It’s been a rough week on the chicken front. Last Monday Charlotte came in from getting eggs to relay that there was a dead chicken. Sure enough, Salt had died overnight. Their matching hen (Pepper) was okay, but was despondent the next couple of days. To be safe, we promptly swapped all bedding and cleaned out the coop, which took an hour (but wasn’t as filthy as I expected).
We weren’t too shocked, as Salt had something going on when we moved down here. We did enough research to know that it wasn’t contagious and that there wasn’t anything we could do. It’s odd how many chicken diagnoses end with, “You can kill it or it will die.” There’s an element of disposability to how they’re viewed that is both understandable and sad.
We aren’t sure how old this flock is, but we estimate they’re about 7, which means we somewhat expect to lose most (if not all) of them over the next few years. That hasn’t stopped us naming each one. With all they provide for the home it feels right that we should be sad when they pass.
On top of all that, Charlotte went out to get eggs later in the week and Clarkson (our generally mild-mannered-but-loud rooster) must have felt feisty and went after her. Thankfully he only left scratches, but I took on egg duty for the rest of the week.
Amongst all of this, the weather has been truly stunning. We had multiple blue sky days and while the air temperature has only been about 10 degrees it can feel much warmer when the sun’s out. The daffodils are in bloom and the rest of the garden is waking up. We got seedlings started in the polytunnel and did a bunch of other prep (like cleaning the cobwebs out of the greenhouse). If summer is anything like the past week, that’ll work out nicely.
Starlink has proven robust for connectivity and I rigged up our mesh system to cover the patio.1 When the weather’s clear I can take afternoon calls outside, which is a wonderful perk of being out here. It’s far easier to focus in the late afternoon when you’re out enjoying the nice weather than when you’re staring at it through a pane of glass.
- While Starlink is great for connection, their interior hardware is junk. They sell a first-party mesh system that is worthless (poor range, signal, and stability). We swapped it out with an old-but-trusted TP-Link Deco system that’s been a game changer in network reliability. ↩︎
