The Most Dangerous Time Of Year

This is the most dangerous time of the year. Sometimes we can overcome the danger but yesterday the danger engulfed us and we succumbed to it.

The day started out innocuously. The sky was blue with white fluffy clouds lumbering across it. We had a quiet morning, drinking coffee as we chatted together. When the coffee pot was empty, we got in the truck and drove to our local library to pick up the book I had ordered. Michigan has an interlibrary loan system called “Melcat.” We can order a book from their website and a library within the state that has it will send it to our local library where we pick it up and later, after we’ve read it, we drop it off and the library sends it back to its origin. I’m currently reading through all the Terry Brooks series and the librarians know me and call me by name. I told EJ, “It’s better to have a library where everyone knows my name than a bar like in the television series, ‘Cheers.'” Whenever we go to the library, we always check the used books for sale on the cart in the hallway. We found one book to buy there yesterday.

We returned home and put bags of items to be recycled in the truck and drove to our county’s biggest town, which is small by most standards. We dropped off the recycling and then drove on to the auto parts store where EJ bought bulbs for the truck’s headlight, which had gone out. We had a nice chat with Kirk, who worked at the store and helped us find what we needed.

Then it was on to the farm store. I needed poultry feed and wild bird seed. EJ wanted to buy seeds for his garden.

Walking into the farm store is when our day turned dangerous. This is when we succumbed to weakness.

We walked into the store and heard chirping. It was Chick Days, the season when farm stores have stock tanks filled with various types and breeds of live chicks for sale. Chick Days began several weeks ago and whenever we went to the farm store, we enjoyed looking at the baby chickens, ducks, and turkeys without temptation. They are SO cute. If you’ve never gotten to a farm store during Chick Days, you are missing a treat. Anyway, on THIS day as we watched the tiny chicks we got to talking about how we’d like to have a breed of hen that is prone to going broody and is a good Mama. We want to raise our own chicks. We conversed with store staff about broody hens. But we left the store without any chicks.

Whew! We escaped. We totally escaped.

But the idea of a broody hen breed wormed itself into our minds. It was like the temptation Frodo Baggins faced with the One Ring. We talked about chickens all the way home. When we got home, I went to my computer to research which breed was broody AND winter hardy. For no reason. Just because I was interested. That’s all. I found two breeds and told EJ about them. He liked the Bielefelder breed, which somewhat resembled our New Hampshire and Rhode Island Red flock. I thought Buff Orpingtons also sounded good. EJ called the farm store to ask if they had any. For no reason. Just because he was interested. That’s all. They were out of the Bielefelders but had some Buff Orpingtons that they would hold for us to pick up. EJ decided to buy one but I suggested two because one by itself might get lonely. As the Good Book says, “Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?” (Eccl 4:11)

We drove back to the farm store. As an employee was putting our two in the box to take home, I really wanted to tell her to put in two more because of “chicken math.” Chicken math is when you walk into a store intending to buy a few chickens (or none at all) but walk out of the store with several more chickens, a few ducks, and a turkey or two. It was a terrible internal struggle. I sweated. I closed my eyes. I clenched my lips tightly together so no words would come out…and we walked out with only two chicks.

I put our new chicks in a cat carrier, which I placed in the large bathtub in our master bedroom until they grow big enough and the weather turns warm enough to put them in the coop. (We have a separate shower stall so putting the chicks in the large bathtub doesn’t prevent us from getting clean. LOL.)

This is why this is the most dangerous time of year for us.

We’ve only had New Hampshire and Rhode Island Red chickens, which are beautiful reddish birds. The roosters have teal-colored tail feathers. I really like my “Reds” but I’m also looking forward to having a new breed. In my brief research, I learned that Orpington chickens adore attention and are very gentle. They are very cold hardy so they do well in our Michigan winters. They’re wonderful egg layers and mothers and tend to go broody, which is what we want. They were originally bred in 1866 by William Cook. They are thought to be a cross between Minorcas, Langshans, and Plymouth Rocks. Cook intended his chickens to be a dual-purpose breed (for eggs and meat) but he also had a third goal: breeding a chicken that could be sold in London without looking dirty. The first Orpington breed was black to hide the soot and dirt of the city. A few years later, the Buff Orpington (America’s favorite) was introduced.