Hello everyone!
As a child, I used to hear the term from old men referring to their wives as 'old bats' & to me, I someday wanted to be an 'Old bat' too. So here I am & maybe not as old as their wives, but I decided it was time to put it to use. I knew it was not really a mean thing they called their wives, but some sort of funny term of endearment & much nicer than the term 'Brood'. Now you might find it weird that I would choose to be called that, but so far no one has called me that to my face & I did change the spelling for my tiny 1/3 acre farm as I like to call it. Just a silly childhood memory that finally came to life.
Let me tell you a little bit about who I am. I am a wife to a military man,who spent 16 yrs in the regular Army & now has 7 years in the Army Reserves. His normal everyday job is as a chemist.
We met in college, I was 29 & he was 19....yeah, yeah i know, I can already hear it...lol. We were odd friends, the chemist/military guy & the punk/artist gal, but somehow we clicked. We married after 3 1/2 years, I was teaching in Arkansas & he still had one year of college to go in Missouri.
He rejoined the army & off we went, first to Fort Benning Georgia & up here to Massachusetts. I had grown up on a Agricultural Environmental Station in Oregon where we had sheep, pigs, huge cows, horses, rabbits & peacocks along with growing potatoes for the state. I thought someday, just maybe I could relive just a bit of that again. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not a true farmer by any means now, just have a small orchard started, 2 vegetable gardens & my chickens, but for a 51 yr old slower woman it is more than enough for me. Plus the husband is not into the whole farmer life style so I live this & he lives his so called everyday normal life....but with chickens in the dining room! I grew up canning, tending to animals, gardening on a large scale & being just the typical farm girl....OK you got me, I was never typical in any sense of the word. I think the 'artist' in me always walked a different path than everyone else around me but it worked for me, even though my Dad hated the green fingernail polish & odd clothes.
Along with the chickens, I have rescued a kitten ( now age 5) while visiting Kentucky & named her Frankie K (Franklin KY), she is my true southern girl, happy, easygoing & will eat just about anything. Einstein kitty was rescued by my neighbor girls in our old town & brought to me to save. Even after 5 1/2 yrs, he is still a nervous wreck, had to be on a special urinary diet for urine crystals & has decided he prefers the basement. Big Momma is a 12 yr old given to me this last year by a neighbor who couldn't tend to her anymore. She is 18 1/2 lbs & diabetic...well yeah! When she came to me she was close to 23 lbs & had to stop & lay down to rest about every 5 feet. Now she can actually run up & down the stairs before getting winded. She prefers Daddy's futon in his game room or the bathroom when not begging for more food. She will chase Einstein when he comes out & since she can't catch him, I let her do it for a bit for the exercise before I stop it & go pet Einstein to calm his poor nerves down. He actually likes that part of the whole deal. Now Hayley, is my 14 yr old blind Chow Chow given to me by a neighbor in Georgia when she was just a pup. I told them when they thought of getting her not too because Chow Chow aren't really happy with little toddlers. Well of coarse they didn't listen & we happily took her. She has been blind since age 7 & is now getting quite old for her breed. She has arthritis but refuses to come into the house even when its below freezing, I think her joints go numb & she prefers that to the warm house....Who knows what goes on in her little head. I am going to Orientation for the MSPCA this month to start fostering animals. I have decided since I am a stay at home wife, I want the ones no one else can handle or have time with, such as sick or injured, born & has no mother & needs to be hand fed, old & cranky & so on. I think you get my drift on that. I can not wait to introduce them to Chatty (pet rooster), he controls the household & none of the animals or husband step out of line, I am exempted from this because Chatty thinks of me as his top hen...don't know if I should be flattered or not, but I don't get attacked. so I guess that is a good thing! he has trained all of my animals that chickens rule & they better be on their best behavior when a chicken is around. Frankie even goes out into the coop & run & lays down & watches them & they are so used to her being there they just seem to think she is an odd hen. Now on my off time, yeah like raising all these animals & taking care of a husband there is off time...lol. I am pretty normal, I read, watch TV, dye my hair fire engine red & cook country foods. I still create art with my silver/metal Smithing, though that has been put on hold for the time being because of the consent ER for the chickens in the house. As you may have read in my last blog we dealt with a raccoon or maybe a Fishercat that got 1 hen & my 6 yr old bunny. And now Chatty who is quite a large boy decided to mate with one of the smaller girls & she either pulled a muscle in her leg or sprain it cause she is limping. So she is in the ER playpen in the dining room recovering & Chatty is not going to be allowed near her!Poor little girl, was minding her own business, just checking out the warm oatmeal I gave them when he snuck up behind her before she could run. Maybe I am weird, but I find the whole mating of chickens to be quite funny when one of the hens isn't getting hurt by it. Chatty & Cashmire both do what I call the happy dance where they tilt their heads towards the hen & kinda hip hop dance around them. I suppose this is to give the hen time to lower themselves so they can bear the weight of that huge male who has eyes only for them at that moment. Two seconds later it is done & he's off looking for another hen to romance or to eat & she is still trying to shake herself off & stand. Most of the time Chatty is so fast he misses where he needs to go & the hens tail is down on the ground, but he seems to not mind this & I think the hen is relieved when he is off her poor tiny back! Now you see why I write about chickens? I started out telling you about my life & the chickens always seem to come up. I have never been good at keeping a journal but I love to write so that is why I decided this blogging thing was for me, its my journal & I can share some of the sillier parts of my life with you. Oh & just a note, in the last blog I said I used a wound spray that contained Zinc, my mistake, it is aluminum wound spray. That's what I get for not going & get the can while I am writing about it. So sorry, but I will tell you I will make mistakes, some I will catch, others I won't, so please don't get angry & think I am a total idiot. It also depends on how much coffee I have had, not enough & I will make mistakes. I mean I live with 12 chickens in the house that makes me crazy, but not an idiot....anyway I don't think it does? Ok its time for more coffee so I will go until next time. Have a great chicken day.