I was so thankful the dogs decided to give up on hunting the chickens. Once Calvin had the chicken wire stapled to the ground the dogs realized there was no way to get to them.  Now the chickens and dogs hang around together quietly just inches apart, separated by the chicken fencing.

The other day Louie was standing there minding his own business, but very close to the fence, so one of the hens came over, looked at him, and pecked his nose through the wire.  Louie recoiled, but said nothing, and just had a disappointed look on his face, albeit a look that said “I won’t forget this.”  I told him to just get away from the chickens, as obviously they don’t like him.

Frieda was also pecked, but she took it poorly, first yelping and then running away.  The hens are getting quite feisty, and I guess they don’t want little dogs within inches of them.  The other night one was outside the fence again, and I know if dog and chicken meet minus a fence between them, a melee is gonna ensue.

The cats are keeping busy killing as many mice and rats as they can.  I stepped into cold rat guts the other night as I made my way to the bathroom.  Then to add insult to injury I had a small mouse head balled up in the bed.  That was likely found by Frieda and brought in as a snack but then forgotten or lost.

I’m making human snacks due to the large amount of green tomatoes I have left in the garden.  I made green tomato chutney and two kinds of salsa, one cooked and the other with raw ingredients.  Not sure if any will ever be eaten, and in a couple of years I’ll be hauling these jars out from the back of the fridge wondering whatever they could be.

Today I experimented with fermented carrot juice.  I used to be nuts about it and when I worked downtown I’d go to a health food store and buy it there.  I juiced a whole lot of carrots, then added salt, and it says to leave at room temperature for ten days.  I’ll let you know if it works.

Mom swears by fermented foods and eats dozens of jars of sauerkraut and red cabbage every month.  I certainly don’t want to make it to 97, and I don’t eat either of those two foods so I’m likely safe there, though God knows what the carrot juice’ll do for longevity.  Pretty sure the tequila balances that out.

Other bad foods I’ve made include fig jam.  I had a lot of figs this year, and at the very end I thought they were pretty tasteless due to the lack of heat, and so made jam.  But then the jam ended up rather tasteless, so that was stupid.

I’d bought a horse radish root in the spring, so I guess that should be harvested.  I also have a mighty big crop of hardy kiwis and other than making jam with them, I don’t know that anyone would like them.  I guess I could freeze them but then what?  Both the fridge and freezer will be cluttered with jars of questionable food items.

Still waiting for eggs, but if the chickens attack I won’t be able to collect them, Calvin’ll have to do it.  He said he’s never in his life been pecked by a chicken, so we’ll see if perhaps I accidentally adopted vicious hens.

Calvin thought we were doing well enough with our four chickens to warrant a couple more, as he said our flock was awfully small.  So I emailed the guy I’d bought them from and he said he had three left, so would I take all of them given he didn’t want to end up with one chicken.  I said sure, and as Calvin was off helping his mom at the ranch I drove over with the dog kennel and he stuck them inside.

I brought them into the coop and opened the door as they were just sitting there, quietly, and let them make their way out in their own time.  Their former home was flat, however our coop has a ramp so it took them a couple of hours to venture down it, but once they had they joined the other four pecking around the yard.

Carl the handyman had warned me dawn and dusk is when marauders such as raccoons will try to beat up chickens, and so I’m vigilant with getting the hens inside and the coop hatch closed.  So on the new chickens’ first night in the coop I went out expecting them to have joined the other four as it was getting dark, however my four were in, and the three new ones were hanging around in their yard.

I thought what the hell am I gonna do as I’ve never wrangled a chicken before, so I thought maybe luring them with food with work.  I went into the coop and threw down some special chicken feed and of course my four pounced right on it, but the other three remained out, looking in at me.

I left the coop and stood staring at the chickens.  I thought well, maybe they’ll hunker down under the coop and be fine.  However I knew any predator would easily be able to attack them there, so had to figure out a way to get those hens in.

Oh crap.  There’s no gate to the fenced chicken yard so I had to straddle the chain link and then woof! a heavy landing going downhill on the other side.  By now I was sweating from the effort of getting over the fence, it was getting darker by the minute and I thought I have got to get these chickens into the coop.

By now anger was helping a lot, and so I decided I had to run down the chicken closest to the ramp, caught it, it squawked like mad, but didn’t peck, and I was able to throw it into the open doorway.  I managed to run down the other two and one by one grabbed them and threw them into the coop, sweating mightily.

Another skill to add the list perhaps?  This to add to the several culinary successes I had over the past couple of weeks.  A fab spinach quiche and prune tart for Patricia, successful chicken with thyme and honey for the Crones, four different baked goods for the former gym coffee group, and finally chicken salad for Elsa and lettuce chicken wraps for Marie.

When the Crones were here a stink bug flew into the bowl of tomato salad, which were chopped with onion and oil and vinegar.  I managed to fish it out, but it fell off my fork, whereby it fell right into Frieda’s mouth as she thought it was food.  And it kind of was as it was stink bug marinated in oil and vinegar.  She seemed fine with it though three days later had a bout of terrible diarrhea but with her it could be the glutinous amounts of cat feces she wolfs from the pile of dirt I keep for gardening.