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Chicken

A breakdown in security

Mar 3rd, 2010
by Dan.
39 comments

My sister’s favorite film is Chicken Run. Or at least it was last time I discussed such things with her, which granted was around seven years ago now.

To be honest she may have moved on by now, but I am loathe to ask as whatever she designates as good I am duty bound to pore scorn and derision on. There is always the risk, however small, that she may have switched her allegiance to something really cool like Iron Man or Batman Begins, and I really don’t want to have to start hating hose movies.

So my sister likes Chicken Run and therefor, by default, I don’t. But now even if I she didn’t I’d still hold a grudge against Nick Park and his plasticine Gallus gallus domesticus (that’s Latin for chicken don’t you know). I’m pretty sure my chickens have been sneaking into the house and sticking it in the DVD player whilst we’re asleep.

We’ve already established that my chicken’s, lead by the dastardly yet charismatic Beryl, are plotting to take over the world. But now they seem to be getting bolder. Not only are they jumping the fence into next doors garden, but I am regularly finding them destroying the shrubbery of gardens two, or even three, doors down.

At this rate of expansion they will be catching the train into Manchester by the end of the month. Just look at the little buggers trying to figure out how to drive the car.

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The charismatic Beryl (or “the white one”) may be the leader of the Sinister Six, but it’s the one named Evel Knievel who is the chair of the escape committee. It’s her who devises the elaborate plots to foil my intricate state of the art containment systems (bits of wire nailed to bits of wood). She is the Q to Beryl’s Bond, and as such must never be underestimated.

Just look at her. She even looks like an evil genius. Have you ever seen such a unattractive chicken in your life?

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I saw yesterday that The Holmes is about to take the leap into chicken ownership. Perhaps we both need to get in contact with John. Maybe one of his chicken keeping courses cover how to handle birds bent on world domination.

Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!

Nov 23rd, 2009
by Dan.
38 comments

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Who’s idea was it to have chickens again?

Nov 10th, 2009
by Dan.
32 comments

I am man who likes to live life on the edge. I pick up and eat food I’ve dropped on the floor, I walk around with my shoelaces undone, and I even agree to go on hiking holidays with random weirdos I’ve met on the internet. If my middle name weren’t George, then you can bet your bottom dollar it’d be Danger. No wonder I’m idolized by millions.

However my life of excitement and peril is sometimes my undoing.

When tending to the chickens in the morning it’s become my habit to slip the eggs I collect into my pockets. This leaves my hands free to lock up the coop and perform any other random jobs that need doing. It has occasionally crossed my mind that this is a practice that may backfire on me at some point in the future, but like I say – I like to live life on the edge.

You can see where this is going can’t you.

Yesterday was a day like any other. I collected the eggs as normal and then pottered around doing my usual jobs. However whilst washing the dishes that afternoon I noticed that I had a large damp patch on my trousers. Assuming that I’d just splashed myself during a bit of overly exuberant scrubbing I just left it, figuring I’d just let it air dry (see, I told you I was a maverick). After fifteen minutes I started to idly wonder why the water didn’t appear to be drying. Half an hour went by and my suspicions were aroused enough for me to stick an exploratory hand in my pocket.

Let me tell you, it wasn’t pleasant.

So off came the trousers, into the washing machine went the wallet, and under the tap went my car keys and a rather eggy £5 note. And in the meantime the chickens (no doubt psychically picking up on my distress) made a dash for freedom, flapping over the garden fence in order to get closer to the house to crow about their victory. Two of them even got onto the roof of my car, an act of disrespect and defiance which is almost Hitchcockian in it’s audacity.

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They even crapped up there too, the swine.

So it seems my fine feathered fiends have won this battle, but the war is far from over. Let’s just hope they don’t find an anarchic and irreverent evil genius to lead them or they may one day take over the entire world.

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Oh bugger, we’re screwed.

Old McHughes’ Farm update

Oct 24th, 2009
by Dan.
8 comments

Amy’s school had their harvest festival last week, which was good because we had a particular revolting brand of tinned spaghetti in the cupboard we needed to get shot of. I often think that there should be some sort of international UN or NATO version of harvest festival; where all the wealthy western nations could smugly come together and patronizingly foist off all their unwanted barrels of toxic waste and radioactive materials onto bewildered third world nations in the name of “charity”. Perhaps that’s what Trafigura was doing all along.

Anyway the point is that it’s harvest time, and so I’ve been out on Old McHughes’ farm bringing in my crops. Except I haven’t as I don’t really have many crops to bring in. The potatoes were gathered months ago, the peas were basically eaten raw straight from the vine as soon as they ripened, and the runner beans were polished off in a giant stew a couple of weeks ago. Our strawberry plants have all died from neglect (just like last year), and the sweetcorn never got enough sun to develop properly.

I have harvested one thing however. See if you can guess from the picture what it is. I’ll give you a clue, it’s not a cumquat:

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I’ve a few plans for next year, including a grand strawberry pyramid. I also intend making an effort to grow veg that we’ll actually eat rather than ones that look good on the seed packet.

However for now I’m turning the plot over to the chickens to weed over the winter for me. With the days drawing in the hen’s egg production has started to slacken off to 3 or 4 a day rather than 5 or 6, so they are going to have to earn their keep somehow.

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