Contributing writer
You’ve noticed, haven’t you? How could you miss the clues? Last night it was like 36 degrees — that’s chilly. We’re having to adjust because fall is here and winter is a-coming.
Have you noticed those black fuzzy caterpillars? I have no idea what they are called, but they suddenly appear in the fall. And what are they eating? My friend, Frances, told me the caterpillars come in different colors, depending on the year and the winter before us. Sometimes these creatures are beige, sometimes rusty brown, and sometimes black. The darker the color, so the tale goes, the more severe the winter.
The trees haven’t started to change in my neck of the woods; but I’m sure they soon will and I want them to last. I want to relish the shades of red, orange, and yellow and not have the wind carry them away.
My cousin Joe told me when he was a little boy he wondered about the pictures that he saw of trees with orange, red, and burgundy leaves.
“Surely, someone must be pretending or painting the color on those leaves,” he thought to himself since the only leaves he’d seen in Kansas were either green or yellow.
We’ve planted trees that are not native to this place and you can see the maples, the oaks, and the liquid golds blazing forth with uncommon Kansas color.
My silly chickens have taken it upon themselves to molt now, when the evenings are getting colder and they’ll need all the feathers they can muster. Maybe they are protesting. I haven’t been able to let them out as often recently because we had another raid by a neighbor’s dog and our flock is dwindling. I’m scared for them.
How many birds do you need for a flock? We’re down to seven hens and two roosters, all of them several years old. My sister tells me what I’m currently running is not an egg factory but a very elite chicken old folks home.
We’d already had a chicken holocaust when we were on vacation when a dog killed all but two of the chickens in the Big House. Black Bart and Black Betty lived alone there. This week, on a day when Jess said, “It’s such a lovely day I’m letting those two out for once,” the dog found Betty in the house and dispatched her while Bart ran for cover in the bushes. He’s all alone now, despondent and lonely (so my sister says), and “we should do something about it.”
In a crisis, I’m always reading my “chicken book.” Did you know that a chicken could live 15 years or more? I do know that if I want to keep enjoying these lovely organic, semi-free-range eggs, I need to replenish my flock.
Now the question is, “When do I take the plunge into chicken child care?”
There were gunshots this weekend in the vicinity of Ramona. Hunting season has begun. I knew this, but somehow those first shots that you hear are startling.
They had a gun safety class this weekend at the Ramona Senior Center.
“Maybe I should be taking a gun safety class,” I said to my sister. “I need to learn about guns.”
“What?” she said. “You with your BB gun? Or were you thinking about the paintball gun you’ve never used?”
We laughed and then she looked serious across the table at me.
“The whole idea of a gun class, you know, has to do with kill, not startle,” Jess said.
It’s another day in the country, Mother Nature is winding down, a whole bunch of people with the license to kill are roaming through the fields and I’m wondering if I really want to buy myself a rifle, joining the ranks of the countrified.