a hard week

Well, as any homesteader knows...some weeks are just harder than others and sometimes losses are harder to take than others. This week has been super stressful in other ways because my car broke down...again...and it is State Fair prep week (starts tonight) and I am in charge of 3 exhibits (not homesteading related but wetland/beach preservation)...and I am going for my Scuba certification this weekend and have been trying to figure out how to get there(the only weekend I can for the rest of the season because of the shop's schedule and mine). So...yeah, been a stressful one.

THEN I get home from having my car towed on Tuesday and I found my oldest hen, Gertie, my only Sussex, was hit by a car and was still warm and lying on my driveway. I was devastated. I am still very sad. I just stood and held her and cried. Sometimes doing this pretty much alone is just too hard. But I am lucky and I do have friends that remind me why I am doing this. Then I go and work with my animals and I remember.

Gertie is the hen at the bottom, the Speckled Sussex. It is the last picture I took of her.

But, I feel guilty about Gertie. See, she was the hen that didn't really care to freerange. She liked to hang in the coop with the turkeys. But when the babies were born I kicked her out, because I was told you never know how others besides the mother will act with babies not their own. She ran around with the other hens sometimes and sometimes did her own thing. She roosted in the barn at night with everyone else. She did not take direction from Henry though, she has been around a lot longer than him. He pretty much kept his girls away from the road. I feel guilty because Gertie really didn't care to be out and about running around and if she had stayed where she wanted, she would not have been hit by a car.

And...I have lost 3 turkey babies too...just literally disappeared. Not sure how or why if they got out of the pen they didn't come back as I have seen them do when Momma calls them. I can't find any way that anything has gotten in to them...the other babies in the coop next door are all fine. I am down to four babies now.

So, I know all homesteaders go through things like this...and I have lost hens before and I know I sadly will again. Just sometimes it is harder to handle than others.