Chickens and Baby Monitors...

Along with Mr. Oink, we also had many other animals. One memorable group of animals that we had, were the chickens. One day, Robby came home from work, built a pen in the back yard and told me he was buying some chickens. OK...I really didn't see a problem with that since my grandparents actually had a farm when I was growing up and had pigs and chickens and even a milk cow. How bad could it be to have some chickens? When Robby brought the chickens home, there were actually 12 of them. What I didn't know was that each of those 12 chickens would lay 1 egg a day...a dozen eggs a day! What in the world were we going to do with a dozen eggs a day? Was I going to be expected to set up a stand on the side of the road and sell eggs? My mother was worried that we all would develop high cholesterol. Hmmm...well, have eggs we did and plenty of them. My sister (who was the queen of purchasing annoying presents for my children) even bought my children some of those colored chicks for Easter that year. As most of you know, those little chick don't usually live very long past Easter (most likely due to the fact that baby chicks are not really supposed to be dyed). HOWEVER, ours DID all survive. And for those of you who have always wondered what happens if they DO live...I'll tell you. They ended up being white (after the dye wore off) and they got VERY fat. The fatness was mostly due to the fact that they did absolutely NOTHING but sit in the middle of the pen and eat all day. Yes, I said sit because they got so fat they could barely move. And they really had no purpose because they didn't even lay eggs either. BUT, back to the egg laying chickens. One day, we realized that there was one less chicken in the pen. Robby walked the fence line and found that apparently some wild animal had killed that missing chicken. Worried that more chickens would be lost, he went to a friend's house to borrow his hunting traps. He then lined the fence row with them. This seemed to be some pretty serious business. I found out just how serious it waw when I prepared to get in bed for the night. I heard this faint squawking sound..."Robby", I said..."What is that noise"? To my utter surprise, my dear, sweet husband had taken our baby monitors and strapped one to the headboard of our bed...and the other one to the chicken coop! "Why in the world did you do that?", I asked. He told me that he needed to know when that "wild animal" made his move (I suppose he was going to jump up and run out there...and do what?). Ok...this seemed a little strange to me, but also kind of made sense in a crazy sort of way. So, the traps were set, the monitors were on and we settled in for the night. RING...RING...Who could be calling in the middle of the night? It was my aunt who lived next door. "Robby, (she said in her nasally, whining voice)...I think you've caught a dog in one of those traps of yours and he's whining". Up he gets and lets the dog out of the trap (who, by the way, went straight to our garbage can, turned it over and promptly strowed the trash all over our yard). He came back to bed without any further excitement for the night. The next morning, another chicken was missing! Upon walking the fenceline again, we not only found our dead little chicken, but also the culprit...a skunk! The traps were left out for a few more days just to make sure that the skunk was truly responsible for the situation. This story just goes to prove that there really are more uses for ordinary item around your home (such as baby monitors) than you may think.