Peach and Apple

 

An exciting new development for us these past few months has been the addition of a couple of chickens to our backyard.  (If you’re reading this and live in the city of Harrisonburg and are aware of the legislation regarding chickens in the city, I apologize if I’ve put you in a compromising situation.)  They’re on semi-permanent loan from friends of ours and have been enjoying the free range of their new, fenced-in habitat.  They were nameless when they came to us, so our oldest daughter immediately dubbed them "Peach" and "Apple."

It took a little time for the kids to get used to them and to learn the proper distance to keep (BT loves to chase them), but they soon got into a pattern of letting them out of their cage in the morning, changing their water and feed and gathering them back in to their cage when the day was done. We recently tilled some new ground for garden space (thanks, Don, for use of your Mantis) and covered it with compost from a local farmer (thanks, Wenger family, from Wood Ridge Dairy on Sky Road)—Peach and Apple had a great time climbing the piles of compost and scratching in the new soil. When the season turned to fall, we gathered the leaves that had fallen from our peach tree and our silver and red maples and spread them on the garden, as well, which proved to be even more interesting terrain.

 

One drawback has been that our back stairs, which lead into the backyard from our kitchen office, are persistently beshat because the birds love to roost there and watch our goings-on through the sliding glass door. On one hand we don’t mind the birds hanging out there because it allows MK, BT and JM to have a close-up view of their feathery friends—on the other hand, there’s no denying that chickens do shit where they sit which means quite a mess for this high traffic area. It’s also annoying when they somehow get themselves caught between the sliding screen door and the outer door: there’s no delicate way to pull them out of there.

One evening we had gone out as a family and I forgot to put Peach and Apple in their cage for the night. We came home and realized the mistake, so I went out quickly to tend to them before starting the bedtime process with the kids. They were nowhere to be found. After searching the yard for a few minutes, I found one of them (Peach, I think) roosting on the top rail of our fence. I gently pulled her off with some sleepy clucks of irritation and put her in the cage. Her perching position on the fence led me to think that Apple, who we believe may be a cockerel, had somehow gotten over the fence, so for the next hour I roamed the streets and backyards of our neighborhood, looking into all the dark corners with my flashlight, hoping to find him. I saw an assortment of all other kinds of nighttime creatures—cats, mice, an opossum (which seemed to be heading into our neighbor’s basement—perhaps I should have mentioned this to him)—but no Apple. I gave up the search and offered up a prayer, relinquishing him to his natural instincts, trusting that he’d find an appropriate place to perch and hoping for some leniency from MoJo.
 

In the morning, Apple was back and the world was set aright again.

I have no idea where he hunkered down—most likely he was in the backyard the whole time and I just overlooked him.

We have since given Peach and Apple back to our friends, but we enjoyed the experience and hope to set up a more permanent roosting situation in the future.