Category: death

Backyard, chickens, Cochin, death, eggs, gardening, homesteading, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, killed, Olive egger, Urban

The Loss of Backyard Friends.

Olof

I knew when I took on having backyard barn animals that at some point I would have some sort of loss. That something would get one of my ladies or that they would get sick or something. But my last month of experience really threw me off of my rocker.

Several weeks ago I went and got new chickens. The Cream Legbar that I had was laying white eggs instead of the blue that she was supposed to be laying and the breeder was nice enough to get me another pullet that would for sure lay blue eggs. While there, 2 more pullets followed me home. There was a cross between a Cochin and a Road Island Red and a Maran/Cream Legbar cross. The Cochin I named Sweety Pie because that is exactly what she was and the Maran mix I named Heidi because she just seemed like a Heidi to me. 3 days in to having them the Cochin was killed by something and it ate her head and left the rest. Two weeks later the Cream Legbar (which I named Stinky because she smelled so bad on the way home) had gotten caught on a neighbors fence and been there for some time and when I got her down she died shortly after. It was really sad. I hated that she had gone through that. The temp was over 100 that day and she hung upside down, for God knows how long, before we found her. I feel so horrible about that. I just thought she was in the shade somewhere in my backyard. Then only a few days after that Heidi starts looking a little lethargic but still spunky when I got close to her one day and only hours later I walk out and find her dead with her legs int he air. Having never lost a chicken before I was shocked. All 3 different ways. My other girls are fine. No problems there for over 18 months. Have you ever had a sting of bad luck like that?

Sadly, due to not wanting to invite carnivores to come hang out in our backyard, I had to put their bodies in the landfill. That brought on guilt too. If you have chickens how do you deal with your carcasses when there is a loss?

death, heart attack, Iceland, sudden., women

Wondering how something like this could happen….

Olof
I sit here on my couch in total disbelief, great sorrow and thinking that I should be waking up from this nightmare. I can’t eat and it feels like the elements that make up my body are shaking. Sleep eludes me and anything that I eat makes me feel sick. I  have cried more in the past 2 days than I have in a lifetime.

Friday evening my mother and father had my sisters over for dinner in their home in Iceland where they all ate a beautiful dinner together and laughed and talked. The weather was wonderful and at 11pm when my sisters said goodbye to my mother and father they were smiling and waving and marveling at all the trees they had planted on their property in Iceland. My mother had been complaining about an ache under her shoulder blade and up the side of her neck but not anything that really worried anyone.

At 2am my mother has a fatal heart attack in her home and my father tried his best to revive her until help came but even with help there was no bringing her back. My mother was gone. Taken too soon at only 68 years of age and way too quickly. I get the call about her having had a heart attack before they knew if she was really gone or not. They were still working on trying to bring her back for over an hour. It was honestly the longest 30 minutes that I have waited. That time where you still hold the hope that maybe, just maybe everything will just be fine but you know that your life will change forever if they are not OK:

That night I lost my mamma. I lost the greatest woman that I have ever known in my whole life. I lost the role model that showed me what it was to be a woman, a wife and a mother.

Now here I am in Tulsa trying to make it home. Wanting to bring my family of 5 with me but it costing over $7000 US dollars if I do. My passport is also expired and my 9 month old doesn’t even have a passport. As I try to make the decision to put my family in such financial hardship to use up ALL of the money we have put aside for an emergency to pay for our mortgage and food if needed and start putting charges on our credit cards and take the whole family or have only me and the 9 month old go and leave my poor 3 and 5 year old with my husband’s parents for over 2 weeks. That is a VERY long time for a 3 year old that recently became the middle child and needs his mamma. My heart is aching over this.

 As this all happened on at the beginning of the weekend I have not been able to talk to anybody about my passport issue or try to find out if there is a way to get get reduced tickets because of the circumstances. At the moment I could use a fairy god mother since neither me or my husband come from family that have money. We support ourselves and are our back up so we have to be careful about keeping a roof over our heads and our children fed.

Wish me luck in trying to make these decisions and get my passport issue taken care of. Of course if you have more money than you need and would like to donate to the fund. I would not say no at this point.