Moving in: right on time

Well, the timing was very tight, but I trusted in myself, my partner, our new intentional community mates, and our larger network of support to work together to help us move ourselves and our chickens to Woodsy Way Farm.  We’ve been putting in a lot of work to get things ready over the past few weeks, and in part that work has helped to establish and strengthen that trust.  It was really beautiful to see how well things worked out in the end.

Emily and I had reserved a moving truck for Friday.  We wanted to move some furniture and some key items over, and then be able to focus our energy on Woodsy Way tasks going forward.  But in order to do that, we also needed to move our chickens to Woodsy Way, and as of the beginning of the week, their coop was unfinished and we needed to medicate them with a de-worming treatment.

Emily, Thexalon, and I put in very full days doing construction work on both Wednesday and Thursday; Steven and Lorna plugged in after they returned from their already long days at work.  We were close—in striking distance—but not quite done.  Lorna had ordered the medication, but we weren’t quite sure when it was going to arrive.  Friday: Emily and I collaborated smoothly to finalize things for the move, then our friend Amar and my dad and my brother arrived to help us move.  We were able to get things loaded, moved, and unloaded quickly.  We learned that Lorna had obtained the medication!

On Saturday we were able to use the moving truck to drop off at the dump (sorry: waste disposal facility) some legacy trash that had been, er, dumped at Woodsy Way, and then we returned to Cleveland Heights with a few items for the house there.  Emily departed for a regenerative farming workshop while Lorna and I medicated the chickens.  They cooperated pretty well with that, and I was grateful for how that process went!  We needed to let the medication work, so we had to isolate them for a day; after that, they would need to be moved, otherwise they risked re-contracting the parasites.  Lorna and I headed back to Woodsy Way for an evening of work, after which the coop was still not quite finished.

So, Sunday!  Lorna and I met back up with Emily, we went to church, and through it all Emily seemed to be feeling anxious and unhappy.  Things were getting tight, we were sad about leaving our housemates in Cleveland Heights, and Emily had started a fast from coffee!  In the early afternoon, we worked to clean things up around the house, then we loaded up the chickens in the car and drove out to Woodsy Way.

We got right to work.  Steven helped me enclose a temporary run with a fence, Emily and Lorna draped it with netting to protect the girls from raptors, and I worked on installing a door and a roost.  The chicken home was ready, right as Steven announced that he had prepared some fun experimental foods.  We gathered together and released the chickens into their new home!  We were worried about putting a lot of stress on the hens, but they immediately started nibbling grass, prospecting for bugs, and exploring the coop.  It was so satisfying to watch them; Steven had to cajole us back inside for dinner… which was delicious and amazing, as working with this community has been amazing!

Credit (with my gratitude) goes to Emily Rainbowface for the photographs; she published more of them in a photo essay over on Facebook.