Who knew I’d need to press Noel’s words into service so quickly! This should be subtitled Not My Finest Hour.
After yesterday’s decidedly pedestrian day, we were settling down to debate our evening’s TV viewing (there’s many off limit shows when one of our number is absent and The Engineer was at the City Campus for the night) when the City Campus hotline rang. It wasn’t good news. There was water on our part of the drive; closer investigation found it to be bubbling from where the services enter the house.
It was agreed The Bean Counter would head into town while The Engineer made some phonecalls. Not that she can’t handle disasters – she now has a rather prestigious certificate to prove the contrary – but it’s always nice to have company in a crisis. The phonecalls she made were both helpful and free whilst promising definitive help in the morning. Folk at both the Homestead and City Campus felt happy to retire for the night.
Now, I’m not a great sleeper so I tend to oversee any nighttime dog drama or cat conundrums. I do, however, really value that last couple of hours shut-eye; the 5 to 7 shift. That’s my defence anyway, your honour, because Colin called me 4 times between retiring and 4.30 and there was no way Shirley was missing out on any fun. Four times I donned dressing gown; down the stairs, watch from the door, pat and settle, up the stairs… so when I was only awoken by frantic barks just before 6 I decided that it was only fair that Farm Girl, who sleeps downstairs anyway, step up. Only she didn’t.
Oh! I was short and snippy at getting-up time. I snapped and snarled and told her just what I thought… and then I noticed her bright red nose and streamy eyes. It was definitely her turn for the cold that’s been doing the rounds. She’d fallen asleep with her sweatshirt on, hood up, and music in her ears she explained; she’d heard nothing.
Apologies – huge, massive, gigantic apologies and mumbled words about gods and wrong bed sides. The same to Mr Colin when I stumbled, bleary eyed, into the chicken coop during morning chores to discover the overturned waterer, skew-whiff feeder…and one chicken missing.
He tried to tell me stuff was going down.
As for the City Campus, it’s okay for now. The plumber will be back tomorrow tomorrow to dig a hole and mend the waterpipe which, thankfully, gave way in a very accessible and thus cost effective place and is probably due to the pressure testing on the lines for the build nextdoor.
Today we’re taking it easy.
Did I say I was sorry?
Union Homestead 
Oh, gosh! What a night. Hope things have settled down for you.
Well on the road to recovery. The chicken coop visitor is still a mystery but I wonder if a stray cat or something got in there and our missing lady headed for the hills or us stubbornly sitting on a nest somewhere. The leak is patched up for now with a proper fix tomorrow and I just need a good sleep but I have made good both my snippy snappy fall outs.
Yay!
Sorry is something Canadians are known for saying quite a lot. Sorry it was your turn to express the sentiment! Glad the leak will be sorted soon. Hope FG feels better soon. The dogs pee 4 times a night??? Wow…as to the chicken coop mystery – id blame a raccoon ormink first, but you don’t have such predators. Cat is possible but unlikely…in 25+ years of keeping hens and cats, I’ve never seen the cats cast more than a wary glance at the poultry. I’m not sure what else could get into your coop though. I’d be inclined to blame a stray dog, but the coop should have deterred that, plus there’d have been feathers everywhere. A poultry rustler perhaps?
In hindsight, Colin was surveying the boundary rather than peeing but at the time I was too annoyed to register it. If I had been more into it, there would be no chicken coop mystery. Im half expecting her to just reappear because there was no feather explosion. The only real predators they have here are stoats and they are few and far between with major trapping schemes in place.
Troubles never come as single spies, they say. I believe the Chinese curse is, “May you live in interesting times.” I hope you have a few dull days to come.
Interesting times, indeed. That’s a clever curse!
What a horrible night you had! I hope the chicken turns up none the worse for her adventure. Not enough sleep can cause so many problems.
Still no chicken so its not looking good. Today, after a good night sleep and no more drama, things are looking up.
So you don’t have foxes? My first thought when you wrote about the disturbed chicken coop and missing hen was a fox got in. It seems the British gifted Australia with foxes and rabbits and New Zealand with hedgehogs and stoats. I don’t know who was the bright spark who thought introducing brush tailed possums into NZ was a good idea.