Heat Waves and Winging It

In February of 2009, the husband and I went through the worst bush fire ever to hit Australia.  It came on the heels of a three day insanely hot heat wave, and we fought that fire all night long to protect the home we had moved into a mere three weeks earlier.


In July of 2011, we moved to the U.S., from winter to summer, but not just to any summer.  It was another heat wave, and on the day that ended up being the hottest on record here in Virginia, my husband and I built a chicken coop. It was less than three weeks since we'd moved in.  There were no fires in our area, so all in all, this was an improvement, but we couldn't help noticing the extreme heat.


For the record, we fully intend to reinforce the laundry room in our basement with steel on the off chance a tornado happens by.  I don't really think the Universe is out to get us, but I'm not taking any chances.


When we first decided on a chicken coop, the husband thought we could get away with modifying some plastic containers, but the mom did some research and we realized that could only be a short term solution.  And the more research we did, the more we realized that we needed to go ahead and build a proper coop.


My husband and I have a real habit of flying by the seat of our pants.  I could analyze it for you, but suffice to say we are happy with each other and we realize we would drive other people nuts, but we take responsibility for the fixes we sometimes get into, and we do what it takes to make it right.  Sometimes winging it works out really well.  Other times, it can result in some inconvenience.  


So we purchased the chickens before finishing the coop.  He built a cage for them while I went off with Mom to buy the chickens.  I had a long chat with the young man we purchased the chickens from just to give the husband time to finish the cage.


We returned with four full grown hens and five pullets, two of which may or may not be roosters.  We put them in the cage and fed them.  Then we realized we needed a proper water container, so Mom went off to the Tractor Supply Company and got one. We watered them, left the cardboard boxes in which we'd transported them in the cage as temporary housing and went off to relax and watch True Blood.  Mom went to bed as she had to work early.


Shortly into the show, the doorbell rang.  I answered it, and a young boy of about twelve stood before me and asked if we owned chickens.  I was astonished by this.  We live in a very rural area and we haven't lived here long enough to get to know anyone yet.  I responded that we did indeed have chickens.  He proceeded to tell me that one of them must have escaped as he'd been hunting in the woods with his bow and fired at it without realizing what it was.  He missed and then realized it was a chicken.


Now, I realize it's a very unsafe practice to shoot without identifying one's target first, but I was so impressed that he had gone out of his way to find us and let us know that I didn't take the time to give him a lesson on safety.  Not only was I impressed, I was also very concerned that one of the chickens had gotten out and I was starting to feel guilty over the spontaneous way in which we had handled purchasing these chickens.  


In our defense, none of us expected to care about the chickens.  Don't get me wrong.  We would never abuse them, but we weren't expecting to think of them as pets.  And certainly at this point, we did not.  But we didn't want to lose the investment we'd just made either, so we decided to stick them back into the boxes we'd transported them in and place them in the basement for the night.


The next morning, we went to Lowes to pick up the materials.  Lots of sixteen foot two by fours and 8x12 foot plywood.  A handy circular saw and plenty of beer.  


The only real challenge that faced us was the fact that we live on a grade of about 30 degrees, and the chickens are situated about a hundred and twenty feet from the back of the house in a lovely wooded section.  It's another fifty feet to the spot where the car gets parked, and it's steep enough with slick enough grass that driving my mom's car down the hills wasn't feasible.  So we were left with carrying everything down the hill and then walking back up the hill on the hottest day on record.


Ah well.  Good thing we stopped smoking and want to get in shape.  The husband got to find out what real humidity is.  We have some friends in Singapore that would understand humidity in the same way that I do.  I used to laugh when people Melbourne would complain of humidity.  Naturally, the husband thought I was exaggerating until this day in which he found himself needing a towel just to wipe the sweat off his brow so he could see to keep working.


The good news is he finished the coop and at the same time bonded with the chickens who seemed to enjoy spending time with him as he worked.  We were a little sad about losing the one chicken, but we definitely learned from the experience.


Two days later, the husband went down, early in the morning, to feed the chickens.  He found one of the red chickens outside the cage waiting to get in. This was very disturbing and we wondered if we were going to need to make the cage higher.  I went down to have a look at the hinges he'd installed on the coop and to analyze what we were going to do about the cage.  Suddenly, I realized we had nine chickens and not eight.  The one that had "gotten out" was actually our prodigal returned.  We were amazed.  It had been three days and they hadn't had time to establish a pecking order on the day she left, but she found her way back.  And she likes the new digs.  None of the chickens have tried to escape yet.


It's been two weeks, and we have pet chickens, but so far no eggs...