Our World Was Rocked

May 13, 2018

Our World Was Rocked

Our World Was Rocked

This past week was been a roller coaster of emotions. Anger, sadness, disbelief....

5 of our 6 laying hens were murdered last week. Not by a dog. Not by a coyote. But by a human being.

It was brutal and mean and angry.

Let me back up and tell you the good first. Brent and I have been dreaming about having this little farmer-ish life for our ourselves and especially for our children.

We love our little street and our neighbors on it. Yes - we borrow cups of milk from each other like the good ole days. And I know my children are safe when they are playing at their homes.

As my dear friend (and neighbor) Jamil Norman says "this place is my utopia."

My parents own 18 acres directly behind our home and thankfully, they do not mind at all that we use their land as our own. We laugh and say we are "Poaching" on it, but with their blessing. It truly is our hidden utopia.

Last summer, we cleared a little bit of their land and grew pumpkins. It was so much fun. We went to the Farmers Market, sold our pumpkins and had the kids work it. They even carried folks purchases to their cars.

So this year, we cleared a little more land and decided to try our hand at watermelon.

They are slowly coming up and it is exciting! And then somewhere along the way, we decided to get some chickens.

We were all so excited! We bought a ready made coop from Tractor Supply

and Brent built a large fenced in area out of palettes with a netted roof over it for the new girls to play in during the day. The area is about 20 x 50 and surrounded by chicken wire at the bottom for protection from predators.

We got our 6 hens from some nice folks in Bastrop and loved them all. Chip, Salsa, Flipper, Flopper, Charley and Pricilla.

They were our pets.

Every morning P helps me go feed them.

It is one of the best parts of my day to do that little morning ritual with him before school.

And in the afternoon, the kids race to go see how many eggs the girls have left them. Those of you who have chickens know what I mean when I say it is like Christmas every day. I'm that crazy chicken lady who lovingly chops up cold grapes and strawberries for the girls to snack on.

I literally have corn treats in our freezer for them getting cold as I type this!

We were having such a good time with it all, that we then went and got 2 sweet baby chicks (they are Silkies) that were around 3 months old. They literally lived in a box in our living room for a couple of weeks when the temp was a little cold.

Our house had turned into a zoo, but I honestly love all the chaos and fun. 2 dogs, 3 cats and 8 chickens and did I mention we have our third baby due in about a month?

So we were feeling pretty good about life and trying to give our kids this sense of work ethic with a "farm" life but still in a great neighborhood and in a wonderful school zone.

We love Claiborne Elementary!!

And on a side note, I enjoy blogging and posting photos of our life. Maybe it is the Visual side of me, but I like to share and I like to be able to look back through my photos and see progress and memories being made. Do I over share?? Are the wrong people looking at our life? Was someone jealous and just wanted to rock our "perfect" little world? ......I'm guilty of posting about only the good stuff- but our life isn't perfect. Far from it. We do fight, the house is a wreck the majority of the time, I can't get the kids to flush the commode and we struggle to keep the wheels on the track.

After our big chicken massacre, I questioned everything. My first instinct was to delete all social media and retreat from our "open" life. Or at the very least, hack away on my "friend" lists and remove all the folks who I don't even have their phone numbers. I'm terrible about accepting friend requests from folks I really don't know but that I see we have a bunch of mutual friends. I never want to hurt any ones feelings, so

I just accept them.... I'm sure many of you do the same......

The night the chickens were killed and Brents Jeep was went through, I screamed, I cried, and I appreciated my husband more than anything. He cleaned up the area so the kids and I didn't have to see it and he gave our pets a proper burial. Thank you hubs! All that was left was a few remaining feathers of our friends.

We had folks comment that it had to of been an animal who did this, but It was not.

An animal couldn't of unlocked the latched door into our fenced in chicken area, proceed to break necks and smash heads in of a bunch of innocent hens and then lock them inside their coop for us to find. Horrible. No holes were dug to get in and none of the netting was torn at the top. It wasn't an animal. Some crazed lunatic walked in and did this before or after searching Brent's Jeep. He left foot prints and a bike tracks.

I have racked my brain trying to think who would do this??? Was it someone in our neighborhood? Was it a homeless person or drifter? Was it a teenager on drugs? Was it someone who hated us? I wish I had an answer. The person that did this may even be reading this blog right now? I just don't know.

The OPSO have come out a couple of times and taken photos, measured foot prints, etc. Even the news came out and did a story on it. I know on the grand scheme of life, 5 dead chickens is nothing but I just wish I knew something.

I do know that if someone tries to come back again, there is No. Doubt. In. My. Mind....

They will be caught.

(and maybe even shot in the knee cap if Brent had his way - or their testicles if I had my way!)

We have tried to go on with life as it was before but I'm still a little jumpy every time I hear the dogs bark. I guess this is just normal and will get better over time. The kids have handled it all very well. Def better than me. Pearson suggested that we get Charley (our one remaining laying hen) a goat

to keep her company.

Hahaha Don't worry Allison~ no goat!! Ha

When we sat them down the next morning to explain what happened, we told them about good and bad people in the world. I'm sitting their choking back tears and telling them that only Charley and the baby chicks were still alive.

Six year old Pearson says "Well thank goodness they didn't kill Charley because she is our best layer". Ha! Spoken life a true farmer!!

And then 4 year old Phoebe brings it back to reality and says

"But Pearson, they killed Pricilla and that is Charley's sister". Ouch!

Thankfully, our friends, The Clark Family, generously gave us 3 laying hens so Charley wouldn't be lonely any more. That poor girl had been beyond stressed. So we brought the new ladies home