Feeding the Chickens

The couple that I am staying with recently left for a couple week vacation to visit their children/grandchildren in California. While they are gone, they asked that I feed their animals and water their plants. I am really happy that I can do this because they have been letting me stay there for free and this is at least a very minor way that I can contribute back. So the animals that I feed include some gold fish in a couple outdoor ponds, two little cats that also stay outside, and their chickens.

Feeding the chickens has been the funnest part. They have maybe 10 or so of them. After the sun comes up I just go over to their gated area, make sure that their water buckets are full and then throw out a couple containers of feed on the ground. While they are eating that I then sneak into their hen house and grab their eggs. As I do that, I always feel like I am stealing from them and I am sure they all know what I am doing and despise me because of it.

Their owners said that at times they have produced 10 eggs a day, but lately they have only been getting 5 or 6. I think they must have sensed a change, because on the first two days there were no eggs. Today I did get two though, so hopefully they are warming up to me.

In addition to those pets, these people have other wild animals that frequent their land. Now that it has gotten colder I see deer on their property on a daily basis. One day there was maybe a dozen deer in their front yard - I have never seen that many all together like that. They also have hawks that fly over and they told me that they used to have four little cats, but when they were really little two of them were swept up and taken away by the hawks.

They also have a lot of variety in their garden. They have the typical tomatoes and pumpkins and everything like that, but they also have potted lemons, limes, and grapefruit, they have rhubarb (yeah, we loved that about Alaska and it will be fun for us to grow that here too), a grape vine with huge bunches of both green and purple grapes on it, and lots of different types of flowers. It makes me excited thinking about what we will be able to plant once we are in our house.