April 20, 2009

Everyone is well! Joe has fully recovered from the flu and Lily's wound is almost completely healed. We got some heavy rains last night, and this morning I am noticing the poplar trees budding out. The air is crisp and clear and the world just keeps getting greener. This morning I happened to look out the front window just in time to see the first hummingbird visiting the feeder! Watching spring unfold never ceases to amaze me. The weather has been warm enough lately that we even put the hammocks back up. There is possibly no more delightful experience than lounging in the hammock on my front porch on a balmy evening, listening to the great horned owls calling to each other and the meadowlark singing its last song of the day. I think I will charge admission and make a fortune. :)

Of course, life wouldn't be the same without some drama in there somewhere, and we have had a small dose of it recently. Lily and the chickens have both been settling in nicely, but we didn't give much thought as to how they would interact with each other. Given the fact that Wilson wouldn't bother looking twice at a chicken, we were lulled into a false sense of security. About a week ago we returned home from a very brief absence to find Lily gleefully chasing down one of the hens in the woods. We were able to interrupt the hunt and narrowly save the poor hen, but it turned out that she would have been seconds. We found the remains of Lily's first course under the porch. We made our displeasure abundantly clear to Lily, but realized that it was going to take more than harsh words to erase the connection between chickens and yummy treats in her mind. The very next day we headed to PetSmart to purchase a shock collar and begin the process of teaching Lily that as delicious as chickens are, they can actually electrocute you. The goal is to have the unpleasantness of a shock be associated solely with the chickens, not with us, as far as Lily is concerned. This means a lot of creeping around and trying to act nonchalant on our parts, but it seems to be working. In fact, it may have worked much faster than we were expecting. After only a couple of shocks, Lily is now showing a much greater respect for the secret powers of chickens and is following Wilson's lead of ignoring them. We have plans to bait her with some highly tempting chickens situations just to double check that all is well. Luckily chickens don't seem prone to post-traumatic stress syndrome, nor do they hold grudges. The remaining five are calmly and contentedly carrying on with their free-ranging lives and even seem to flaunt themselves right in front of Lily without any fear.