Ang.’s Chicken Coop

We have lived in this house for 13 years as of last month. I remember like yesterday when we moved. Clint was 19 months old and Jasmine was 3 months old. It was HOT and humid and we moved into a dirty house. And I was working and I was stressed and I just remember not being happy for those first few months. But things settled into a routine and the house was finally clean and unpacked. We had a lot to discover that first year. What sort of plants would bloom in the spring, where does the snow drift in the winter, just why does that back corner smell like a sewer (that was NOT a good answer) and why do we keep finding crayfish (crawdads) in our yard?

There weren’t too many plants that first spring, a few crocuses, some surprise lilies and grape hyacinths, a forsythia and a star magnolia. And of course the 101 irises all in one color. We have added some every year but there is still a lot of bare spots.

The snow drifts in front of the garage (oh, so handy) and at the end of the driveway (again, handy). It also goes across the sidewalk and along the north side of the house. We really haven’t had too many times that we have been snowed in here. Just once or twice. But it doesn’t take much snow to fill in the end of the driveway or block you in the garage. So that has happened on numerous occasions.

The far back corner smelled like sewer because that is where our septic drained to. Drained as in there was no tank, just a tile that went from the house to that corner. The tile was made of compressed tar paper and was probably installed in the 1940’s. A year after we moved in that tile broke and we started to get toilet paper and other “goodies” floating up in the pasture. We had a new septic system installed and that corner dried up and smells like…well like it isn’t a sewer.

And those crayfish kept ending up in our yard. And I would find their little mud towers in our garden and in the back yard. So I did some research and found that they don’t need employment screening. They only need a hole that has water in the bottom of it and they can live anywhere. Apparently there is water close enough to the surface here that they can survive in our yard. In fact, there have been a lot of mud towers in our yard this year,

Despite the towers, I haven’t actually seen any crayfish. No, I take that back. I found one that was missing a claw.

We have learned a lot about this place of ours and today it truly feels like home. Its not just a place we are living at the moment it is home.