Today's picture courtesy of the neighbor's cockerel or rooster--who was up a tree in our front yard crowing his head off (and setting off probably all 5 of our boys) at 5 am: View attachment 4278221
We sent the neighbor a picture and they said it was theirs. Well, turns out he wasn't!
They took him in anyway as he's been fitting in well so far. I really hope he just wandered off and wasn't abandoned by an irresponsible local...
Heck, if someone desperate showed up at my house with their unwanted boy I really would try to help!! It's the recklessness and lack of taking responsibility that are so saddening.
Tax: Noodle trying to get a clear look at something whilst being escorted to bed, back when things were so normal. She really is composed of impossible angles!
Grateful she is still with us after so much loss and change. 2025 loaded so much grief into its final chapter; we could really use a fresh start.
There may be ice soon, in which case we'll probably be offline and without power for a day or two. Best wishes to anyone else getting hit by this storm!
Ok, please tell me the rooster is just a lawn ornament!
Those pictures are actually quite beautiful, although terrifying. I can't remember if I'd read - whereabouts do you live, generally? We got enough ice to outline the overhead aerial netting, and to make the trip to the coop and back extra-exciting, but we didn't get what's in your photos. Did everything come out ok with your chickens and all?
That's an incredible job of photography, by the way, especially the hexagonal netting with the different focuses. Foci. Focal depth??
Ok, please tell me the rooster is just a lawn ornament!
Those pictures are actually quite beautiful, although terrifying. I can't remember if I'd read - whereabouts do you live, generally? We got enough ice to outline the overhead aerial netting, and to make the trip to the coop and back extra-exciting, but we didn't get what's in your photos. Did everything come out ok with your chickens and all?
We are just north of Nashville, TN. Power is still out at our place, but my in-laws got theirs first so we'll be running back and forth for chickens this evening.
We lost power Sunday morning around 7 am and have been roughing it with kerosene, but we couldn't say no to some relief once the roads were clear enough.
Remarkably, the chickens have done quite well thus far. It's been a pain with food and water because I have multiple coops and they don't like to leave them when the ground is covered... Also, a mass of starlings has decided to try and roost, feed, and bathe in EVERYTHING--I am NOT pleased and praying my poor flock doesn't pick something up. I'm trying to exclude them from my feed somehow, but now just isn't a good time to figure out additional infrastructure.
Hopefully when the thaw happens they will get less problematic as other food sources become available...
Oh, thank you! I'm actually an awful photographer, I know nothing about it but pointing a phone and clicking the button ahaha. There was an abundance of pretty things to point at, the only difficult part was enduring the cold
My coffee buddy, letting me know we were missed for the last two days.
We got our power back yesterday evening, and so we've now returned to the "homestead." It is unnerving how different our home, once my grandparents' home, felt in the middle of this crisis. It barely felt like home at all. The safety of the place was stripped just as bare as the trees covered in ice outside. Even if you weren't trying to listen, the sound of tearing tree flesh and the crashes of its ice-shattering collapse were everywhere.
I went through an ice-storm in our family home down the road, back in 94... or 96... as a very young kid. I can't recall the exact year. I know my mom does, and that my dad did. The experience as a parent was so radically different I cannot even compare the two.
My dead dad is the reason we had heaters and fuel to survive the cold without any power. He'd never forgotten. Fully three fueled and ready to light kerosene heaters were in his shop on my property. Just waiting for us. One went to my brother-in-law who had nothing on hand. The others kept us going for what, 3 days... and could probably have gotten us further. One of them is a Kerosun Moonlighter--the SAME one I remember from my childhood.
His stashed away hiking supplies were what I managed to safely heat our food in. It's like he was everywhere, all at once, and yet so painfully absent.
Anyway...
I've been trying to clean up the backlog of extra dirty outerwear, cooking clutter, litter boxes, bedding, etc. I tried to clean up before the storm hit but hoo-boy. We are a MESSY bunch of people. This is going to take some time, plus I'm out of detergent.
I haven't even begun to make all the necessary phone calls and institution-visits to have my dad fully declared dead. I'm so behind, on everything. I just don't know that I can do it. Life is gonna need to give me a second to BREATHE. Please.
I'll pay some chicken-tax shortly. They do a lot to remind me to be here, now, and to stop dwelling so much.
Not to die
But to live without pain
To rest
Not to cease to be
Seeking relief
Not to cause harm
To escape a broken heart
Not create them in others
Someone who hurt only themselves
They believed
Someone who felt disconnected
By disease and untruth
Someone who could not discern reality
Any longer
Who longed for happiness at last
Or at least, peace
Who was already either experiencing hell
And so not afraid of things worsening
Or ready to welcome non-existence in the face of their extreme pain
Or hoping for something better
That death surely must be more merciful than life
Someone so desperate that fear and uncertainty could only delay
That thoughts of the pain of others
Could not sway
To be so alone in such pain
Assuming everyone else is stronger, has support
That everyone else will be able to forgive
Will still thrive
Because no one else has or will know such pain
They will be okay
Pain that is not transformed is transmitted at last
The weaker has fallen under its weight
Now the burden is mine
But gladly do I welcome this pain
Every drop
What has murdered my father will not kill me
I can be strong for both of us
I will be what he hoped for
I will defeat this monster
I will live for both of us
For my husband
For my children
For my mother
For my sister
For my nieces and nephews
For my uncle
The pain will be transformed
God is my support
A new life begins. I will carry this weight.
My Dad took this photo of my baby, Big Jake, with his old Nikon camera. (Big Jake is a John Wayne movie--our roosters were all named for different John Wayne roles. Thanks, Dad )That is a real flower and I'm just out of frame, after coaching Jake to sit still there and not shake it off for two seconds. Dad was really proud of this photo and still had a copy of it on his fridge. I was 11 or 12 when that first batch of 20-some odd Buff Orpington chicks showed up in a box one spring. I fell in love with one of them. Dad couldn't believe I could identify ONE puffy yellow chicken out of the batch just by his adorable face, so he marked Jake's bottom foot pad and tested me. Sure enough, I had spent SO many hours bent over that wooden brooder box cuddling him in my cupped hands that it wasn't any trouble for me. Dad was flabbergasted, haha. I eventually developed a rash from leaning against that pine wood so much... There wasn't anything I would rather have been doing back then!
When Jake's inevitably grew up to be an obvious boy, he also developed a hatred of men and a desire to mate the shoes of all the ladies in the family He also jumped out of his fence to attack door-to-door salesmen... Even though he was also awful to my Dad, Dad found this so funny that I think he forgave the aggression. Luckily, no one actually got hurt!! But that rooster could put large caliber holes in plastic laundry detergent containers and constantly had to be fended off if my Dad wanted to do anything in the chicken yard.
They almost butchered Big Jake once. But my parents couldn't do it and tried to get my grandpa too--he refused to kill my pet, and that was that.
Jake loved to chase me around, especially if I got a running start and hid out of sight. I also loved to make him sit on our porch-style swing with me as I enjoyed the summer afternoons outside. He also loved snuggling into my shirts, and even as a grown bird he'd let me cuddle him like a mama hen.
He passed away when I was in college. Parents could not bear to tell me over the phone, so waited until I came home on, I think, a fall break. It was devastating. I'm not entirely sure where he was buried. Dad knew, but I can't ask him now. I remember sitting on that same porch-style swing and crying my eyes out privately.
I think I loved Rusty so much because he reminded me of Jake and I only got Rusty because of my Dad. Dad found him on Facebook Marketplace--and free PET rooster in need of rehoming... And the rest is history.
Dad knew how happy the chickens made me. And the butterflies. And so he did his best to be involved in my hobbies. Planting the right host plants for butterflies in our area, helping me obtain chickens and maintain my crops, transplanting my favorite trees.
He left me a seeds container for Spring, 2026, all labeled. With an I love you written on it. It has Dogwood seeds in it; I'd been trying unsuccessfully to grow some last spring.
The signs were there, but I just couldn't believe he'd do anything permanent. If I could have truly believed it, knowing what I know now, I WOULD have confronted him. I'll always regret not doing so, but I have to forgive myself. The fact that I didn't is proof enough I could not believe he'd hurt himself for real. But I knew he'd thought about it before. God, Dad, please forgive me.
He didn't leave me any other kind of note.
I'm grateful for so much and I'm trying to plan a little for spring. I have so much coop work to do and I STILL want to get some blue-egg layers.. I'm not gonna give up on that project. Probably I'll need to order some and introduce them... ugh... but I can't find blue eggs for my broodies locally. I wonder if it is too late for a spring order from TSC??
I really hope he just wandered off and wasn't abandoned by an irresponsible local...
He also jumped out of his fence to attack door-to-door salesmen... Even though he was also awful to my Dad, Dad found this so funny that I think he forgave the aggression. Luckily, no one actually got hurt!! But that rooster could put large caliber holes in plastic laundry detergent containers and constantly had to be fended off if my Dad wanted to do anything in the chicken yard.
