...And the Guard Towers are Staffed and Armed

Ostensibly it's about the chickens, but lately the focus seems to be more on the predators.

The chickens have not yet even arrived -- they aren't due for another two weeks -- but so far we have accumulated the coop with attached run, the extension cords necessary to power its light and socket, a heated watering dish, bedding (both straw and shaved pine), organic feed plus a rolling tub in which to store it, crushed oyster shells, grit (cherry stone #2), scratch (whole and cracked organic grains), dishes to hold noted supplements, and countless books, magazines and pamphlets, all with lengthy and appropriately anxious chapters on predators and keeping them at bay.

I never knew the world could be so dangerous.  Several guides advise heavy gauge wire sheeting on the ground beneath the coop and run to deter up-popping intruders like moles.  Chicken wire, they note, is adequate to keep chickens in, but far too flimsy to keep hungry invaders out.  And then, of course, there is concern for aerial attacks from flying carnivores of miscellaneous species -- hawks, eagles, owls to name but a few.  Any serious flockster, say the experts, must consider netting of some kind to prevent dive-bombing.  Ultimately, though, it is the ground-based threats that represent the greatest concern.  Raccoons, foxes, canines both feral and domestic, possoms, skunks, rats and God only knows what else.  Grizzly bears, no doubt, and Big Foot and the Boston Strangler.  And neighbors, I suppose, hungry for a drumstick.

So of course we bought an "energizer" -- a delightful euphemism referring to the power plant connected to and electrifying the fence so as to deliver a deterring jolt to anything daring to encroach.  It was delivered today.  Of course it's solar powered.  The electronet fencing I had purchased a couple of years ago when we moved in, but I had never "energized" it.  Perhaps I was then too cheap, or feeling kindlier toward the bunnies that represented the greatest agricultural threat.

Or perhaps I simply have a tenderer disposition toward the chickens that brings out my parental concern.  Not that the spinach and the tomatoes, et al, weren't alive, but the chickens are "walking-around-live".  At least a few strands of DNA closer to humans, they will have, at least according to the guide books, entertaining personalities that we would be heartbroken to find dismembered.  They will likely come to have names and recognize and respond to the hand that feeds them.  In ways impossible for a carrot or a beet, they will come to be -- and I can't believe I am actually anticipating this -- members of the family.  We don't leave our doors unlocked at night, nor did we allow our children to play in the street.  How could we be any less vigilant with the chickens?

Indeed!

All that, plus they are expensive.  There, I have admitted it.  I'm almost embarrassed to acknowledge that in addition to all those nobler motivations, in the end it all comes down to investment.  Let me just say that a package of seeds is pennies compared to the cost of a 20-week old pullet shipped from Texas.  So, as a wise man once said, "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

And your electric fence.

Know, then,
that you are welcome to stop by and visit.   After all, watching me tend a garden AND a flock of chickens can only be entertaining.  And I won't mind your laughter.

But keep your distance and watch what you touch.
Consider yourself warned.