Broody?

Things seem to be calming down a bit as EJ and I adjust to life after his mini-stroke. He still gets easily tired, but I assume it will take time to get more or less back to normal. He has worked a couple full days.

Once EJ is through with his physical therapy, he hopes to join a gym. There is one located at the hospital where staff monitor participants’ health as they exercise. Memberships are inexpensive and the benefit is that if something goes wrong, a person is already at the hospital.

We’ve eaten basically healthy, but we need to make changes. We are going to follow the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) Diet. I’ve been searching the Internet for recipes and many of them look very delicious. I’ve begun printing some of the recipes out and organizing them in a binder.

I’ve been keeping busy harvesting produce from our gardens. I’ve been cutting up apples from our fruit trees to freeze, cutting up and freezing or drying vegetables from EJ’s garden, and drying and grinding herbs from my garden. I’ve also been deseeding sunflowers. It’s a never-ending task because as soon as I get one batch of whatever I’m working on completed, more of them have ripened. This is a good problem to have, however.

Yesterday I heard Sassy, our alpha rooster, sounding his Defcon 1 alarm so I went out to make sure the chickens were ok. He was the only one standing outside ready to defend his flock. All the other chickens were hiding out in the coop where, no doubt, Sassy had sent them for safety. I looked around but didn’t see any threats, although Sassy obviously was aware of a threat. It took him a long time to calm down. I wondered if he had seen a coyote or fox nearby.

Chickens are actually very interesting critters. I’ve read that chickens can recognize 100 different people, they have around 25 different “words,” and they adopt their humans into their flock. When a rooster is mean it’s because he believes he outranks the humans. I’ve always nipped in the bud any show of aggressiveness so my chickens settle down, understanding their place and that I am the boss. Roosters keep watch over the flock and protect it with their lives. When I’ve handed Sassy a treat, I’ve seen him take it, drop it on the ground, and call the hens over to eat it. He’s a real gentleman.

In the seven years I’ve had chickens, I’ve only had one broody hen–several years ago. We didn’t want chicks then, so I kept taking the hen away from her nest until she got over it. I suspect I’ve got another broody hen. My chickens are all mild-mannered, but this hen is staying in her nesting box and is in a foul mood (haha, pun intended). Whenever I try to reach into her box, she puffs herself up and then pecks at me. Hard. She acts like a woman with PMS. LOL. If she is actually broody, we will let her hatch her eggs even though it seems like the wrong time of the year for chicks. I took a photo of her today (below) and also this video. I shone a flashlight so you could see her better because even though it’s not dark inside the coop, it is a bit dim for videos. You can see her glare at me, puff up, and peck.