Even with the constant horrible events of last week culminating in the Friday-in-which-we-couldn’t-extract-ourselves-from-the-news-even-if-we-tried that ended in the eventual capture of the remaining Boston Marathon Bomber, the next day dawned bright and new. Just like it’s supposed to do in the aftermath of a terrible storm.
It was Saturday and the beginning of the kids’ school spring vacation. We all desperately needed to step away from the news and the internet to remember how grateful we are for what we have.
It felt righto get out of the house, do some cleaning, and spend time with the members of our flock.
One of the first things we did was create a play yard for Violet out near the hen house. In it Addy placed a roosting bar, food and water. Although sunny, it wasn’t all that warm. Violet is only 3 weeks old, and while she has quite a few of her feathers; she still has areas covered in baby down. New Hampshire mornings and nights are much too cold for her to withstand right now.
Pippin intently watching Violet roost.
After a bit, when we realized that she wasn’t exploring around but was instead huddled on the roost, we moved her back inside.
Ah, but when she came inside she was in for a big surprise! We’d moved Violet up to some bigger digs. Gone was the blue Tupperware container. Instead, just like we had done for Charlie, we used an old rabbit cage and set it up as living quarters for our chicken who was still living with the “indoor flock.” The beauty of this set-up is that we can keep the front door open and Violet can walk down the ramp and join the family (with supervision) anytime she wants.
A little bit of breathing room for a growing chick
Yesterday, we had our chicken roaming around our living room, investigating corners, pecking at every.single. nail. in our wooden floor, and running over to climb up on our knees to chirp. Violet was nothing short of charming.
Comes with the territory.
And yes, yesterday, we did have to do a little chicken poop and wood chip cleaning around the house.
It’s a small price to pay for having a chicken in the house once again.
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Wendy Thomas writes about the lessons learned while raising children and chickens in New Hampshire. Contact her at [email protected]
Also, join me on Facebook to find out more about the flock (children and chickens) and see some pretty funny chicken jokes, photos of tiny houses, and even a recipe or two.
