Welcome back, Bob

2013: our most recent (and probably last) goat babies

Nothing to do with cooking, but here's a book recommendation: David Quammen's Spillover, about diseases that jump from animals to people. Sounds deeply unpleasant, but it's not at all. I grabbed it after we got back from vacation to try to understand what's happening in West Africa and it pretty much took over my life for a few days. I read until it fell from my hands at night and picked it up in the morning before getting out of bed. I can't justify writing at length about Ebola and SARS on a cookbook blog, so I'll just tell you this: Quammen is curious not just about ghastly emerging diseases, but about the scientists who track them down in African bat caves, Australian horse paddocks, and the forests and high-end hotels of Southeast Asia. He's written an engrossing, illuminating, and thoroughly excellent book with more plot twists than most detective novels. It's even funny, in places. You should read it. 

Friday morning, I got to the section on Lyme disease. It turns out that small parcels of land, like residential lots, are ideal habitats for the tiny mice that carry Lyme. Why? Because they're poor habitats for the mid-size predators (foxes, coyotes) that eat those tiny mice. I had just read this and was silently agreeing about the importance of predators when -- uncanny, uncomfortable coincidence -- our chickens began to shriek. 

I ran outside and found outraged, screeching hens in the trees and on the rail of the deck and the roof of the coop. I followed their collective gaze and found a bobcat in the corner of the yard. We haven’t had a bobcat in the yard in over a year. It's been wonderful because the chickens can range freely and safely. It's been bad because: rats. We don't have an infestation or anything, but every week or so. . . During the spring of 2013 when a bobcat was paying daily visits, we didn't see a single rat. It was striking.

I'd like to pretend otherwise now, but it was too well documented on this blog: I hated that bobcat. He (or she) killed three chickens in a single day before I could lock them up. He used to strut around our yard and eye me contemptuously as I yelled and threw things at him. We were waiting for Natalie to kid and I could well imagine what this animal would do with newborn goats. I considered many options for getting rid of the cat, but before I could follow through with any of them he abruptly stopped coming around and all was well.

I ran this new bobcat off, then coaxed the chickens into the run with some leftover chiffon cake and latched the gate. It must have been a young cat because it hadn’t managed to kill a single hen. Standing there, I realized that all my feelings about bobcats had changed. We don't have any pregnant goats and I could do with fewer rats. I could do with no rats. Plus, I'd just read Spillover.

Most importantly, though, I'm finally ready to stop with the free-ranging chickens. Really ready. I know it's nicer for chickens, but I need a break. For the last six years, hens have had the run of the place, digging up my ranunculus bulbs, laying eggs in the ivy, eating the rhubarb, "decorating" the patio. We gave up trying to grow any vegetables. A few chickens invariably tried to roost in the trees and bushes which meant fishing them out at night, but we couldn't always find them and every few months something gory and noisy happened at 2 a.m. and Mark and I went running outside, half asleep, to chase away raccoons or skunks with a shovel, the hose, rocks, whatever was handy. I once threw a can of paint at a raccoon. We nursed more than one savaged chicken back to health with nothing but Neosporin and little bowls of yogurt while keeping her in a box in the kitchen. Talk about zoonotic disease risk. 

This is just a long-winded way of saying that I've been wanting to confine the chickens for some time, but lacked the heart. The bobcat was the excuse I'd been looking for. It's for their own good!

So, that's a change. More changes afoot, bigger changes. Isabel is applying to colleges this fall and tomorrow Owen joins her at the high school. Already nostalgic for our easy summer.

freshman  

Back to cookbooks in the next post.