"We're Moving to Town" says Dad

(this post was actually drafted this past Friday...)

It was a crazy week. Some members of the family would consider it a bad week, others may say it was exciting. But either way, it was crazy.

We aren't farmers. We aren't animal lovers. We simply have a dog, three cats, three kittens, and approximately thirty five chickens. And apparently when one species goes crazy, they all go crazy.

It actually all began last week with a new batch of chickens. A certain uncle was wanting to get rid of ten chickens because he had exceeded his max. They haven't started laying yet and are younger than the batch we have now, so they ended up in a little makeshift pen off the regular chicken pen. We came home late the evening that we received them and discovered that these chickens never experienced wing clipping and were fully using their wings to roam around the shed including the loft. Thanks to Dad and boys, they were recaptured and a screen was placed on the top of the pen. Problem solved.

The following weekend, it was time to introduce the chickens to each other and give the new ones a chance to breathe and roam around with the other ones in the outdoor pen. It all went well until Monday of this week when one of the new chickens was found sitting half way up the evergreen tree near the pen. But, you know, that's not that big of a deal. It's just a matter of climbing the tree and placing the chicken back in the pen (not me... Jared gets the credit: I'm just the news reporter :) ). It gets worse than that.

Tuesday evening, Mom and I went out for a little walk before crashing after a big day. We just planned to walk back and forth to the stop sign a couple times, so the fact that Penny was trailing along was no big deal - he needs exercise, too, after all! After walking just a few feet, a skunk was spotted running from one side of the road to the other, about 100 feet ahead of us. Our first gut instinct was to turn and run. Our dog's first instinct was to run as well, except for he forgot the turning part.

Our hollering and clapping was to no avail and he burrowed his way into the ditch after the skunk. Within seconds, both creatures made their reappearance, except for this time, the skunk's tail was sticking straight up. At this point we flew through the front door and drew everyone to the living room as we recounted our adventure. An unnamed member of the family opened up the door to investigate and instantly the atrocious stench filled our house. Penny drug himself up to the patio soon after and the smell worsened inside and outside. We pity the poor unsuspecting friend who dropped off Lily from her violin rehearsal and left with a smelly van!

Thankfully, a little rain shower that night washed Penny and the stench away and really it wasn't that noticeable after that. Just a little bit here and there - but we could handle it. We discovered that the skunk is residing in the neighbor's barn, but thankfully Kent is all prepared and plans to be victorious:). Hopefully, you don't hear anything more on the stinkin' pest!

As if that wasn't enough, we arrived home last evening to another 'animal adventure'. The guys had to prepare the shed for yet another batch of chickens with the planned arrival of this morning. Mom and I were making a final round of the gardens and then heading in to pack up for our trip this weekend (it's a crazy weekend as well... won't go into details now ;)). Anyway, we were stopped right outside the back door by a whiny meowing that sounded like our little kitten. We thought it was coming from the bush and concluded that it was stuck and merely needed rescued.

It was stuck. And it did need rescued. But, it wasn't in the bush.

We have a perimeter tile around our house with an opening right outside the back door. This opening was taped over and no longer in use as we were having problems with water in our basement a few years back, and didn't want overflow there. However, unbeknownst to us, either the kittens or the rain damaged the tape over a few years, and the hole was open. A perfect place for a kitten to disappear.

With the help of a flashlight and a little bit knee-bending and gutter-removing, we could see the kitten way down about 5 feet. There was no way to get it out! Or was there?

We first tried a long pole, but to no avail. Next it was Dad's idea to suck it up (not literally, just enough to pull it up and rescue it) and the shop-vac was brought out. But alas, that didn't work either. After 30 minutes and a lot of frustration later, we stuck a rope down to give it something to climb up. At this point though it was too frightened to do much of anything and simply gave up as did the rest of us. We left the rope hanging down there though, and within ten minutes the kitten gave it another try and Jared (he must be an animal lover, because he's always the one rescuing them :)), pulled it up. We sealed up the hole and aside from being slightly shaken, the kitten is just fine.

Whew! I'm sick of typing and I'm sure you're sick of reading... if you even lasted this long :). I think I have recounted all that there is to recount as far as what happened to our animals this week, although I am in Kansas now and who knows what has happened since we left! The little chicks did arrive early this morning so more is bound to happen soon. I'm pretty sure Dad was joking when he said we are moving to town, but then again, maybe he wasn't. If you happen to see him within the next couple days, maybe give him a few words of encouragement so he doesn't give up entirely, and if you're feeling really generous, Kent might be needing some help catching that skunk. That would make us all feel better :). -faith