My Favorite Tree...Of The Week...Or All Time

The Crowing Hen and her tiny friend Blondie have been here for almost ten years.  There were originally two tiny hens and the two tinies hung out together and the Crowing Hen, now affectionately called "Yaya" because that's what the bantams sound like when they're talking to me bossing me around, was brave enough to mingle with the big hens.

The two tinies slept each night side by side on one of the beams just over the cart stall in the barn.  Yaya chose the Sheep Chicken's perch in the outside stall.  The big hens are locked securely in the coop.  I've always wished all the chickens would sleep in there, but the bantams have never wanted to do that.

Something happened one night and the two tiny hens moved from their normal perch to way up into the rafters for a few months.  They eventually moved back down and then the silver hen started having trouble getting up into the lower perch.  She let me help her for awhile and then one morning a year or so ago I found her dead.

Blondie continued to sleep over the cart stall for quite a few months and then one night she wasn't there.  I eventually found her sleeping in the rafters over the Easy Breezy stall.  I'm not sure what scared her over there, but she seemed okay with that spot and that's where she's slept for many months.

A month or so ago I found the Crowing Hen with a bare spot on her neck (!).  I'm not sure what happened, but I feel like something had tried to grab her, luckily unsuccessfully.  Because I knew that a. she was pretty comfortable with the big chicken and b. she was in a location I could easily get to, I started picking her up and locking her in the main coop at night.  She still makes me move her each night, but at least she's basically okay with it.

One night last week Blondie moved back over the cart.  There is a nest of fledging barn swallows near where she had been sleeping and I wondered if they'd told her to get lost.  The next night I found her in the tack room.  I made her a perch in there and hoped she'd move in there at night, but the following night I couldn't find her anywhere.

She did show up the next morning (whew!), but that night I again couldn't find her.  That went on for several days.  I tried to be as stealth as I could, watching her every move, trying to clue in to where she was going, but she kept eluding me.  The fifth morning she showed up looking very tired and cold. I really needed to get this figured out.

Tuesday night she walked into the Wool House and looked around, eyeing the loft.  I love this little chicken...but not that much ;-).  I'd seen her poking around a little with the big chickens recently, I think trying to talk herself into moving in to their secure coop, so I tried to stick her in their with them, but she was too scared.  I set up a small cage in the wash room like she'd slept in during the Polar Vortex and she settled right in.

Last night I propped the door open and hoped she'd go in there on her own.  As I walked back up to the barn after dinner I found her heading across the yard.  I stood there quietly, watching, thinking at least now I was going to find out where she'd been sleeping every night.  She headed for the big pine tree and just as she was going to make her big leap, I scooped her up.  

My first thought was how scared she must have been to move out of her long time barn home into the "wilds" and how scared she must have been out there huddled in a tree all night.  No wonder she looked exhausted.  

Then I thought about finding blind Rocky out there after the night he wandered out of the barn and got lost.  And Salt always sleeping under that tree and Ewenice and Renny and Kate and Tilly and sitting out there with bottle lamb after bottle lamb and who knows who else has sought shelter in and under that kind tree.

It's had a rough life.  The top has been ripped out of it time and again by wind and ice and lightning.  Because it's lost it's ability to grow up, it's grown out.  Way too far out.  We've tried pruning it back a few times, but I know it's days are numbered.  It maybe does as well because it's setting a bunch of pine cones this summer.  

I'm hoping I can harvest some seeds from these cones...but I mostly hope I don't need a replacement for a very long time.