The Chicken Issue & a Special Bonus, plus St. Patrick's Day!
To all the "girls" I loved before...
Just when you think you know about caring for chickens…
Picture a wooded acreage in a misty valley, surrounded by dark green forested foothills. This woodland property, clearcut twenty or so years ago, is now a riot of alder, maple and evergreens, from saplings to thirty-foot high trees.
Littered with old logging slash and dotted with stumps, the landscape is thickly carpeted with swordfern and Oregon grape. In the summer, tall brackenfern and thimbleberry, and sprawling, thorn-covered blackberry canes makes most of the ten acres nearly impassable.
At least for humans—unless they’ve come prepared, swathed in thorn-resistant gear and armed with a hatchet, a saw, and a hefty machete!
This woodland acreage, like the surrounding forests, is also teeming with wildlife. You’ll find songbirds, deer and rabbits like in any suburban yard. But you’ll often see grouse, bald eagles, and red-tailed hawks. And once in a while, bobcats and coyotes, bears and cougars.
In the middle of this ten-acre woodland, up on a ridge, is a little homestead where my husband and I live and work and dream. In a fenced clearing, you’ll find a modest-sized dark-red rambler and not-quite-matching brick-red, steel-sided shop.
Nestled around and between the buildings is my pride and joy: our veggie beds, berry patches, and orchard spaces.
And beyond the garden and orchards, you’ll find our chicken compound: a hand-built coop, a caged chicken run, and a roomy fenced yard full of grasses and leafy weeds.
One sunny September afternoon, John and I arrived home in our old Ranger, with five Buff Orpington pullets secured in two boxes. After all the misfortunes with our previous chickens, we were thrilled to have hens at our place again.
The hours flew by as we watched our flock settling into their new home, and before John and I knew it, dusk was beginning to fall—time for the girls to turn in.
I gently herded the birds into their caged area so they could get in a last-minute feed and slurp of water. “Goodnight, girls,” I said softly, and closed the door.
With the pen secure, the hens could mosey into their coop for the night whenever they liked.
* * *
Knowing our new girls would be safe, and soon ready for bed, I quickly tackled the day’s postponed garden chores, working until it was nearly dark.
Preparing to head into the house, on an impulse, I opened the coop door and squinted at the roost in the dim interior.
The coop was empty!
Panicked, I looked around the pen. Where on earth—
All five were huddled against the exterior coop wall, on the small, slanted roof over their feeder…And not quite asleep, because they kept sliding down!
“Oh, you silly girls!” I said fondly. Almost weak with relief, I knew it was me who was silly. I’d assumed the new kids would find their way into the coop…because, well, instinct.
Or because the ramp and hen door were pretty much like their previous home. But clearly, the girls hadn’t known there was a coop to sleep in, because I hadn’t shown it to them.
Chicken-keepers know that laying hens like to be up high. If you have a roost with two or three levels, they will choose the highest.
Now, it made perfect sense— when the girls were ready to go to sleep, they had headed for the highest spot they could find.
And the top spot in the pen was this three-foot square overhang. But of course they couldn’t stay there all night.
I opened the coop “people” door, and gently grasped the nearest hen, and removed her from the little roof. One-by-one, I bought them into the coop, and placed each chicken the on the platform beneath their roost. The rest was up to them.
The girls took their time. But eventually figuring out there was indeed a proper roost to sleep on, each hen in turn flapped her wings a bit, jumped up, and clambered onto the roost.
I waited for them to stop flapping and fussing, then ruefully secured the pen. Three flocks in, and we were still learning.
You’ve just read a sample from my new book, Little Farm in the Henhouse!
I created this book because somehow, I couldn’t not write about our life with chickens. But in the spirit of full-disclosure, I want to tell you something: this story isn’t for everyone who loves hens…
I give a little preview of this at the front end of Little Farm in the Henhouse, winding up the book’s Introduction:
…Hen-lovers know that chickens will steal your heart. But too often, as John and I discovered, chickens will break it too. Nature can be cruel, especially when it comes to small-ish, defenseless birds. So a little word of warning: some of the passages in this book may be hard to read.
Yet when it comes to keeping hens, we’ve also learned that just like with life all-around, sometimes with your flock you have to take the bitter with the sweet…
The next chapter, “Predators Roam the Hills,” provides a further hint of what’s ahead in the book.
If you’d rather take a pass on reading about our three flocks of hens vs the Foothills’ wildlife, I’ve created a little ebook just for you, the readers of Little Farm Writer!
A Little Farm Writer Exclusive: A bonus ebook!
The story of Miss Broody is also an excerpt from my book, and follows my adventures with my favorite and most maddening hen—I hope you enjoy it!
Still, if you are game for the Full Chicken Experience in Little Farm in the Henhouse, the ebook and paperback are now available for pre-order at all online retailers!
Release date is May 1, 2024—but there are other ways to get a hold of the book:
Are you a library person? (I am!) Starting May 1, you can request “Henhouse” in print or ebook format at your local library!
And if you’d rather not wait, and would like your own copy right away, you’ll find more info on my Susan Colleen Browne website—plus a little background below!
In other bird news:
The chickadees finally found our feeder!
In the February issue of Little Farm Writer, “Astoria, Arctic Blast Aftermath and Our Feathered Friends,” I shared that John and I, after years and years, finally set up a bird feeder.
It’s little ceramic Japanese lantern we’ve had since we moved here.
This lantern doesn’t hold much birdseed, but I poured in as much bird food as the wee cavity could hold.
The weeks went by…but no birds came to visit.
Yet Erin at The Suburb Farm gave me hope. She commented, “I have a zen attitude to bird feeders; if you put one out, then the birds will eventually find it.”
Well, she was right! Still, getting birds to locate the goodies took an extra stratagem.
I yarded a decrepit poultry feeder out of storage—it’s pictured in the top photo with the red hens, back when it was new and shiny.
After giving this old warhorse feeder a thorough cleaning, I filled it with birdseed, and hung it from our lamppost out in the driveway.
This way, we had a large quantity of birdseed available. Plus our food supply was about 20 yards closer to our neighbors with the bird feeder, and where all the neighborhood birds were currently hanging out.
Within a few days, Eureka!
John and I saw several chickadees fluttering around the poultry feeder in the driveway…
Then a day later, they found our little Japanese lantern!
Now, we see a little gang of chickadees around the lantern about five times each day, sticking their little heads inside, and chasing away other chickadee competition.
It’s been a snowy month, and colder than usual, so we’re not seeing much in the way of other birds. However, I’ve been hearing some tentative chirping in our neighbor’s mature woods.
So I have strong expectations of seeing some late winter/early spring songbirds at our place soon!
And in the Bird-brain Department:
I mentioned above that I’m making Little Farm in the Henhouse available on my own wee online store!
Now, when you’re a time-challenged writer like yours truly, also running her own little publishing enterprise (as well as a small homesteady place) it may be a bit bird-brained to add yet another time-consuming project to the mix.
Especially since setting up my own store, I have to figure out several new platforms and processes and a gazillion other things. And that’s in addition to all the existing tasks related to releasing a new book.
So even if it’s not the smartest move, a Luddite like me loading myself down with all this techie-tech stuff, I’m really getting into learning lots of new skills.
And being a pen and paper kind of gal, brainstorming the old-school way (per above) is a welcome break from screens.
As for selling Little Farm in the Henhouse via my website—well, I’ve just begun the process, and will be adding more books as time permits. I’m really excited about providing readers with special bundles, lower prices and exclusive offers not available elsewhere!
However, building my own store, tiny though it may be, is very akin to “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” So stay tuned—more details to come in the April newsletter!
Something for St. Patrick’s Day
They say that “Everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.” With the big day just around the corner, one way you can celebrate is to create your own mini Irish film festival!
If you have streaming at your house, you can probably find a kajillion Irish movies—possibly too many to choose from. However, if you’d like to narrow down the field, I’ve compiled a semi-short list of Irish films, from goofy rom-coms to intense thrillers and everything in between.
No list would be complete without “The Quiet Man”—and it’s a lovely, gorgeous movie; Maureen O’Hara and the sublimely twee Barry Fitzgerald are standouts. Although I’ve loved the film since I was a kid, I recommend it with reservations—
Which I never felt when I was young.
Because when you view the movie from a 21st-century perspective, the climactic scene in the sheep field—where John Wayne is being masterful 1950s-style—is cringingly offensive, and his character, Sean Thornton, roughs up his wife for laughs.
You get a real sense of what was completely acceptable in 1952, though!
If you do watch the movie, maybe just fast-forward through that part. I’m going to give it another go this Sunday myself, start to finish. Yes, I will cringe, but I’ll be grateful that a dude is no longer lauded for dragging his spouse by the collar in front of the whole village to prove his point!
For more Irish stuff, there’s “The Irish Issue: Jane Austen and the Pirate Queen & Writing Irish,” my post from last March!
I would love to hear what you’ve got going on in your garden. And those of you with chickens or chicken stories, I hope you’ll share your experiences in the comments.
As always, I appreciate you so much for reading Little Farm Writer—and many thanks to my new subscribers and followers too!
~Susan, from the Foothills
Hurray for Zen bird feeders! And I look forward to reading about your adventures with chickens.
I am sort of tickled by the idea of chickens, but it gets so cold here for so long in winter... plus we have a dog who would hunt them. And hawks. And lots of foxes.
Good luck and have a lovely, warm spring!