they have seen us walking our chicken. 

Penny sporting her harness, hanging out on the front deck.

You can see the back strap of the harness a little better in this picture. The leash is not attached when she's just hanging out on the deck.

Terror on the Unfarm

For several days last week the Unfarm was terrorized by a spider. It began when a large, fast moving spider was spotted in the downstairs bathroom. Normally this would be a cause for concern but hardly a reason to live in terror. Except that this particular spider was spotted by my brother who is apparently scared of spiders and his method of dealing with them is to close the door to the room and blockade the bottom of the door with a towel or something, instead of simply killing or removing the spider. When I spotted the sheet shoved under the door to the bathroom the next morning I knew immediately something was up and asked my brother what it was, exactly, that was trapped inside the bathroom. 

Armed with a mug shot of the offending insect (or at least a physical description) and the location of it's last known whereabouts I carefully stepped into the bathroom and prepared to do battle. Unfortunately, I was too late. The spider had either hidden somewhere in the bathroom or sneaked out under the sheet somehow. In any event, it was not to be found so the bathroom was reopened and we lived under the constant threat of the spider's imminent re-emergence for several days. The downstairs bathroom was avoided in favor of the upstairs bathroom and we tread lightly and kept an eye out whenever we had to go downstairs. Those were troubling times, I tell you. 

Thankfully, after spending part of the week living in terror we woke up to a note on the refrigerator one morning that stated, "Attention, all! The horse sized hairy tarantula has been captured before it could eat anyone." Mom had, apparently, caught sight of it as it was crawling in front of her office door downstairs and had killed it and removed it from the house. I am pleased to report that the downstairs bathroom is once again in use and we can all sleep easily, no longer worried about spiders crawling into our beds in the middle of the night. Crisis averted. Until the next one, of course.

The ducks have left the building

Well, it's finally happened. The ducks have been kicked out of the house. For a good ten years or so the ducks wore diapers and slept inside in the house with us at night, or when it was very cold and they simply refused to go outside for the day. We had a good run and it made for a good conversation starter to state that we had ducks that wore diapers and lived in the house at night but alas, it was not meant to continue. I knew it was coming: my parents had been threatening for years to make the ducks move outside but I managed to hold them off for a decade or so before finally giving in. The ducks now live in a spacious duck house out on the back patio and spend their days wandering the gardens or playing in the pool and at dusk they eat their dinner and then waddle on in to their house for the night.

I spent several days making the house largely on my own with some help from my dad. It did not turn out the way I expected it would - as is the case with many of the projects I take on. For one, it is way more massive than I ever expected it would be - probably because it was built from a design for a chicken coop and they need roost bars and height where ducks typically do not. (At least, I have yet to see a duck roosting on a bar at night - or any time for that matter.) 

In looking back on it I probably could have made it much shorter but as it is I can comfortably sit inside it without stooping down so maybe massive was the way to go after all. It also sports an asphalt shingle roof, red painted exterior, a large window in back and "french doors" in the front. Which is to say, I took two glass fronted cabinet doors and attached them to the front of the house as the doors the ducks use for access. The whole house sits on four couch legs that can be swapped out for new ones should the current ones ever start to rot, extending the life of the house. The floor is vinyl to protect the wood underneath as ducks are - you may be surprised to discover - rather wet little creatures. The vinyl extends out onto the front porch, where I have found Minna likes to sit in the evenings. As a finishing touch I strung an extension cord from the house up to our back deck and installed a set of string lights in the rafters - for ambiance, of course. 

The completed duck house sporting french doors and a front porch. This was taken before the lights were installed. And needless to say, it did not stay this clean for long.

Minna and Maggie enjoying their house (and the fact that the pool is right outside.)

Getting a drink

Chicken takeover

The chickens staged a takeover the other evening. Let me back up. 

The chickens are no longer allowed on the back deck. Dad got sick of them pooping all over the deck - even though the dogs came out and ate said poop, so I really don't see the problem - so when we had to rebuild the decks we opted for a cover on the back deck that would protect the whole deck instead of just half of it and gates on both entries to the deck. The main entry out to the dog run now has a lattice style door on sliding barn door hardware. This allows us a view of the backyard while still preventing the chickens from getting up onto the deck and leaving their calling cards. And the chickens, by and large, respect the new rules and don't usually come onto the deck even though most of them could fit through the slats on the smaller gate down to the patio and those that don't could simply fly over the top of the gate. But they don't. Except for Penny, when she is being chased and harassed by the rest of the flock: I found her on the deck yesterday, hiding out from Gretchen. 

This, then, is the way of things: the gate and the door to the dog run stay shut unless the chickens are in bed or the dogs need to go out to go to potty. Which is why the door was open the other day: Axel had to go out to the yard but because he is a bit slower these days the chickens saw their opportunity and seized it. Coming back into the kitchen to see if Axel was ready to come inside yet what I saw instead was that our entire flock of chickens (with the notable exception of Penny, who avoids the flock whenever possible) had mutinied and was now ambling around on the back deck or standing on the couch. I am quite sure that Gretchen led the attack on the deck and his harem of ladies simply followed suit. What I am not sure of is the reason for the attack. By now, most of the chickens won't go on the deck even if the door is open so what possessed them to do so that night is beyond me. It did, however, make for some good photo opportunities and gave Dad, who is several states away and headed further east by bicycle, a decent scare as there was nothing he could do about it from where he was. I chased all of them off the deck and let Axel back inside, but they were already staging a second attempt and surely would have charged for the deck again if I hadn't shut the door and foiled their attempt. 

"I swear, I had nothing to do with this, Mom."

Axel looks on as the chickens stage their mutiny

Gretchen gets ready to launch another attack on the back deck while the ladies await orders.

Disappearing chickens

Call in Nancy Drew: we have a mystery. One of our chickens went missing last night and for the life of us we could not find her.

9:30 pm, Sunday night

Usually the chickens put themselves to bed every night as soon as it begins to get dark so imagine my surprise when I wet out to lock them up last night and found Penny perched on the couch on the back deck. Perhaps, I surmised, she tired of the trash can she usually chooses to sleep in. I scooped her up and continued on my way out to the coop with her only to discover Bridget roosting the the dog run gate. And then either Hannah or Henrietta on the dog run fence. Now things were getting unusual.

A quick look inside the coop confirmed my suspicions - not a single chicken to be found. The reason for this lack of chickens was also apparent; the chicken door had fallen shut, effectively blocking entry of all our chickens to their nightly roosts. What followed was somewhat of an Easter egg hunt involving chickens. I deposited Penny into the coop and then set about rounding up the others. I had already noticed Bridget and Hannah/Henrietta so I scooped them up next. Using the flashlight I was able to locate Lucky, Henrietta or Hannah, and Gretchen in the compost bin. While I was rounding them up I heard some scuffling noises in the shed so that was where I went next and discovered Georgia in the trash can usually occupied by Penny, and Lucy perched on the edge of said trash can. That's eight. The only one left was Sophie and as she is a mostly white/light colored chicken I had every confidence that I would soon find her as well.

So I searched. And I searched. And I searched some more. I checked under the deck, in the duck house, in the grape arbor and all over the gardens. My confidence began to waver. I looked behind the bamboo, in the trees, on top of the wood pile, and in the rafters of the back deck cover. It was like she had vanished into thin air and at this point my confidence that we would find her was shot. After searching the whole yard three times over, Mom and I finally called it quits and simply hoped we would find her in the morning when she came out from wherever she had been hiding. As this was not our first case of disappearing chickens (we discovered the last on had been roosting in a tree branch for three nights while joining the rest of the flock during the day) we prayed she would be safe wherever she was and then we reluctantly headed off to bed, but not without setting my alarm for early the following morning.

5:30, Monday morning

I headed back out into the yard to search for our missing Sophie and stopped short on the way out to the dog run as I passed by one of our weeping Japanese maple trees, where Sophie was happily perched on top as if nothing was amiss. Imagine my chagrin: if I had looked on top of the tree instead of just underneath it in the branches, I would have found her. Oh well, another day, another lesson learned here on the Unfarm.

Sophie on her roost for the night

A closer view of Sophie, gloating at having outwitted us simple minded humans