Of Slinkys and Revolving Coop Doors

Wow! I didn’t realize I had not posted an update all month. It has been quite busy around here indeed. For the humans, anyway.

Atlas has kept us busy with his puppy-ness. He has developed a taste for the feathers of our red hen and cannot be left alone at all with the chickens. So there is a lot of crate time along with a lot of leash time. That translates to a lot of time I am out in the yard walking him around instead of being inside cleaning, cooking, teaching, etc. So I hope you’ll forgive the lack of blogging 🙂

We have decided to make a semi-permanent interior fence that will allow the chickens to leave their coop and have a decent sized-run while allowing Atlas to have the perimeter of the yard to patrol and run somewhat free without the temptation of red feathers.

She was a beautiful hen… now she has a very stubby point to her tail, and I am grateful that he only caused moderate skin damage. And she still faithfully gives us a beautiful brown egg every day, so she’s only broken on the outside, I guess.

So, you’ve read this far and are wondering, “Why on earth did she title this post ‘Of Slinkys…’?” Well, a funny thing happened when we were trying to run the new fence this week. We were letting Atlas run while we were all out there working on the fence. I had finished up getting the t-posts in and Jackson was going to start cutting pieces of wire for me to tie the chicken wire on with. Problem was, he didn’t quite realize how to open the package and broke the back off. We got it situated, and were able to work with it, but it didn’t quite close all the way.

Puppy move #1: Atlas snatched a pre-cut piece of wire and took off. He thought the shiny pieces were quite fun. Nevermind how dangerous the really could be, they are pretty and fun to toss!

Puppy move #2: Atlas snatched the lid of the box of fence staples we were using to attach the wire to the trees. Needless to say, there was a pile of staples on the ground and a box half way across the yard before we got it retrieved.

By this point, I am NOT having fun. I know in the back of my mind that it should be funny, but I really wanted to get the fence done before it started raining again. Did I mention it has rained this ENTIRE week??! I’m a bit waterlogged. But, Mom and I got a little chuckle by reminding ourselves it would be funny later. Right, when I write about it. That is how it becomes funny. To me, anyway. Don’t know how funny you will all find it, but maybe it’ll bring a little smile to picture the comedy that went on in my yard that afternoon 🙂

Puppy move #3: This was the grand finale, for sure. I set the hammer, wire cutters, and the roll of baling wire down to go out of the yard to get one more post to place on the fence line. I barely got out of the yard, and I looked back to see Atlas running up the yard with the whole roll of wire in his mouth! I scampered to get back in the yard and get to him, but he dropped it on the ground before I could get to him. I was momentarily in awe of how it looked like a Slinky laid over on its side as it lay there on the ground. I reached to get it, and he picked it up. “Where?” you might ask. Right. In. The. Middle. And took off running down the yard.

If you’ve ever overstretched a Slinky, you know how hard it is to get it back the way it is supposed to be. Impossible. Well, when you picture Atlas running across the yard with about 100′ of rolled up wire streaming out on either side of him, you can imagine how this story will end.

Jerry managed to get half of it back in the packaging so that it would feed properly. I’d say that is some sort of miracle. The other half has been rewound onto a block of wood for future use.

All-in-all, this could have been much worse, and much less funny. It would be funnier if I had pictures, but that just wasn’t happening.

We did get Atlas to the vet for his last round of puppy shots. He weighed in at a whopping 49.1 pounds (4.5 months old). I keep telling myself that he is not unlike my tall children… looks like he should be more mature than he can be expected to be. I trust the breed, and I trust that his brain and instincts will catch up to his size. Hopefully soon.

I haven’t forgotten the revolving doors.

Did I mention the rain? I really have felt like a Pacific Northwesterner this week (although definitely not a native one… I don’t think I could do this for months on end!).

Atlas was in his crate one afternoon this week, and it was close enough to dusk that I wanted to just let the chickens get in the coop before letting him out instead of taking him out on the leash. One of the joys I have found in having chickens is being able to just watch them as they go about their daily duties. I was just watching them milling about and then they start hopping one-by-one onto the ramp (they don’t walk up from the bottom) and into the coop. All but one black star were in, and then it started. Red poked her head out and out she came. One or two more came out. The pecked around a while and then started going back in. And out. And in. And finally, all 6 were in. I quickly shut the door, and let Atlas out.

While watching all of this, I was commenting to Atlas about how I didn’t remember installing a revolving door in this coop. He didn’t think it was funny. He just wanted out.

Incidentally, it is nice having a dog out there for when you have these conversations. Otherwise, it might seem like I was talking to myself. Talking to the dog is much better, right?

Well, the sun is out this morning, so I am going to get busy. Today we finish the inner fence and set the dog free(er). Enjoy some more pics from the farm (including a shot of the finished inner fence since that happened before I got pics uploaded to this post 🙂