All we,like hens have gone broody?

     If you’ve ever heard the expression “broody” you might picture someone worrisome or troubled. It can even mean contemplative or moody. At least that’s what I thought it meant until we got backyard chickens.

     A broody hen will undergo a hormonal change. Her internal temperature rises and she has the compulsion to sit on eggs. She stops laying and sits in the nesting box on whoever’s eggs happen to be there. If disturbed, she will utter a noise like no other, a cross between a long squawk and a mountain lion’s soft growl.

     The broody hen is only comfortable when she’s sitting on eggs. The cure we’ve learned of is efficient. I don’t know if the hot weather this week brought on the condition in Tater Tot (Benjamin named her). She may just be inclined to this. It’s the second time she’s gone broody and another Plymouth Partridge Rock like her also succumbed several months ago.

     Monday morning it was obvious Tot was broody. She had spent the night in the nesting box and ruffled her neck feathers when we peeked in at her. It was time for treatment.

     I love my rubber boots. I can stomp around in anything and keep my feet clean. The hens nearly always hurry over whenever I come outside to see if I have something for them. They have remarkable faith in me.

Nathaniel took these pictures for me. This is me fetching the hose.

And filling the 5 gallon bucket.

I’m getting Tater Tot out of the nesting box here. The other girls are hanging out. Most of them are very friendly. You might notice the nesting boxes are from Costco and once contained frozen chicken parts. Most of the time the boxes have napkins covering the openings to give the girls a little privacy.

Usually Tater Tot is a little shy, but she was so fixed on staying in the nest that she let me get her out. Once we are holding a hen they stay pretty docile. 

This is how you lower the internal temperature of a hen. Here she is about to be dunked into a bucket of water. Lincoln Rooster watches, bemused.

She will stay in the water for five minutes.

She was mostly calm. When I took her out you can see I have her wings and feet restrained. 

And into the wire cage. Into the cooler.

The cage goes up on buckets.

And I give her some water.

And here she is in the cage in the shade. Even in the heat of the day, air will pass around and under her keeping her considerably cooler than in the nesting box. 

She was snatched out of her comfort zone and plunged into a shocking cold, where without good restraint, she could have quickly drowned. Then she was set up in a less comfortable place for all her friends to gawk at while her instinctive desire was only to go back to her warm, dark and safe place and sit on what she wanted to take ownership of that actually was the property of her keeper.

I think that my blog uses analogy quite often and it would be too easy now to point out what can happen in people’s lives sometimes. I certainly tend to get very comfortable in possessions (I love those boots. Some possessions or undeserved blessings are gifts from God and I sit on them like they're mine to keep and no-one else's. But I don’t know how much further the similarity goes with God removing us from our comfort zones and curing us of being broody.

I don’t know, but I think that if we become possessive and unproductive we might not be automatically rescued from it. We don’t have bird brains. We have free will. If our chicken sits on unfertilized eggs or a golf ball put into the nesting box to clue her in that little round things are okay to go there, she is eventually in for disappointment. If I become fixated on what I think are my remarkable accomplishments and want to sit on them in comfort, I will eventually be sitting on something worthless.

Eggs. Talents. Blessings and the broody urge to sit on them. With chickens, it’s nature’s way. With us, it’s human nature and we need to recognize it in ourselves or in each other. However the treatment comes about it may not be comfortable. It took Tater Tot two and a half days to cool off and be back to normal. But I think she feels much better now. The uncomfortable treatment seems to have been worth it for her. Does anyone not think it’s worth it for us?

           

A raucous Inventory

I love Thanksgiving. I am thankful for it. I don’t think I could like the month of November without it. By now, autumn has stopped being refreshing and is starting to behave a bit wintery. Holiday decorations are up in stores and I look like a fool walking through aisles with one hand on the shopping cart and the other putting a finger in one ear while my head is tilted askew enough to press my other ear into my shoulder while humming whatever was the last song to be stuck in my head in order to drown out the premature Christmas music blaring over the store’s sound system. I’m sorry but I get frustrated when I hear Christmas music too early and tend to communicate in run-on sentences. I will even stretch the truth to paint an amusing mental picture. No I have never really made a scene at a store doing that. But sometimes it helps to write out what I feel like doing so I don’t actually act on it. I’m think it’s okay for the music to start after Thanksgiving.

I have enjoyed reading friend’s Facebook status reports about what they are thankful for this month. In a way it’s like a writing assignment that most students get this time of year. Teachers have no problem having students compose something listing what they are thankful for. I don’t think that there is a secular humanist fringe objecting to that yet. But who knows. I am thankful we homeschool.

But more than just busywork or an easy assignment, I hope that students this year are able to examine their lives and count a few blessings. That’s what I think the best part of this Facebook project was. Sure, I like reading how people’s prayers are answered or they are thankful for their friends and family. But listing the things you are thankful for is not for anyone else as much as it is for the person composing the list. I think it’s a healthy thing to take an inventory of your blessings.

I rested the urge to blog this week about what I am thankful for. I like to say that I write for myself, but I really am thankful that people read this and don’t’ want to bore them with an outburst extolling how thankful I am for everything found on my table on Thanksgiving Day. I would go on to coffee and the cup I drink from most mornings, my shabby pickup truck with the stick shift and my ability to operate it. I could never fail to mention every person I come into contact with each day. Most of them have a kind word or smile for me. I have just about the best job and home and church I could hope for and of course my family. In my younger years I never prayed for a wife or family. I never really specified to God what I wanted in a spouse or children so God made the perfect selection for me.

And sometimes I feel a little guilty when I hear other’s prayer requests and I hear how not everyone has a job or a nice home or family. I look at my life and wonder what I did to deserve such a bounty of blessings. And I don’t have a good answer for this. I can only say that I am also thankful that I have God in my life and the knowledge that I am saved. And I am thankful that this is something that everyone can have.

It seemed that I went ahead and listed a few things here that I am very thankful for. I want to include whomever you are reading this. Every week I know some friends read this but so do some strangers. I wish I could thank everyone in person. Maybe someday I’ll see you on the other side. Until then I hope that whatever country you live in you are able to count your blessings once in a while and share at least a few of the things that I am thankful for. It would be my prayer that you share the most important thing. Nothing matters without that.

Who is watching me

I left work at about the usual time on Wednesday the 10th on November which was about 10pm. I drove around the back side of the main church building and then out to Bryant Street, turned right and then right again on Wildwood Canyon Road. This road has several intersections all the way down. Some are four-way stops and I pass by two streets where I have no stop sign but the terminating streets do.
At California street I saw the vehicle across from me signal and it looked like we would reach our stop signs simultaneously. So I slowed down a bit enough to leave no question that they were there first and after stopping I went on through. This cost me 3-5 seconds.
I passed the house I lived in for 6 years then second street and then stopped and went at third street and continued down Wildwood Canyon Road.
Wildwood Canyon Road does not have a stop sign at Fourth Street. As I came up to it I saw on my right headlights moving so fast that it was clear they wouldn’t stop. I hit my brakes and clutch and my truck skidded to a stop as two cars ran the stop sign directly in front of me. They were side by side. The one on the right turned and headed away from me while the one closer to me skidded straight across the street and almost hit a sign. I inched my truck forward a bit and the other car’s backup lights came on. The car reversed and then sped off in the direction of the other car. I made an attempt to follow it and get a license plate but it was going too fast and I was shaken up so I pulled over and called 911 instead.
I described the incident to the dispatcher with the information I observed. I thought I had a make and model and definitely a color of the closer car. Then I drove home and did what I do every night which is check on each of my kids.
The 3-5 seconds I spent letting the other car go at California street would have put me right at Fourth street when the two cars ran that stop sign. Every day I thank God for taking care of me in a mostly absent minded sort of way. Regardless of my forgetfulness of God, though, He had not forgotten me.