Sunday, I was running around like mad trying to accomplish everything I wanted to do, which rarely happens, because it’s usually impossible to knock off all the items on my list. And also partly because sometimes I take naps on the weekends. Don’t judge – you should too! Aside from that, I do try to get shit done.
If I don’t get to something, I just add it to the next weekend’s list. But I had this one teensy-tiny little chore on Sunday that had to be done. So I loaded my gun.
I can never tell when my chickens are young, which ones are roosters and which ones are not. I wait until the birds are around 4 months old, and at this time a rooster’s feathers will tell you if it’s a rooster or a hen. A rooster’s tail feathers will start to produce longer, shinier, and more colorful feathers than a hen’s. At least in most breeds. Also, you’ll see them start to attempt fornication with the lady hens. Which never goes well… the older hens simply beat the living hell out of the poor, inexperienced little Roos. And of course it never deters them for long… Nature has a mission in the hen yard.
Anyway, I let one of last fall’s rooster’s skip the chop block. He was a real “looker” and I thought he’d make a nice addition the flock. I thought the lady chickens would dig him. That they would think he was really high-class cock. I was so very wrong. Again.
This “Roo” became a total asshole over the past month. As he became a “manly man,” the little bastard started beating up my nice roosters and pissing off my hens to no end. He would eat before the ladies… offering them nothing. Zero class. He was in no form a gentlemen, like my other roosters.
So I shot him, and proceeded to ready him for the freezer. No more low-class cocks freeloading in my chicken yard… Not today anyway.
While I was working outside, dressing out my now-dead rooster, the wind picked up and blew some fence boards straight into the air, tossing them like toothpicks. That got my attention, and I sped up plucking my bird, and moving the rest of the job inside just as the rain drops were beginning and the sky was darkening.
By the time I had cleaned up the bird and packed him away, the sky was all shades of something nasty. I was in the kitchen cutting some potatoes for my dinner when the lights began to flicker on and off. I threw my pot of potatoes on high heat, begged for them to cook fast, and started pulling out candles, oil lamps and a flashlight. I could pretty much guess what was coming next.
Sure as snow, the power went out. Oh happy times… My potatoes weren’t cooked, and I had nothing to do but read and think, and pace the floor and think some more….
So I thought to myself “Hey Dumbass, maybe it’s time to replenish the propane tanks for the camp stove? Or get serious about installing a manual pump on the well for backup water… maybe even buy a generator?” *Gasp*
Had I not been out of propane I could’ve easily opened a mason jar from my pantry of homemade something-or-another and just heated it up, dinner ready to go. If I had the wood stove burning instead of the wood-burner, I could’ve heated something up on top of the stove. Truthfully, I also could have cut up the fresh rooster, wrapped it tightly in foil with some garlic, spices and onions and roasted it inside the wood burner… Driving to the nearest bar was also option.
So lesson learned. I’ve slacked in my preparedness with supplies and need to stock up for 2017. I’m going to make my self a check-list for things that make life a tad easier when disaster or outages occur and keep track of my inventory a little better. You should do the same – one never knows what could happen or for how long it will last. Fortunately for me, this little disaster was short-lived and the power was back on just in time to catch the premier episode of The Walking Dead and cook my dinner. ~A
Leave comments below…
