Category Archives: animal rescue

Leaving the Isle of Eigg for Boarding School – –

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Jack just barely gets over the line this week – –

This story starts with the four chicken babes that appeared unannounced in our backyard a few weeks ago. We think someone for whatever reason just dropped them over the fence! For a few days they lived in our bathroom (before the remodeling commenced). Then they were moved to a small very nice coop we were gifted a couple of years back by our good friends Kirk and Nancy.

But they are teenagers now (they grow so quickly) so we needed to move them to a bigger pen at the top of the yard where they could safely practice line dancing and such – –

K ‘n’ N had just lost their favorite and last chicken when a neighbor’s loose dog sent it to chicken heaven and were so devastated they didn’t want any more, so they had yet another small coop they didn’t need – –

Wendy reckoned that instead of trying to shift the teenagers in their existing home up to the pen maybe see if K ‘n’ N might let us have the redundant one and rebuild it up there.

So Wendy collected the disassembled coop from our generous friends, along with the instruction leaflet and we set to work.

Then the fun began – –

The instructions were for the coop our good and generous friends had given us previously and the parts were identified by letters – a, b, c. etc. But the new one they gave us had parts with numbers on them. What also didn’t help was that both coops looked very similar yet had completely different interiors.

Wendy found a video of some braggart crowing about how easy the thing was to assemble, and watched it three times.

We knew we would have spare parts left, because we had agreed that the coop should be assembled on the side of the chicken run. This was so the chicks could play in the run/pen but have somewhere to shelter and roost. We had to make sure that the pen and the coop were secure from predators including our cats so there was much chicken wire engineering required!

After much internet research and viewing of YouTube videos we finally, after a few false starts, got the coop together and connected to the pen. Chicken wire folds in amazing ways, and Wendy treated covering the coop like folding a fitted sheet. “There has to be a way,” she kept muttering. Usually looking darkly at me afterwards.

It took three days but the wee house is completely enclosed in chicken wire except the door between the two enclosures.

Never underestimate the power of a heavy duty stapler and a few hundred zip ties. It may not be pretty, but it’s tighter than Fort Knox.

An Open Letter to the Guy Driving the Washington Street Pickup Last Night

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You were mighty and strong in your pick-up truck, weren’t you? Feeling tough. It was so easy, like a Death Race 2000 movie, or one of those video games you enjoy when you’re not working night shift at Wendy’s.

not the actual truck

You gunned your engine, ignoring the two women trying to capture the stray cats, and you killed them right there on Washington Street, under the streetlight. One was a nursing mother, recently flank spayed. The rescue is out a significant amount of money and has four baby kittens in their care now.

Which will probably please you. Anyone who guns their engine in their big 4×4 and aims straight for the cats -and the women chasing them- is someone who thinks the hurt inside them will heal by hurting others.

How’s that working out for you? Does breaking the back of cats so they die in the street heal the pain inside you? Likely you will graduate—if you haven’t already—to being the guy who believes slapping women keeps them in their place. And move on from there.

You are the reason women prefer bears. This too might please you; “am I scarier than a bear?!” When women gather in our little whispered gossip corners of our powerless lives, we talk about YOU, don’t we? This would make you happy. You are powerful because you hurt things and we must fear you.

Except, son, we don’t fear you and we don’t talk about you, besides briefly, with an expelled breath of slight sympathy for how pathetic you are. Small, dismissible, sad but there are more important topics.

Did killing the cats in front of the women trying to save them on Washington Street heal some of the hurt inside you? I doubt that very much. There are people you can talk to who might help you figure that out. If you can lay down the big tires, the revving engine, the desperate search for relevance and importance and power that led you to literally run down a living creature on your way home from your night shift, you might be able to find more happiness in life.

You might want to see what you can do about this, son. Try dialing 988 and getting a conversation started. And please understand, we are not in shock and awe; we are not afraid of you. We are trying not to laugh at you, poor sad little boy; you’re dumber than dirt if you think pain heals pain, and you’re going to experience a lot more pain than you can inflict. You’re trapped.

We will continue working to heal the world. You can get some help. Try it, son. Those women weren’t setting a trap for you, but we sure can see the one you’re in. Wouldn’t you like to get out of it?