Happy 2012!
On this day, the very first of 2012, I was curious to see which were the top ‘Moon’ stories from the last year. So, I took a look at the stats.
Below are the top 5 stories posted in 2011, based on page views. I find this interesting, because these aren’t the ones I’d choose. But there you have it. The people have spoken. And they love carrot cake!
8 Comments | 
Guest posts & media, New Zealand | Tagged: carrot cake, Chickens, Happy New Year, olive harvest, pig, podcast, top 2011 stories | 
Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Little Francoise the Aracuana Hen
“Kill them all,” Rick said. “We’ll start over.”
“What?!” I was horrified. “We can’t simply cull all of our chickens because they couldn’t learn how to use the chicken feeder!”
For the past few months, we’d been hearing stories from our neighbor Aussie Bronwyn about how easy her life was with her ‘Grandpa’s Feeder’ – how she didn’t have to go out and feed her chooks every day, how the sparrows never ate the feed anymore, and how even her clever young hatchlings had learned how to use the feeder.
We were sick with envy. But kill our chickens?
22 Comments | Chickens, Neighbors, New Zealand | Tagged: blue-green eggs, chicken coop, chicken feeder, Chickens, chook house, lavendar araucana | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Ethel eyes the strange new beast
I was walking blissfully across the top paddock towards the chicken coop one morning, our little valley flooded with golden light, when I came face to face with the most spine-tingling, nightmarish vision you could possibly imagine.
A swarm of sparrows in the chicken run.
City people think sparrows are cute and harmless, but country people know the truth.
I fell to my knees and screamed in anguish. “Damn you, evil spawn of Sataaan!”
35 Comments | Chickens, New Zealand | Tagged: chicken coop, chicken feeder, Chickens, chook house, pests, scaly leg mites, sparrow wars | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Henry in his healthier days
I should have known that something was wrong when our geriatric rooster, Old Man Henry, started sleeping in the nesting box.
At first Rick and I just figured it was cold and that he’d go back to his low senior citizen’s perch in the spring.
But when I found Henry sleeping smack dab on top of three eggs, we knew something was not quite right.
From then on, Henry was always on the eggs. Every morning I found myself in the odd situation of having to reach under the rooster to gather the eggs from the nesting box.
25 Comments | Chickens, Death, Neighbors, New Zealand | Tagged: chicken coop, Chickens, kind neighbors, lavendar araucana | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Old Man Henry
Listen to the story of our geriatric rooster.
Old Man Henry is blind, bow-legged, and pauses strangely after every step. On certain misty mornings he looks like some twisted chicken fancier’s version of Dawn of the Dead.
But he’s a Nobel Peace Prize winner among poultry, and it is by peacekeeping that he earns his keep.
4 Comments | Chickens, Neighbors, New Zealand | Tagged: chicken coop, Chickens, chook house, lavendar araucana, light sussex, podcast, rooster, storytelling | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Light on the far hills
I had just hopped back over the fence after visiting Kiwi Bronwyn and Jim when I saw Rick walking towards the chicken coop. He had a shovel in one hand and an axe in the other.
The evening light was bright on the far hills, but the paddock we were in was drenched in shadows.
I knew what Rick wanted to do. In fact, I’d agreed to it a couple of weeks earlier, but all of a sudden I had reservations. I certainly hadn’t expected to be doing it now, on a peaceful Monday evening after visiting the neighbors. I wasn’t prepared.
16 Comments | Chickens, Death, New Zealand | Tagged: blue-green eggs, chicken coop, Chickens, chook house, scaly leg mites | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Chook house overlooking the olive grove
In the three weeks leading up to our Thanksgiving party, I checked Ethel every day to make sure she was still sitting on those six precious, mail-ordered eggs.
When she stepped on one egg and broke it, we were suddenly down to five.
And then, around two weeks into the 21-day incubation period, our dominant hen Henrietta did something which complicated everything.
11 Comments | Chickens, New Zealand | Tagged: barnevelder, broody, chicken coop, Chickens, chook house | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Ethel broody on the chook house floor
“There are two main ways to get a hen off the cluck,” Aussie Bronwyn said over the phone. “For the first way, you need a bucket, and for the second way you need a trap…”
Get a large bucket. Fill it with cold water (but not too cold). Pick up the offending chicken – holding her tight and making sure her wings are pinned. Now, very quickly, stick her backside in the bucket.
“Once her backside’s wet,” Aussie Bronwyn said, “she won’t want to sit down on any eggs, and she’ll forget the whole thing.”
“If she’s still broody after that, you can use the trap. But I think it’s even more cruel than the first.”
12 Comments | Chickens, New Zealand | Tagged: barnevelder, broody, Chickens, light sussex | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Ethel in the nesting box
About two months ago now, I walked out to the chook house one morning to find that overnight one of our chickens had transformed into a growling, rabid beast.
She’d taken command of the nesting box, and every time I went near her she let out a threatening growl, puffed herself up, and tried to bite me.
It was Ethel, one of the two Light Sussex chickens that Rick refers to as ‘the fat English ladies.’
“Ethel,” I said. “You’re a chicken, not a dog. Stop that.”
She growled again. It was clearly some kind of identity crisis. I scratched my head. What do you do when your chicken thinks she’s a dog?
Then it dawned on me. This was worse than an identity crisis. This was the day I’d been dreading.
We had our first broody chicken on our hands.
18 Comments | Chickens, New Zealand | Tagged: broody, Chickens, light sussex | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Featherston station
I was carrying two dozen farm fresh eggs as I stepped up onto the train at Featherston station.
It’s not what most people carry during their morning commute, but when you live in the country and work in the city as I do, you start doing strange things.
For example, just the other week I took a bell pepper plant (called a ‘capsicum’ here in Kiwiland) to the office. It’s now growing beautifully in a pot next to my desk. Perhaps I’m on a slippery slope. Soon I’ll be taking in live chickens and setting up chicken runs in the meeting rooms.
18 Comments | Chickens, Commute, New Zealand | Tagged: blue-green eggs, Chickens, lavendar araucana | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
I was standing at the kitchen sink and looking out the back window when I first saw our chickens sneaking into the backyard. I froze.
The Forbidden Zone
They were headed straight for The Forbidden Zone.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that chickens untended get up to no good. Anyone who keeps chickens knows this. Given the chance, they’ll make a bee line towards the most freshly planted, unfenced patch of garden only to begin wreaking havoc with all the wild abandon of drunken sailors in a bar fight.
When we first got our young hens, we kept them in the chicken run for months on end. They were small and there are feral cats and stoats around, so it was for their own good. But when they were big enough to start laying, and when they began laying consistently in the nesting box, Rick and I decided they were old enough to be granted the occasional shore leave.
20 Comments | Chickens, Family, Garden, New Zealand | Tagged: chicken coop, Chickens, chook house, Garden | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
As I approached the chook house early in the morning with a bucket of chicken feed and a flashlight, I heard something flapping around over in the chicken run.
Native NZ short-tailed bat - image from Department of Conservation
I couldn’t see a thing in the dark, but the sound reminded me of what we used to hear at night in the trees during summer vacation in Northern Michigan. Bats.
Was there a bat in our chicken run?
I’ve never seen bats in New Zealand like I used to see in Michigan, although I know bats are the only native land mammals here, so they do exist.
9 Comments | Chickens, New Zealand | Tagged: chicken coop, Chickens, chook house, pests, scaly leg mites, sparrow wars | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Rick and I were both wearing clothes we wouldn’t mind getting blood on as we drove up Aussie Bronwyn’s driveway in our little city boy Nissan Pulsar.
Axe - photo by milan6
When Aussie Bronwyn came to the door – the High Priestess of Chicken Wisdom herself – Rick called out ‘Your loyal chicken killers are here!” My stomach turned.
Was I really going to do this?
At a dinner party a few months before, Rick had said to Aussie Bronwyn, “If you ever need help killing chickens, let me know.”
In some circles this might be considered an odd thing to say at a dinner party. Not here.
21 Comments | Chickens, Death, Neighbors, New Zealand | Tagged: Chickens, culling, kind neighbors | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Podcast available.
Old Man Henry is our geriatric rooster. He is mangy and decrepit. The feathers on his head are just quill stubble. He’s half blind, bow-legged, and he pauses strangely after every step.
Old Man Henry
On certain misty mornings, when the light is right, he looks as though he’s stepped out of some twisted chicken fancier’s version of Dawn of the Dead.
Yet this unlikely old man is a Nobel Peace Prize winner among poultry. And it is by peacekeeping that he earns his keep.
When I brought home our first two young chickens nine months ago – the sisters Henrietta and Ethel – I had no plans to get a rooster.
I didn’t want to deal with baby chicks hatching left and right, and I had nightmarish visions of cracking open an egg for breakfast to find a half-formed fetus inside.
24 Comments | Chickens, Neighbors, New Zealand, Podcasts | Tagged: Chickens, chook house, lavendar araucana, light sussex, rooster, Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Aussie Bronwyn and I stood outside the chicken coop. In one hand she held a long pole with a round net on the end, and in the other hand she held a jar of Vaseline.
Lavendar araucana: Natasha and Francoise
She was limping a little from a recent knee surgery, and I felt bad asking her to walk across the top paddock to our chickens.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she said, throwing back her shoulders. “Now, let’s get those chooks!” She smiled broadly, as though ready for a battle of epic proportions.
Little did I know what an epic battle it would eventually turn out to be.
21 Comments | Chickens, Neighbors, New Zealand | Tagged: blue-green eggs, Chickens, kind neighbors, lavendar araucana, light sussex, scaly leg mites | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
Events in Martinborough
