Our highs and lows

We have had a turbulant couple of days on the farm.  I noticed a couple of days ago, Warhammer was having difficulty walking.  She was not able to curl her toes.  I brought her in out of the cold but her health dramatically declined over the next 24 hours.  By Thursday evening she was not walking, feet swollen, and her face was very pale.  We got some advice from the neighbors and decided to see how she would be in the morning.

We were sad to learn she had passed in the night.  It is the always reminder of life on the farm with life and death.  This one was a little harder due to the long journey we had with Warhammer.  She has always been the runt of the flock and we had prepared the kids early that she may not make it.  Somehow she did and week after week we watched as she grew up.

The other event that is impacted us so much is the realization of the amount of mourning we are still feeling after the passing of Dustin’s father in July.

On a personal note, I have had a season of death. Not only did we loose Dustin’s father but there has been a series of death including my uncle, 2 students from work, and too many to count parents of my middle school students. So, through all this loss we say goodbye to our first chick.

Our warhammer. ( she the little one at the bottom)

The comical piece in all of this is what do we do with Warhammer now.  It is single digits temperature outside.  We talked to the local hardware store and was recommended to build a fire with barbecue coals.  Burn them for a couple hours and spread over the ground.  Once the ground has warmed up, make a hole.

Well, it worked and we buried Warhammer in the back yard.

In this same day, I decided to address our issue with too many roosters and gave them back to the breeder. I think I am doing replacement therapy and picked up 4 more. Let’s hope for some hens.