Water for Sheep and Confused Chickens

This morning I had to break through an inch-thick layer of ice on the top of one of the sheep water troughs.  I needed to add water to the trough on the left side of the barn, where the ram has been mingling with his girlfriends and the cow has been devouring hay.  I turned on the water on the side of the house and then followed the hose the length of our yard to the sheep pasture gate.  But the hose was stiff with ice and no water would come out.  Hopefully, the sun will have melted the ice in the hose by the time Joey gets home for his lunch break.  Pretty soon, we'll have to haul buckets, I suppose.  


I filled up on water for the bunny and the chickens in the house.  The chickens had to drink out of a metal dog food bowl because I didn't feel like getting chicken poop in my bathtub this morning by toting their water feeder inside to fill up.  It probably wouldn't be the worst thing I've scrubbed out of the tub between the dogs, sheep, chickens, cow, ducks, and deer hunter that I live with, but scrubbing the tub is not my ideal activity before going to the library for the day.  So the chickens got to pretend they were dogs.

I think Georgia, the little red hen, is already confused, dog bowl or not.  I found her pecking in the leaves around the outside of the chicken coop again today.  At least this time I had Jip on a leash so I could drag him inside rather than play ring-around-the-henhouse with puppies and chickens again.  My neighbors got to enjoy that spectacle once already.  So I put the dog in the house and then went to have a conversation with Georgia about how she keeps escaping the coop.  I know she is the only hen left from our original city chickens, the other two hens and the rooster were born and raised a couple blocks away, so maybe she feels left out.  Or maybe she is just a chicken.  Either way, whatever you say to her, she just looks at you with her beady chicken eyes and squawks, "whaaaat?" or "whhhy?" in a very endearing way.  Sometimes Joey puts her on his shoulder and they have lengthy conversations along these lines.  I would hate if she got out and wandered away.


Georgia in the spring garden

So I'll have to add "secure the chicken coop" to my weekend to-do list.  Any other 24 year old woman out there have that on her weekend schedule?  Like before your manicure, or dinner and a movie?  My weekend list also includes raking leaves, scrubbing the kitchen floor, and eradicating the mice from my upstairs by any means possible.  It may also involve a trip to the FarmKing.


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