Rant Time

The clocks were all set back an hour last night, which has put me in a cranky mood. I loathe the biannual clock resetting farce, which I think is totally nonsensical and was designed by sadistic, psychopathic politicians to disrupt life. I’ve often heard the rationalization for resetting the clocks as “It originally helped conserve candles” or “It helps out the farmers.” But it’s been many generations since we depended on candles to light our homes and, as EJ says, “Tractors have had headlights for many years, and cows are milked at the same time every day regardless of what the clocks say.” So let’s just leave the cotton-pickin’ clocks alone!

Now I have to readjust our routines. It’s difficult enough for us humans to get used to the change of time, but it’s more difficult for animals–especially for Hannah Joy, who thrives on routine. We feed her twice a day–at about 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. She’s mostly ok with her breakfast time being a little flexible if I happen to sleep a little later. She knows she’s fed after I take my shower. However, she expects supper to be exactly on time and she begins to complain if I’m late. I used to try to recalculate her supper time when the clocks changed so that she was fed at the same time of day even if the clocks said differently. But it got so confusing–is the old 5 p.m. now the new 6 p.m. or 4 p.m.?– that I finally gave up and just tried to feed her at 5 p.m. according to the clock throughout the year. That means that for a few days each year, until she adjusts, her evening meal is going to be an hour late, which means she’s going to be in a cranky mood. Join the club, Hannah dear.

Someone at Telegram shared this: “Did you know that the Sunshine Act, which would end all this clock
switching nonsense and keep us on the Summer clock, has been pending for years? 88% of the people surveyed want to quit screwing with the clock. Many states have already passed an end to Daylight Saving but it’s against federal law for them to actually stop. Such a small thing, and a popular one. Seems like something that cuts across all party and political leanings. Yet, still, we change our clocks and lose tens of millions of hours of productivity and quality of life while our internal clocks adjust.”

Rant time is over.

On August 1st we opened the gate and let the chickens into the garden. We always let them in between harvest and planting when nothing is growing. They enjoy meandering through the garden, gleaning whatever is leftover.

With colder weather, I’ve begun shutting Theo in with the chickens at night. The chickens’ body heat helps warm the coop so I thought it would be better for Theo than the big unheated garage–especially since he has no feline friends to cuddle with. The last time I contacted the cat rescue lady she said that she planned to bring the three cats we plan to adopt the “next week.” But that was early October. We’ve been waiting for the cats since mid-summer and I’ve about given up hope that we will ever get them. I’m at the point of “If she brings them she does. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t.” Meanwhile, I take Theo into the cozy coop at night. Besides being warmer, he can go hunting if any rodent is foolish enough to come out of hiding. Theo gets along with the chickens ok, but I let him out in the morning before the chickens are fully awake and moving about.

I’ve begun giving the chickens their winter dole of cracked corn. The corn raises the chickens’ body heat as it’s digested, which also helps warm the coop. We have two roosters–our alpha rooster is named Sassy and the other one is Corey. Last year I noticed that Sassy kept chasing poor Corey away from the corn so after I scattered the corn for the flock, I took a covert handful and sprinkled it in an out-of-the-way spot for Corey. He got so he used to wait for me to give him his secret portion. I was surprised when Corey waited for me to again bring him his covert handful since the chickens haven’t had corn since it warmed up last May. He remembered all these months. I think animals are a lot smarter than most people realize.

Our little chicks are getting larger. They are still very downey, but they are beginning to get their feathers. One of the chicks became bold and would rush the door to their shelter when I opened it to replenish their food and water. Two days in a row the chick quickly rushed the door and actually escaped into the larger coop area. I had to scramble to grab it and put it back in while it chirped in alarm. I don’t know if the adult chickens would harm it, but it is certainly small enough to get through the fence if it got outside. It would make a tasty nugget for a predator if it didn’t first disappear into the mud. I contemplated moving the little family into the larger fancy coop but the third time I started to open the door to their shelter, the Mama Hen started clucking angrily with ruffled feathers. I feared she was angry with me, thinking I had threatened her young one. However, it appears she was scolding her chicks because since then she’s been calm and the chicks have kept away from the door when I open it. She’s a very good Mama Hen. She teaches her young ones to behave.

Deer season begins on November 15. EJ usually goes hunting for a few days in the 100-acre woods that his friend’s family owns, but he decided to hunt here at home this year to save money. Every day when I walk Hannah Joy to the mailbox, I see flattened grass where deer have bedded down for the night. Occasionally, EJ sees the deer in the morning as he drives off to work. He’s even seen the Monarch of the Glen, which is what we call any massive deer with large antlers.

With hunting season nearing, we’ve begun wearing hunter’s orange hats when we go for walks and I dress Hannah in her hunter’s orange coat so she isn’t mistaken for a deer. The coat covers the length of her body. Besides the velcro and buckles that hold it in place on the front part of her body, it had elastic straps to go around her back legs so that it wouldn’t slide off her rump. You can see the bands and elastic straps in this photo from a previous year:

Hannah didn’t like the elastic straps so last week I cut them off and sewed on another strap to go under her belly back of the center of her body. At first, I sewed on a velcro strap because it would be faster to fasten and take off, but the velcro wasn’t strong enough and kept unfastening. I removed the velcro and instead sewed on a strap with buckles. It’s working fine. She looks lovely in her hunter’s orange coat.

Early last week we got a little snow–enough to cover the ground. Then the temperatures rose a bit (into the mid- and upper-40s) and all the snow melted. Tomorrow more rain is in the forecast. Our trees are now all bare except for a few that are stubbornly hanging on to their leaves.