S&C: October 29 & 30 - Emotional Damage

A picture from late August/early September of Pale Foot with some of the Cheep Cheeps poking out from under her.

Instead of relaxing in bed all day on Saturday, I ended up fighting off near constant chicken incursions. Partner and a friend spent the whole day on another area of the property clearing off and hauling out old pig pens, water tanks, and various other farm scrap.

The entire flock has learned that Partner and I keep our own personal stash of food for our chickens. Our stash is intended for our personal chickens, and there is a stash in the office that we feed the wild flock from. When the stash in the office has run low or out, we've occasionally fed the entire flock from our stash. This past week, however, we haven't been able to replenish the office stash and the local pet supply store has not been doing a good job of keeping a stock of the chicken feed Partner and I use. 

Since the wild flock gets most of their food from free roaming, we've had to cut back on feeding the wild flock in the mornings and instead just make sure our personal chickens are fed in their coops and bins before we let them out for the day. That normally works, and the wild flock will stick to 'their' area of the property while our chickens hang out around our caravan.

With Partner and Friend in the area the wild flock usually forage, however, everybody was pushed towards our caravan and thus they heard and saw whenever I left the caravan to tend to our flock.

So that was fun. And I do genuinely mean fun. At one point I had Crumble perched on my back while 9 cheep cheeps and 3 other fully grown chickens were strutting around the entryway carpet, bok-boking at me incessantly for food while I tried to gently usher them back outside. Nobody was being mean, and nobody left any extreme messes in their wake, so I really just got to force some extra snuggles upon select chickens.

Since the weather is getting warmer, I have to keep a closer eye on everybody's water and refill their containers at least once a day. Doing that, and periodically checking on everybody's whereabouts has brought me into the territory of a local Willie Wagtail, which is where the video below came from.

Besides the semi-mandatory chicken tending duties, I've really failed at giving myself a moment to decompress and tend to my needs. For as long as I can remember, I have always struggled with food if I'm under any amount of stress. After a big move, I struggle to want to eat. I feel nauseous whenever I do eat. I no longer listen to or even notice normal signs of hunger, as food becomes the last thing on my mind. Other causes of stress have this same effect. Since I've been so stressed about the weather and the chickens' health, I've done a poor job of keeping an eye on myself. Oopsie.

So I gave myself a day off on Sunday and had fun organizing and decorating my houses in UO. I didn't get as much done as I wanted to, but I've definitely made progress and I think I'm going to put more time into decorating over the next few days, just to get myself more into the holiday spirit and let my body take a break from walking around in the sun all day with no sunscreen.