Abandoned chicken enclosure

I’ve been in a strange space lately.  Remembering when I had chickens and how much I enjoyed them.  At one time I raised araucana bantams, and later I had Rhode Island Red bantams.

The araucanas were beautiful.  One hen was a special pet.  I loved to take treats to her and hand feed her.  She so looked forward to my visiting the chicken house.  And we loved their blue, turquoise and green eggs.

Three of the roosters were really mean and would attack us.  They ended up in the stew pot.  😀  The rest behaved themselves pretty well.

And incubating and raising chicks was such a delight.

Some of my Rhode Island Red bantams. I lost my araucana photos in a computer crash.

I wasn’t quite as attached to the Rhode Island Reds.  They were sweet chickens, but they were more ordinary looking than the araucanas.  They did lay nice home-style looking brown eggs.   There was one rooster we called Little Red.  He followed us around the yard like a puppy and we got a big kick out of him.

I also had showpiece square foot gardens and canned and dehydrated most of the vegetables we ate.  Also had pretty flower gardens.

But then I got the camping and traveling bug.  At first we used automatic feeders and waterers for the chickens.  But we couldn’t stay gone longer than a week.  So I gave the chickens to friends so we could stay gone for weeks if we wanted to.

My gardens didn’t do well when we took off for two or three weeks in the gardening season.  So I gradually lost interest in them.

But lately I have felt nostalgic about my chickens and my gardens.

A couple of pieces of sterling silver jewelry that I did a LONG time ago.

I don’t want to tie myself down so that we can’t take off whenever we get the urge now.  And I can’t get enthused about serious gardening again.  But I kind of miss my life that felt content and fulfilled with such mundane, close-to-the-earth pursuits.

While I was looking for photos of araucanas (that I never found) I ran across some other photos of crafts that I used to do.  Also found some photos that reminded me of how much I used to love primitive camping, primitive skills, wild edible foods study, and a host of things that I used to do but don’t do anymore.

An arrangement I made using a weathered piece of wild cherry wood that Dad cut for me.

A raised rose coverlet that I crocheted

Maybe I need to re-evaluate my priorities.  🙂

Baby chicks that I incubated

I got so tickled when this chicken jumped inside the feeder where the motherlode of feed was!