Full Moon, Full Plates

The full moon worked its way through the clouds Monday evening until it finally freed itself from their grasp.  Although, every so often, a wisp or two of cloud would try to latch on and drag the moon back down to the horizon.  I knew their effort was doomed to fail because I've seen this play before.  The moon always finds its way, somehow, across the sky from East to West - even when we're not watching.  It's not until the moon has completed its journey across the sky that it willingly allows itself to float back down, until it feels called to make the circuit again.

I was more aware of the drama taking place in our early night-time skies than I might be other nights because Tammy and I were still outside doing some farm tasks at a time when the sun had clearly gone to bed and the moon was taking the place of prominence in the skies of our world.  This is the way things are when you must deal with animals on the farm - you can't always do what you need to do in the light of day.

Monday night's task was to move the adult laying hens from the Poultry Pavilion to the portable hen house we call the "Summer Cottage."  You can see the shed-like building on wheels in the middle left of the picture shown above.  

Much of the preparation for this move occurred earlier in the day or over the weekend.  The destination pasture was cleaned up and area that would have the electric netting was mowed short enough so it would not short out the fencing and render it useless.  The charger was tested, straw was put into the Summer Cottage and we did various other things that always seem to need doing before the birds are actually moved.

We then wait until dusk to transport the birds from one home to the other.  The hens come back to their room to roost and the farmers walk in and grab them - two to four at a time - and carry them from one building to the other.  Hens are much easier to catch when they are sleepy.  Even after a little disturbance, it does not take them long to roost again and make it fairly simple for one of us to catch and move them.

Except for a few birds.  There are always a few birds that defy the process and make it very tempting for both farmers to utter some choice words.  

Words like... SOUP...  CHICKEN SOUP...  

For some reason those words never have the desired effect, so we just keep doing what we have to so we can corner the last of the birds and get them in the Summer Cottage.

Once all of the birds (except one who escaped our grasp, but may not have escaped the raccoons later that night) were in the portable building, the farmers towed the Summer Cottage to the prepared pasture.  Once the tractor was out of the way, we set up the electric netting (fencing) and connected the charger.

Now the farmers can nod at the moon one more time before they, too, head for their house - hopefully to roost after taking a nice shower.  A job completed by moonlight - or completed enough - the rest can wait until the sun has swapped places with the moon.