Stew Who?

Pretty quiet few days recently, just been chillaxing in the coop a lot.  E.g. the other day I moved from the perch to the nesting box and back again but didn’t even bother to go downstairs!  However that all changed last night when we thought the Man People had brought home another hen to join our gang!  Recharge and I both got really excited at the prospect of having another girlfriend round the place.  At about 7pm the Man Woman in the house called out “Chicken Stew’s Ready!” and the Big Man called down, “Great”.  And we were all waiting and waiting for her to emerge.  Stew is a bit of a weird name for a hen but we figured it was like those celebrity hens who call them things like Poppet and Peaches.  So we waited a little while more but no one came out.  There were no real noises inside from another hen, the Man People were just eating their dinner, so we figured maybe Stew would be turning up another night.  That was probably the highlight of our week so, as you can see, it hasn’t been the most exciting!  We hope to meet Stew soon!

Choose... Life.

I know it’s been a while and for that we apologise.  In fact I did question whether this blog should continue or if it should be put to bed so to speak.  Without TripleA it seemed to have lost something fundamental.  But I pondered it some more and realised that this blog cannot die along with TripleA,  we all have to try and go on without her.  And through this blog we can remember her. 

The Man Woman tried to have a conversation with us about TripleA’s passing on.  She was inferring that there might be a Chicken Heaven and described TripleA as just going for a “long sleep”.  Now she’s either mental or a ManWoman of faith so we humoured her as much as we could.  These religious nuts are usually hard to placate so we were relieved it didn’t take long before she was returning inside.  We all know that TripleA has died and there is no coming back from that (we have all seen ‘Chicken Run’ so there is no fooling us).  Still she is well within her rights to try and make herself feel better so there was no need to let her down by being all negative and nihilistic about it in front of her.  Anyway she seems pretty distracted at the moment, really busy recently tapping away on her laptop.  She must have a blog too.

So yes we were the Three Amigos and now we are just Two.  Recharge has been quite philosophical about it all – says when it’s her time to go she’ll be ready – and I myself have been turning to poetry to get myself through the darker moments.  So onwards and upwards we are saying in the coop.  May TripleA not be forgotten and may we all... choose life.

TripleA - Not to be Forgotten

It has been a very long and sad day.  TripleA took to the nesting box last night complaining of chest problems and a lack of energy.  We could both see that she wasn’t feeling well and we stayed up late last night hoping that she might get better soon.  She has been great fun to have around, always taking our teasing in the way it was intended, and always ready to join in with any activities we’ve laid on.  Sadly this morning she passed away and we were pleased she had felt no pain.  It happened in her sleep.  We will miss her hugely, and know she is walking tall somewhere up there.  Night, night TripleA – we won’t forget you.

A private burial will take place (just family) but if you'd like to make a donation on her behalf we suggest you send it to her favourite charity - the British Hen Welfare Trust - because without them we would never have got to know her.

Sickness in the coop

Hey guys Duracell here.  Now I was going to get really angry about yesterday's hacking incident. (when I saw what they'd done I was like "What the Cluck!") but the wind has gone right out of my sails today because TripleA (you remember, our freaky friend who thinks she's a penguin) is really not well.  She has been doing this weird hacking cough for a couple of days and although the vet has given her medicine she is still peaky and lethargic.  We've tried to be really quiet round the coop today, and Recharge has brought her some nice grass from outside and I've tried to rouse a smile by doing my impression of Tweetie Pie (usually CRACKS her up) but she's really low.  So this is a shout out to cheer her up.  Get better soon TripleA. 

It's not just the NOTW that can hack!

Hi guys, it’s Recharge here.  This is Duracell’s blog and she gets really shirty if we try and contribute, she’s well  protective about it.  But we stole her password (‘Ilovecock’ – so obvious) and so now we have free rein.  Ha ha ha.  So we’ve read our descriptions from earlier, (er... hello, where are they?) and we figured you didn’t know a great deal about us two (the coolest two – well actually Triple A will admit herself that she’s the “geeky one”).  Anyway I’m Rechargeable (my friends call me ‘Recharge’ for short, and they do it in a kind of we’re-from-the-ghetto-voice too) and I’m probably the most energetic of the bunch.  I’m good over long distances, never been a sprinter.  I like to work hard and play hard and I’m currently the hen churning out the most eggs (*clicks wings). 

Triple A here, although I’m not really into sports I’m not a total geek either!  I can still have fun!  I’m a big fan of Word Games.  The best day of my life EVER was beating Duracell in a game of Scrabble (it was down to the wire but then I managed to pull out CLUCK and got the ‘K’ on a ‘Triple Letter’ spot, then hit the ‘Double Word’ which meant 30 points already in the bag.  Duracell was open-mouthed but could do nothing and I swept to victory).  And I’m also a big reader, love all the literary novels, historical fiction, anything with a good story really – think McEwan does really with his descriptive passages and thought ‘Atonement’ was fantastic – a really compelling love story.  I have to be honest at this point and admit that I didn’t enjoy ‘Saturday’ (I kept waiting for the book to get going and then realised it was about his Saturday and not even much happened on it- he played squash I think, anyway...)  I've also read a lot of non-fiction, I'm really fascinated in Tudor History - and not just the chicken stuff but the stuff about People too.  And of course I'm also a big fan of the classics, particularly the Austen novels, but then who isn’t hey?!  Ooh, hold on, Duracell is calling for us and we better log out before she works out we’ve been here.  She’s walking over here now...

Is that a marrow in your pocket?

Have to hurry as we are sooooo busy in the coop today.  We’re creating a collage for the walls out of hay, stones, old grass and our own faeces.  It is a sensitive depiction of a larger work TripleA once saw in an article about an art gallery.  She claimed the orginial was by a Man Person called ‘Turner’ and from her description I really think we’ve caught the right kind of mood of the piece. 

On the subject of Man Persons our Man People are in a great mood this week.  They keep returning from somewhere called ‘The Allotment’ carrying different types of vegetables in a silver sieve.  They brought home allsorts yesterday; artichokes, garlic, onions, potatoes and to top it all a really big marrow.  I hadn’t seen a big marrow like that in a long time.  It was impressive. 

Picture of a pretty big courgette that can’t even compete with the one they paraded home:

A short story

So normally the People are pretty busy during the day, we get left alone to wander about the courtyard, dig up stuff, scratch stuff and poo in imaginative new places.  Today however has been a bit different because the Man Woman has been around all day, yappng on about her life.  She’s a talker at the best of times, but today she hit her PB.  She really had us bored to tears about some kind of short story she wrote that NEARLY won £1000 and NEARLY made it into Woman and Home (it’s one of Their mags, I’m personally more into ‘Practical Poultry’ – now there’s a mag that really tackles the issues of the day).  Anyway reading between the lines it was clear that she hadn’t come first, merely in the Top 10, and would only have her story printed on their website (and we all know anyone can write on the web - Man, Woman or Beast eh!) so I’m not sure why she is so keen to bang on about it.  Still she’s pretty happy and was singing while she was sweeping which, although she hasn’t got the greatest voice, was more exciting than listening to TripleA’s attempts to play his drum using just his beak (teeeeedious).  She sung a lot of Adele, who is slightly over-rated in my opinion mostly because not one of her songs ever talk about birds.  The good news is she was in such a daze she fed us twice.  Get in.  Here we all are in the garden together (I’m the one walking off as she tries to tell me the same story for the 18^th time...)