The procurement of a one-year-old, brown-egg-laying chicken for Bethany's birthday yesterday was an almost unqualified success. Chuck and I had dutifully researched chicken care and coop construction, and aside from ruining a few hours of Bethany's birthday with our running around town to Home Depot, etc., I was pretty proud. I mean, a chicken for Bethany! How great is that? A chicken for Bethany!
We had gotten good coop tips from a haggard, old prospector-type at the Downtown Temporary Library (who lost *his* chickens to coyotes), dodged some lame and literally hen-pecked birds at the dank and mysterious Liem's in the ID, and designed an entire chicken coop *while walking through the aisles* of Home Depot (and without drawing up plans!). Finally, through a good bit of luck and the intervention of the reverse phone directory and a kind, one-armed urban chicken rancher, we had a chicken for Bethany and were making good progress towards finishing the coop by the time the birthday party started. Despite occasionally putting down the drill to sip from martinis (never have I felt closer to finding a signature DIY ethic), we even finished most of the coop by 10 p.m. The chicken--a beautiful, brown-flecked Partridge, with a soft, winning cluck--had taken up temporary residence inside Chuck's giant aquarium, covered by a sheet, and everything was set for intro to the coop today.
But then the chicken died.
Sometime last night, between 2 a.m. and whenever those guys got up, the chicken died. We have no idea why. Obviously stress, of course, but everything we had been told and learned said that the chicken would be fine in a small, dark non-coop for even a *couple* days.
So now the chicken's dead, the bastards across the street started jack-hammering at 6:30 a.m. again, I'm stalled and frustrated on all seven or eight of the projects I'm working on, I just had another invoice held up (from November!) so I don't know how I'm going to pay my mortgage again, and the world is a lonely, cruel chicken-killing machine.
We had gotten good coop tips from a haggard, old prospector-type at the Downtown Temporary Library (who lost *his* chickens to coyotes), dodged some lame and literally hen-pecked birds at the dank and mysterious Liem's in the ID, and designed an entire chicken coop *while walking through the aisles* of Home Depot (and without drawing up plans!). Finally, through a good bit of luck and the intervention of the reverse phone directory and a kind, one-armed urban chicken rancher, we had a chicken for Bethany and were making good progress towards finishing the coop by the time the birthday party started. Despite occasionally putting down the drill to sip from martinis (never have I felt closer to finding a signature DIY ethic), we even finished most of the coop by 10 p.m. The chicken--a beautiful, brown-flecked Partridge, with a soft, winning cluck--had taken up temporary residence inside Chuck's giant aquarium, covered by a sheet, and everything was set for intro to the coop today.
But then the chicken died.
Sometime last night, between 2 a.m. and whenever those guys got up, the chicken died. We have no idea why. Obviously stress, of course, but everything we had been told and learned said that the chicken would be fine in a small, dark non-coop for even a *couple* days.
So now the chicken's dead, the bastards across the street started jack-hammering at 6:30 a.m. again, I'm stalled and frustrated on all seven or eight of the projects I'm working on, I just had another invoice held up (from November!) so I don't know how I'm going to pay my mortgage again, and the world is a lonely, cruel chicken-killing machine.
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i would read books in the grass but i don't want to get muddy.