Sunday, August 24, 2008

Meet the Chickens...

...and the ducks, and the turkey. Yes, we have several chickens, three ducks, and a turkey. And, Marley, of course. But, most of you have met our dog, Marley. You may or may not know we have farm animals.

In short, the Easter Bunny delivered ten baby chicks and three baby ducks to Lauren and Catherine this past Easter.

The girls were delighted, John was thrilled, I was apprehensive to say the least.

Over the course of the spring and summer months our chickens and the turkey encountered several unfortunate and sometimes terminal accidents.

For example, once we moved the chickens and ducks to the farm, the chickens started disappearing from the pen. Oh, did I mention they lived in my garage for several weeks? There are not many wives that would allow their husbands to commandeer their garage for the sake of farm animals. But, that's how I roll.

So, once they moved the chickens started diminishing in number. Daily, and one by one they would vanish. We were down to one chicken. For some reason, the ducks remained unscathed. The pen did not have a cover so John and I speculated that a hawk or owl was enjoying a free chicken buffet.

Luckily, Lauren really did not notice before John had time to get replacement chicks. And, each time he would come home with new chicks she had a new baby (or five) to play with. Lauren had a ball carrying them around the house, wrapping them in blankets, and having tea parties with her birds. And she named a few. The turkey she called Big Foot and two of the chickens became Super Man and Cinderella.

Super Man and Cinderella are the ones strutting on the far left of this photo.

Lauren loved on Big Foot, the turkey, so much she inadvertently broke his leg. Luckily, one of the kind elders at our church is a veterinarian professor and just happens to be my former youth minister. So, I called Dan and asked him what to do. The thought of putting the turkey of his misery was too much to bear.

I put John on the phone with Dan and they had a 15 minute conversation on how to splint a baby turkey's leg. Seriously. And, then John made me help him splint Big Foot's little leg. John used so much medical tape to secure Broke Foot's leg to his body, he looked like he was in a partial body cast. Poor Broke Foot, I mean Big Foot.

Unfortunately, Broke Foot did not survive once he moved from the garage to the farm. His broken leg proved to be a far disadvantage when trying to escape the creature that grabbed him in the night. We are not sure how he met his ultimate demise. There was evidence of a struggle and many turkey feathers were strewn in and below his pen.

Once again, John was able to replace Broke Foot without Lauren's notice. See how happy she and the "new" Big Foot are together?
Even Catherine likes to get in on the turkey action!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Again, totally agree. I am the only one allowed to do dishes at my house because there is a certain way to do it correctly that no one else understands. Especially Lillie, our maid, bless her.
Heidi

The Dyer Family said...

I didn't think I had commented on this batch of crazy, yet! you crack me up. the chickens I kind of get - but the turkey with a leg splint is too much!! thank god for this blog, now all this is documented - no one could make this up. :)

Tiffany said...

Love it! Loved seeing you yesterday! And Happy Belated!!