Happy New Year!...I think

Happy 2012! My experience of the new year so far has been one of carnage and sleep deprivation, but we're only thirty-six hours or so in. I'm still optimistic that the year could turn out okay in the end.

I'm just shy of eighteen weeks into this pregnancy, and I've already reached the point where a comfortable, full night's sleep seems like a distant memory. According to the pregnancy literature, at this stage both back and stomach sleeping are off limits for me now. This wouldn't be a problem except that sleeping on my right side causes serious discomfort in my right rib cage, and sleeping in my left side soon leads to a very achy left hip. I basically spend my nights flopping from side to side like a fish out of water, swapping hip pain for rib pain and vice versa. To top it off, on new year's eve night, I was having an ongoing stressful, scary dream (I'll stop just short of calling it a nightmare). Despite my frequent wakefulness and attempts to shake this dream, it kept sneaking back every time I'd fall back asleep. I finally gave up the fight at 7:30 a.m. new year's day, not feeling rested at all, but too frustrated and achy to continue pursuing sleep.

The first order of business for the new year was to let the chickens out of the pen. As I approached the pen, I was startled by a very large bird making a swift departure from the area and disappearing into the woods. Hmm, not a good sign. Sure enough, I found a gruesome scene behind the chicken house - a bloody, half eaten guinea carcass surrounded by piles of feathers. No wonder I hadn't heard a peep out of the chickens yet. Generally, when we lose a bird to a predator, it just disappears with no trace, and the rest of the birds continue on about their business as if nothing had happened. However, having a comrade being feasted on right outside your front door has a whole different effect on the morale of a poultry flock. Even after I had disposed of the carcass, the birds were all very quiet and cautious the whole day. I had a hard time shaking the feeling myself.

As night rolled around again, I was disappointed to find that six of the remaining seven guineas were once again lined up on their very exposed perch across the chicken pen, easy pickin's for what I was sure would be a returning hungry owl. Only Ranger consistently sleeps in the house with the chickens: we don't call him the Lone Ranger for nothing! Oh well, what can you do.

I went to bed around 10 o'clock and slept peacefully until my bladder woke me up sometime later. I was disappointed to find that it was only 1 o'clock, but I managed to ignore the increasing winds and the incessant flapping of a stray piece of tin and fall back asleep in a reasonable amount of time. The next time I woke was to the sound of screaming guineas flying right past the window. Instinctively, I jumped out of bed and ran onto the porch, but what could I really do? By the time I got outside, all was quiet again and I couldn't see anything. So, back to bed (now it was 4 o'clock) I went, this time wide awake and heart still pounding. A few minutes after getting back in bed, I heard what was definitely an owl right outside the house, making the most spooky owl noise I've ever heard. It was quite chilling. My attempts to fall back asleep were not successful this time. When faced with bouts of sleeplessness, I often pull out my iPod and listen to some music. I find the band "Owl City" to be a good one for drifting off to sleep to, but given the circumstances, I wasn't in the mood. So, instead I turned on the lights, built a fire, ate a grapefruit and watched movies on the computer. Around six o'clock I finally drifted back to sleep and managed to fit in another hour and a half or so before the sun started guilt-tripping me to get up.

It was no surprised that when I went to turn the chickens out this morning, there were only six guineas hanging around. Thankfully, the owl decided to take-out rather than dine-in this time, so I didn't have any carcasses to deal with. Either the guineas will wise up and follow Ranger's example of sleeping in the safety of the chicken house, or, to look at it optimistically, I'll only have to go through this another five or six nights and then there'll be no more guineas to eat! Of course, I'll still be pregnant for five more months, but it's always nice to only have one sleep obstacle to deal with at a time.