Stewart Creek Somethings

Mr Rainman came out early in the week and did a bunch of cleanup on the farm. It seems like we are always doing a lot of cleanup in the fall. This is probably directly related to how many projects I try and finish in the summer and just move on to the next thing without completing the first project. He went down into the root cellar and cleaned it up. I had made quite the mess when I wired the old house. I have a tendency to just throw my trash down on the ground. Especially if I am up in the air and have to climb up on a ladder or platform to work. There is no light down in the root cellar. I need to wire in an outlet and switch. I may be able to buy a light with a wireless controller, if I can then I only need to wire in an outlet. A light would be a great help when I am down here digging around for something. I really need to dump out all the canned food from the last 50 years. Honestly, I am afraid that there may actually be some botulism in one of these jars. Which means I will need to wear rubber gloves and bury the food when its emptied and then dip the jars into bleach water. This is a not priority kinda thing which is why there are a couple of hundred jars on shelves full of various foodstuffs still in the root cellar.

The puppy, Chance, has finally started to settle down and listen to us. I decided to see if she would still ride around on my shoulders like she would a year ago. Annmarie said Chance did not like it but she did wag her tail the whole time. She also grabbed onto my shoulder and chest so she did not fall off.

I had 22 chickens at the beginning of the week. I know this as I had just counted them for my chicken tracker. I try and count them at the beginning of the month so I have an accurate number. Last night I was sleeping downstairs when Annmarie came running down hollering that there was a chicken dying outside. I did not prep for this and coming out of dead sleep there are several things that have to happen, grab eyeglasses, footwear needs to be donned (slippers), pistol needs to be grabbed, spare clip of ammo (slip that into the top of underwear), large 300k candle floodlight (found in top of closet), then cycle action to load pistol, turn on laser and get outside! This time I knew to go right towards the chicken coop and when I shined the light alongside the coop there was a raccoon on the backside of the coop running sideways. I was only able to get off two shots before it went behind the chicken coop. I ran around the front of the coop, passed a dead black feathered Turken chicken on the ground, opened the gate and ran out into the ram pasture looking for a raccoon. I could not find it! I shined the light into the tree, up the dry creek bed, over by the barn and got nothing. I was pretty sure I did not hit anything, the raccoon was a long ways away, 80-100 feet. I need to start practicing those long shots. I say this to myself in the middle of the night but during the day I always find things to do other than practice with the pistol. I put the two other alive chickens into the coop, they were hanging outside the auto chicken door. I headed back to the house and the dead chicken was gone!

I was certain that the raccoon had circled around behind me and came back to steal the chicken carcass. I was less than happy but at the same time impressed with my adversary. After some choice directional language toward the creek bed I headed back to the house and stumbled on the dead chicken, it was alive! It had gotten up and walked away from its deathbed. I spent five minutes trying to catch the thing and it would not let me grab it. I was starting to get cold since I was only in my underwear. I told the chicken it was going to make excellent raccoon bait and went back into the house. I laid the pistol and light on the washing machine and set my slippers by the back door. On further pondering I should have worn my new rubber boots out into the mud, not my slippers.

I went back to bed with the wife and two hours later she was shaking me and hollering that a chicken was dying. This time I was ready! I shot out of bed, ran right to the laundry room and grabbed the arsenal and tools while running for the chicken coop. The raccoon was in the chicken yard and there is only one exit so I knew where it was going to come out. I started banging away as soon as it came out the yard entrance and had it down by the time it got to the hillside. After ensuring that it was dead I looked for the wounded chicken and could only find feathers.

During the day I kept looking for the black turken chicken, I have two of them and could only spot one. Tonight I went out to get eggs after dark and counted the chickens. I had both turkeys, so the raccoon bait lived! Unfortunately, the raccoon had managed to kill and remove two other chickens that did not have the lung capacity or brains to holler for help. I will now be enclosing the top of the chicken yard enclosure so that no predator can climb up the fence and down into the yard and I am going to add a second solar powered chicken door to the yard that has a light sensor that faces West, the auto chicken door on the coop faces North. My hope is the even if the coop door closes the chickens will be inside the yard by the time the yard door closes so the raccoons cannot pick them off. I lose the most chickens on the entrance to the coop as they are just slow and don’t make it in before the door shuts and I never check to ensure they all made it inside. Chickens take 8 months before they start laying eggs, I cannot keep feeding the raccoons. We just started getting 8-10 eggs a day on now 20 pullets. The new door will be here in ten days, here’s hoping I can keep the chickens alive that long.