When things go wrong

Well, folks, it's finally happened: something has gone wrong. In fact, not only did something go wrong, two things went wrong-- all in one day! Don't panic, it's not the end of the world. It's just a bit of a bummer.

Yesterday was a busy day. As with most things that go wrong on a farm, that was the root of the trouble. I went straight from one meeting to another meeting to tumbling class, and I discovered two unfortunate things when I got home:

1. Only three of our four chickens came home at the end of the day.
2. My tomato seedlings dried out and died.

Dang.

Let's start with the chickens. As you may know, we purchased four chickens a month or two ago, and they've been doing pretty well. They're going through their molt, so they're a bit weird looking and they're not laying much, but they're ours, they're funny, and one or two home-grown eggs a day is better than none. Now that the days are getting longer and drier, we've been letting them out of their run from time to time to roam around and forage. They love doing it and it cuts down on our feed costs, so it seems like a win-win situation.

Well, it's a win-win except for the fact that they have to fend for themselves for a few hours, and chickens are kind of dumb and defenseless. We keep them safely locked up until a few hours after dawn and we shut them in an hour or so before sunset, when they usually come back of their own accord to roost for the night. Last night, at chicken bedtime, I headed out to the coop. Three chickens. Both of our Araucanas were there, already roosting, and one of our Rhode Island Reds was just about to go up the ramp into the coop. But where was Red #2?

We left the coop open for as long as we felt we could, to give her a chance to find her way back and slip in, but eventually we had to close it to keep the other three safe from nocturnal predators. Maybe she just found a good-looking branch and decided to have a sleep-away, and she'll show up at the coop today, clucking to be let in. But, honestly, it's more likely that she was something's dinner last night.

So now what? Do we respond by keeping them in the run all the time? By fencing in a pasture for them? By only letting them out when I'm home to keep an eye on them? I don't know. Should we buy another hen to replace her? I'm still hoping she'll show up.

Sigh.

(UPDATE! Red #2 was outside the coop when I went out there to check this morning! What a hardy little lady!)

Right. Moving on to the tomato seedlings. This one is a less involved story. Basically, the seedlings dry out really quickly under their lights, and I just plain forgot to water them in the morning. By the time I got home in the evening, it was too late. Oh, well. I was going to start some broccoli and Brussels sprouts today anyway, so I'll just do some new tomatoes, too.

I can't just tell you bad news, though, so here's a few bright spots to round out this post:

-We found a great new place to buy our chicken feed. It's basically a bulk feed buying club, and it's based out of the home of some awesome people just a few streets away from us. When we showed up Saturday to pick up our first bag, we got the full tour of their farm, which got me all excited about what we can do with ours.

-I got back into baking bread, and my loaves have been turning out wonderfully. I like baking.

-We had a productive community meeting yesterday. We even broke into committees, a little unofficially, so that we could tackle financial agreements and garden planning at the same time. (No surprise-- I was in the garden planning group.) We have a garden plan! I know how many beds we'll have, how big they'll be, and where to put them.

-The flowers are coming out, which means we've been finding out about all the pretty things this property was keeping secret until now: the camellia blossoms, the banks of daffodils, the rhododendrons that are about to explode, the cherry tree, etc. It's the first time I've been pleasantly surprised by this property. Oh, and I finally spotted the koi in our pond!