Me 6, Squirrels 0

I haven't been writing lately because I've been sitting in the back by the chicken coop waiting for my chickens to lay so I can get the eggs before the squirrels do.

You never waste time in quite the same lengthy way as you do when you're running back and forth from the house to the chicken house every time you hear a chicken squawking, to beat the squirrels to an egg, only to find that the hen hasn't actually laid, she's just letting you know that she's extremely uncomfortable, circling around on her nest and ABOUT to lay. So you don't want to head back inside cause she might lay any minute. And there's Squirrel Nut Zipper right there, perched on the fence, rubbing his little furry hands together, planning an omelette.

So I stand on the brink of the chicken house doorway, a doorway that is too low and that I've smashed my forehead on many a time because it's really just an old sagging garden shed tucked in the back of the yard, hidden behind trees. If we were British, it'd be my Secret Garden. If it didn't smell like chicken turds.

Standing in the netherworld of the chicken doorway is not a bad place to stand. Trust me, I've spent about three days there now. You get to watch nature work in its haphazardly beautiful way - chickens finding dirt interesting. Chicks beating up on other chicks and then gathering around the water cooler like it's the most refreshing place in the world. They have dinosaur feet. They really ask for nothing. Content to just take a dust bath, feast on bugs and for a treat, maybe eat a moldy bagel. Then bask in the sun.

This whole egg snatching started when we were babysitting our friends chickens while they went to Hawaii (I offered to give them our chickens so WE could go to Hawaii but that didn't work out), and everything was fine for about a week. They gave us this huge bag of sunflower seeds which the chickens love. But it turns out the squirrels found the bag and staged like a Burning Man concert in the henhouse and ate the entire bag. Then when it was empty they turned their hungry eyes to the rest of the henscape.

All I knew was, the hens stopped laying. I came out once and there were three eggs, and when I came out again, there weren't any. So I put fake eggs down from Easter, so the hens would start laying again, and then THOSE eggs disappeared. Then I knew I had a theif. I put ping pong balls in the nests. Gone.

I had 7 chickens, and I started policing the henhouse. I locked them up until they laid. I waited til I heard squawking. I dawdled on the brink of the door. One of the days I had to go to the beach cause it's summer and the kids want to do stuff involving me not standing in the chicken doorway, and that day I'm at the beach cursing the squirrels the whole time, knowing they're eating all my eggs.

A hen makes alot of noise and looks frantic up until the egg is about to come out. Then they stand up, swell their chest out like a gorilla, and then wait - plop, breakfast. It's pretty amazing how perfect and warm and regular an act a chicken egg is. It's a regular farm miracle.

Everytime an egg plops out, I give the chicken a few seconds to feel the the full impact of their miracle, and then I grab it while not appearing grabby. Today, Me 6, Squirrels 0.

My friend came and took her chickens back (thank God) so I'm back to just my 3 hens and the 7 little chicks we inherited from kindergarten. I'm spending MUCH less time on the brink of the chicken house, my hens almost lay in a symphony around 10 a.m. so I can be back inside for "Price is Right," holding their little warm miracles in my hands.