The Heroic Chicken Named Cow

We've been chicken owners for over a few years now.  We started out with 5 chickens at our old house and when we moved to a house with more acreage, we kept adding more to our flock and I think we topped out near 20.  Every year, we kept adding more baby chicks, one new chick per kid adds up quick.  We usually loose some to hawks every fall, but that wasn't a huge deal, since we owned many.  Fast forward to this spring when we added our yearly new baby chicks. 
We get our new chicks from TSC or Family Farm and Home, it just depends on who has better selection.  This year we went for the Bantams (pretty little yard chickens) and 2 Americana's (they lay pretty blue or green eggs).  The kids get to name them, so this year we added chickens named, Dandelion, Candy, Pecky Leg, Skid steer, and Excavator (the twins named the heavy equipment names. Yes, they are their father's sons).  In the beginning they live in the garage in a box, and then as they grow we transfer them to a smaller coop, away from the bigger chickens, until their big enough to join them.  We've never had a problem in the past doing this, but then again the twins didn't play with them as much as this year either.  About a month ago, the kids came to tell me that one of the new chicks was dead.  Sure enough, she was dead in the coop.  The next day, they came to tell me that all the new chicks were dead.  Sure enough, they were.  A small window door on the top of the coop was left open, so that s how we thought that the chicken killer got in.  We didn't know exactly what critter was getting in there, but something was having some good chicken dinners.

Fast forward to this week, something was now getting our full grown chickens.  One here, one there, everyday there was a new chicken death to report.  Some of them were chickens we've had for a few years. 

The other night, Ross and I were watching TV in our basement family room.  We were just about to head to bed when we heard thunk, thunk, tap,tap, on our slider window.  We didn't know what animal would make this noise.  So Ross and I got up to look, and who was it?!?!  The chicken named Cow!!!!!!  It kept tapping the window and looking at us.  She was probably thinking, "come on you humans!"  As we open the slider we could hear squawking.  If you don't know much about chickens, chickens settle down for the night at dusk and they don't usually make any noise.  They perch in their coop and don't normally wander around the yard like Cow was.  We knew the chicken killer was out there.  Ross quickly got his gun and ran out to the coop.  I stood in the basement and watched through the window.  Sure enough, Ross was firing shots at whatever was in there.  When he got back to the house, he told me it was a big fat raccoon.  The raccoon ate 3 chickens and when Ross shot him, he was so busy eating eggs, he didn't even move when Ross opened the door.  Those poor chickens were squawking for quite a bit after the whole incident, it took them awhile to settle down again.

Chickens are known to not be very smart, but as you can see in this case, I beg to differ.  If it hadn't been for Cow warning us, we could have very well easily lost all of our chickens.  The next morning, to celebrate Cow's acts of  heroism, Leanne brought her up on our deck, and we gave her a strawberry.  Such a good and brave chicken!!!!

Our trip to the mall

Yesterday, Leanne had a birthday party to go to out in Jenison, so I decided to stay out that direction, instead of coming back home.  I took the other 4 kids to Rivertown Crossing Mall, since it's been a long time since we were there.  I think maybe over a year?!?!  If I did go, the kids didn't go.  Oh wait, I did stop in once this year with the twins, while the older ones were at school, but still, we don't go there often. 
It was lunch time, so I thought lunch at the food court sounded good.  I was the leader of my small pack, and we were walking through the tables at the food court to get to Subway.  I had just looked behind me, and we were all together, no one lagging.  I get in line with the kids at Subway, and I look to find only 3 kids, not 4 with me.  I started to search frantically with my eyes, because Reed was just with us seconds ago!  I looked toward the seating area, to no avail, just when I was going to go run and look, a lady said to me, "is this little boy yours?"  Breathing a sigh of relief and picking up my sweet Reed to hug him close, I thanked the lady.  Reed had a small tear drop out of one eye, and a little snail trail on his nose, it's the first time he's ever gotten lost and hopefully the last.  Thank you to the kind lady who helped him find his mommy. 
We ate lunch, uneventfully, at the food court tables.  I try to keep every ones sandwiches on a napkin or on the paper wrap from Subway.  Luke and Reed don't quite understand that even if the table looks clean, it just really isn't.  Sandwiches still end up on the table, without a barrier between them.  One can only try........  I found out that Clay can probably put away a foot long sub if I let him, and Allison can eat an entire 6 inches!!!!  I didn't expect that, because she is tiny, but that girl can eat! 
Allison needed to spend the last money to her name on earrings at Claires.  We don't have a Claires in Holland anymore, and when she found out that there was one at this mall, she all of a sudden had the need for new earrings.  She settled on a pair of dangling ice cream cone earrings, they are pretty cute for a little girl.
I wanted to go downstairs after we finished up at Claires.  We decided to use the escalator.  I mentioned earlier, it had been a long time since the older kids went to the mall and opportunities to use an escalator are few and far between.  I got Clay to hop on. The stair started to become a stair, and he was caught off guard with part of his foot on the stair, rising behind him.  He figured it out and stood on one step and held the rail as he went down.  Watching this scared Alli. It was her turn to go and she couldn't do it.  She got scared as she watched the escalator steps and just couldn't make herself jump on.   So there we stood at the top of the escalator holding up the line of people wanting to use it.  People were leaving to use the regular stairs at this point.  Allison asked if I could go down with her, but I couldn't because I had the twins and there wasn't enough room for all of us on one step.  A nice couple behind me asked if they could help.  I didn't know what to do, Clay was waiting at the bottom of the stairs and we were stuck at the top.  So I asked the couple if they could hold Allison's hand and get her down for me.  Alli was hesitant, but she quickly realized this was the only way for her to go down.  Off she went, holding the kind women's hand.  Then I somehow managed to get on with both boys holding my hands.  It's tricky if you can't hold onto the rail going down.  Thankfully, we all made it down in one piece.
We did a bit more shopping on the bottom floor and then it was time to go get Leanne from the birthday party.  We needed to go up to the 2nd floor again, but this time, we used the normal stairs with no complications.