Missing: 7 Chickens
I arrived at the Ashby Garden to feed the chickens as the sun was going down. There was an eerie silence as I approached the chickens' enclosure. It was like I was in a horror film- I turned my head to the left in slow motion, and didn't see a single roosting chicken in the coops! I looked at the new laying boxes underneath the coops- as if they would all be in there! Nope. The gate to the enclosure was open, and the bucket of food that was used to block the gate open was spilled on the ground. No sign of struggle, and the eggs that we were trying to get the chickens to sit on and hatch were still in the coop. The chickens' food and water containers are all still there.
The chickens are gone. The gate to the garden was locked, so either the person who took the chickens had the combination, or they jumped the fence and handed the chickens off to someone else (one at a time or in a bag or box). There is only one feather on the ground near the gate to the enclosure, so these people clearly knew how to handle chickens. And they likely killed them and cooked them up. They were stolen sometime between 7:30 Weds. night and 7:30 Thursday night. The person who was supposed to feed them on Thurs AM told me tonight that she hadn't done it this morning.
We had had the 6 girls since December of last year, and had only recently gotten the rooster. It seems like the disappearance could be related to the recent arrival of that noisy bastard- I have heard him as early as 4:30 in the morning. There are a few different sketchy characters who we are thinking of as suspects, but how can we really know who to blame or what happened.
photos of the chickens can be seen at http://www.themahtin.com
Garden Update
Yesterday I staffed a table or two at the Power to the Peaceful Festival (more about that another time). After sleeping 5.5 hours I was up for 18.5, and I only woke up at 11 today because Tomkat called. We had a meeting at the garden scheduled for 3pm, so I was thinking I would try to get over there and back at least once before 3 (hah!).
When I finally went over at 2:45, people were working on the lot next door! Woo hoo! I could sort of see that from my kitchen window, but I couldn't really believe it till I saw it. People were trimming trees, cutting grass, and pulling up weeds. We also collected a lot of trash. We made piles of yard waste all over the place, and then later on, James, Ayala, and I put all the green stuff (mostly from the tree at the front of the lot) in one pile next to the chicken coop. Most of the dried-out grass was brought over to the garden- I put some in the chicken coops and some on the ground in the enclosure, and there's a lot where our strawbale is. The grass had been growing for so long! Once you pulled up the stuff that had grown this year, you found that there are layers of grass underneath it that will have to be turned under. Xander thinks we should plant grain this winter. I agree about the soil building/cover cropping part, but on the other hand, if we grow a grass, how will we know which stuff is weeds and which isn't?!
About that lot...so the thing is, the person who owns it is like dying or something. James has spoken with her son-in-law. He said that if we cleaned it up we (might?) (would?) be able to use it. People got rid of the mattresses that were up in the front on Wednesday. Those mattresses has appeared in the middle of last winter, and occasionally at night one could see folks sleeping on them. The other large piece of waste on that lot is an axle from a car or truck. It looks heavy! So anyhow, apparently James is supposed to meet with the guy sometime this week and show him the work we have done. At that point, my guess is the guy will be like, great, let's put it on the market! Three houses out of 4 on the other side of the street have been for sale at some point in the last few weeks. Or at least the guy could be like, ok, now stay the fuck off our property!
We nearly lost the lot that has the garden on it this week. Apparently people had made an agreement with the owner to maintain an empty house that he owns around the corner. Or at least do the landscaping (?). So since noone had done that in a year or so and I'm sure that James had given him a voicemail number that he doesn't have anymore, he felt pretty secure in leaving a note that we should stay off his property (or whatever it said). Great. People did some cleanup and hauling at the house this week, and I'm not sure if they have talked with the owner since then.
The question of housing security is bad enough, but when it's a garden on a proprerty that could be "developed," things get really, really, insecure. A person could put some nice little low-income apartments or yupster lofts on there and make a bundle. We've got to talk to the Land Trust about buying these lots. But how would we pay for them?
People did a Cafe' Night at the Long Haul as a benefit for the garden tonight (well, 9/11/05). I didn't make it cuz I ended up being forced to nap.
