Ever Wonder How Wars Start?

My friend, mother of three boys, had warned me, and I knew, but yet again have to be reminded of the power of group think, particularly males. Now, before you think I'm sexist, I will say that as a young girl, I might or might not have chipped away with a hammer at our fireplace mantel because it made shiny little rocks. I did not mean to be destructive. I was just focusing on the shiny rocks. So, I do have some insider information about how the mind of a child thinks, having remembered the brew-ha-ha my little destruction caused a the time, and how it didn't occur to me at all that what I was doing was wrong.

Still, boys have an even more powerful group think about destroying things than girls. Perhaps I am thinking of the time when certain boys used my hand-painted birdhouse gourd as a piñata? Nah. But they do have a tendency to do certain things they might not have alone.

I should have known right away, but I stood perplexed looking at the fence I use to contain the larger chickens. It is four foot high rabbit wire, which I had momentarily moved and wasn't using, but had every intention of using again. Perhaps a buck got stuck in it, and in his thrashing about, he bent all the poles and crushed the fence. Did someone drive the truck through the grass and smash it all to hell? What had happened? (See photo.) Really, I should have known.

I later learned that in my two hour absence, Lauren had come upon William and best-friend, "A" beating the fence to death with sticks. Why? I don't know. One of them hit it, and it was all out war from then on. Neither paused to ask why they were doing it, or if they might, just might ought not to be doing it. It just felt good to be beating the crap out of a fence.

And of course, upon questioning my son, it was not at all his idea or fault. Right. So, two little boys will help me straighten the fence one day. It would be today, but William had the foresight to develop a terrible cough and cold, keeping him indoors for the day and away from friends.

A day later, William and I passed a major construction site where they are removing a rock wall. The equipment is quite impressive. William said, "See, mom, that's why I want to be a 'struction worker. You get to destroy things." I guess I could look at the fence destruction as preliminary job training.

Chicken Notes:

Les and Bo, my two bantam sisters co-sitting on eggs, have to be made daily to eat and drink, or they won't. They'd die sitting on those eggs. Only one seems viable but it should've hatched by now.
I've been trying to integrate the three young chickens with Lester the Molester, pictured left, and his two old ladies. To do so, I've been free-ranging them to give them room to run. I'd love to catch Lester on video and will try to get it on the blog. Each morning when released, he runs as fast as his short little legs will carry him and he chases the young girls until with much squawking and carrying on, he "has his way" with her. It is a morning ritual. I feel sorry for the young girls, but it's just a fact of life for chickens and they might as well accept it: there'll be no roses and chocolates.

Now, the young rooster, for we have now heard him crow a feeble ur-ur-ur?, stands by and watches. We are hoping that he either has a stong sense of self-preservation (doesn't want to fight the experienced mean rooster over a bunch of girls) or he's still young, or both. He doesn't have spurs and well, you can see how he runs from the photo. We decided to call him "Clay".