I'm living with chickens

This has been quite a day.  I trained four new milkers tonight, which of course adds time to the process.  I was just in the second cycle of the washing up when I heard a strange sound coming from the vacuum pump.  It was a big problem!  Thank goodness it didn't happen while we were milking, or all of the milk would have gone down onto the floor of the milking pit.

Kent came over and did his magic to get it running again.  I heard a commotion outside and realized it was nearly dark and I hadn't put the chickens up for the night.  And why were they screeching outside the barn?  I ran outside and one was perched on Kent's truck.  She wouldn't come down.  I went to the Moop and there were three or four wing feathers on the floor.  Something had attacked the chickens!  I found seven of them sitting on my composter.  They wouldn't budge.  Then I saw two more on the room of the lean-to for the calves.  Okay, that is all 10 of them accounted for.  I lost one Saturday night, and whatever took her must have come back for dessert.

In 1983, we traveled through Bavaria and were amazed to see houses and barns connected as one building.  but there is something to be said for it.  I am now living in my north central Indiana version of a Bavarian farmhouse.

I get so mad at the chickens for getting into my garage.  Well, I felt differently about it tonight!  I chased the one off of Kent's truck, then lured her to the garage with some cracked corn.  Then I picked up the ones on the composter one by one and took them into the garage as well.  Buster was with that bunch.  Last, I took a ladder to the lean-to and managed to scoop up the last two in one armful.  I took them to join the others in the garage.  I did back out the car, but I really don't care if they poop all over everything in there.  I am so worried for them.

I wrote a few days ago about the heat getting to the chicks, and I brought them into a spare bedroom.  They are still there, doing fine, no more losses.

Here I sit, at 11:18 p.m. having popcorn and a martini for dinner, surrounded by chickens.  When I left the corporate world, this is not what I had in mind.  But you gotta do what you gotta do, and those birds are depending on me.