#frigid temps
It’s going to be double digits below zero at night here in Minneapolis every night for about ten consecutive days. I can’t stand the thought of the Ladies being out there in such grim temps. Their coop is heated safely, with a ceramic panel wall heater, and the run is well-sheltered, but still. It just seemed too bleak, and I worry as it is, checking the Bluetooth thermometer I keep next to my bed a couple times a night. It never gets much below forty each night, but this long of a run of subzero is just too much to deal with.
So I moved six cranky hens into my studio, which is fully, comfily heated. I set up a nice secure two by four on some sawhorses, dragged their nesting box in, set up their feeder. I put down a few pieces of plastic drop cloth to limit the mount of poop I’d inevitably step in. (The first winter I had chickens was the first winter after I’d converted my tuck-under garage to a studio space, and I moved the three birds I had at the time, two of which I still have, into the newly-finished studio for the winter. It was fine, except I tracked in pine shavings and feathers throughout my house no matter how careful I was, and courtesy of the forced air heating, my whole house eventually smelled like chickens.
I really adore my birds so I didn’t care that much, but I was also excited to build them a new coop that Spring. While it was really convenient to not have to trudge through snow to spend time with them, it was really disruptive having them indoors full-time. Afternoon naps with three birds perched on my legs was fun, but that winter wore on and on.
Regardless, I brought them into the studio two days ago, and of course they immediately trashed the place like Johnny Depp in the late eighties. They flung so much feed around that it was comical, proudly pooped on every horizontal surface, slept on my work table, on my printer, and stacked storage containers rather than the rigged perch I’d made them, and layed eggs on my comfy chair, rather than their heavy nesting box that they’d always favored and I had thoughtfully dragged in.
And they SCOLD me, SO MUCH. In a closed space, it’s really caustic sounding. It’s hard not to take it personally when they look you directly in the eye and SCREAM.
Having whined all of that, it’s really nice being able to visit them ten times a day without bundling up and cramming on Wellies. They yammer at me while they eat their veggies, and Wiglet flies from my work table to my arms like a magician’s dove. Dear, dim Deluxe (the black Silkie) crapped all over my shirt while I was crooning to her. I went upstairs, washed, changed shirts and came back and she did it again, immediately.
I am incapable of getting angry at these creatures. They’re just demolishing the studio (I mean, it’s all washable and cleanable) but I just sit and giggle. I clean up the worst of the mess daily while they glare at me sulkily from the other end of the room; they seem to view cleaning as some sort of mildly dangerous insanity on my part.
Last night I realized I had to print a UPS label for something I’d sold on eBay, and I went down to the studio, turned on a dim light and gently lifted up a sleeping Miss Asthma from the top of my printer, then cradled her while I one-handedly printed a label. I don’t think she even knew I’d been there.
Earlier tonight, I tried to peer in at the ladies from the doorway but it was too dark in there to see anything. I have a Ring camera in there, but there’s so much dust presently that the view looks like the contents of my dryer’s lint trap, and I keep forgetting to clean it off when I’m with the Ladies. Leaning waaay into the doorway and squinting for so long made me laugh out loud for some reason, and when I did, Deluxe shrieked, so I closed the door quickly and said, involuntarily, SORRRRYSORRRYSORRRRRRY. Which just made me cackle some more.
They’re my batshit children and I love them so.
[FWIW I know no one is reading any of these posts, but tbh I am posting for my own sanity at this point. Not going anywhere is slowly driving me crazy, and now staying inside due to frigid temps just makes it worse. I feel truly fortunate having the ladies, and sweet Toad, but I want to garden, and build things, and hang out with the neighbor kids so damn badly.]
