The “Dead” Birds???

Last night we hunted high and low for our four bantam chickens, but we couldn’t find them anywhere! My son and husband spent simply ages (until the torch battery went flat) searching under the bushes, in the Sheoak grove, in the chookhouses, in the back yard, under the grapevine and even in the compost heap, but they were nowhere to be found. Sigh! We really don’t seem to have luck with orphaned chickens.

Then, my daughter came in this morning and said that she had found two of the bantam chickens – dead, alongside the fence in the goat yard – ripped to pieces. Oh, no! This was so heart-wrenching for me, as we had them in the laundry in a box and fed, watered and nurtured them for ages before we released them back into the confines of the bantam house in a smaller cage so that they didn’t get picked on.

This afternoon we had friends here for lunch, and when we went outside to bid them farewell, there were two bantam chickens in the back yard of the house. Um. Yeah, who let the chickens out? Have I confused you, yet, for I sure was confused by this stage in time???

My son thought that my daughter must have let the bantam chickens out to have a peck around, but when he questioned her, she said that she hadn’t let them out, so confusion reigned here for a while until we looked at the “dead chickens” next to the goat yard fence. It wasn’t a dead bird at all – it was a bird’s nest. I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief, as I was beginning to think that these chickens were the missing ones.

My son went down to the bantam house and brought the other two bantams up to the house yard, and they were reunited once again. It’s no wonder that there is joy and rejoicing in heaven when the sheep that has gone astray is found, for we left the bantams that were not lost, and we found the two that were “lost”.  Imagine the rejoicing in heaven over one lost soul who repents of their sin.

After writing this blog post, I went out into the back yard to try to take a photo of the bantam chickens, but they were nowhere to be found. Sigh! Not again. I enlisted the aid of my son, and together we found them, and I managed to snap a quick photo before they disappeared into the dense foliage of our back yard, AGAIN! Praise God that He kept them safe last night!

These Bible verses have such special significance to me, now.

For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost. How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. Matthew 18: 11-14

At lunch time today, we had home-made Goat’s milk Ice-Cream, and my cat simply loves Goat’s Milk Ice-Cream. His tongue grows almost double its length, and if you could only see the look on his face – he’s in pussycat heaven! He also loves Carrot Cake, roast goat and cheese, and even has his own chair - he’s sitting in it!

This is the cat that curled up underneath my hair and went to sleep the day that we picked him up, so I decided that he was the one that could come and live with us, and after we brought him home and he started to grow,  he bit and scratched anyone that dared come near him, and definitely didn’t like being held.

He is the one that was bitten by a brown snake and survived the assault, but also the one that ran away from a HUGE rat that my daughter’s cat, Moonlight, brought down for him. Moonlight was trying to teach Jeremiah how to catch rats and mice – I’m not sure that he ever did succeed.

He is the cat that sleeps on the end of my bed and keeps my feet wonderfully warm during the cold winter months, and believe me, it gets really cold here during winter – down to -8°C (yep, that’s minus eight!) during the depths of winter. During summer, he’s the one that hid under the bed every time that the ceiling fan was switched on, and would scratch, yell and cry like a baby if you took him anywhere near the ceiling fan when it was going.

He’s older and wiser now, and doesn’t mind the ceiling fans these days. When he arrives back from his nightly sojourns in the warmer summer months, he lines up for his bowl of fresh goats’ milk, and will sit and stare at you if you don’t take the hint.

He’s such a big softy these days, and very different from the little feral that we brought home.  He’s our 10½ kilogram bundle of adorable fluff – not a fat cat, just a gentle giant, and I love him to bits. There’s definitely no spoiled cats in our home!

My husband took this photo late last night, and it shows how all of the bantam chickens and turkey poults sleep at night – all snuggled up together like “stacks on the mill”, in order to keep warm. They are eating and drinking well and are very mobile.

Cinquain

for Mrs BB from Beyond Bluestockings

Chickens,

Cute, Fluffy,

Running, Growing, Sleeping,

Stacks on the Mill,

Cuddly.