An Outdoorsman’s Journal
By: Mark Walters
The Old Red Hen
Hello friends, This week’s column is basically about life, hobby farming, and being the president of two youth organizations and my favorite chicken ever!
Over the last nine days I have slept in my truck two nights, had four scheduled events for KAMO and NOAC, welcomed home Kai Chiaro for the summer, ran my bear baits, had the heart break of finding out that my daughter Selina cannot come home for vacation as she had transmission problems two hours after leaving Missoula, gardened as much as I could and prepared the beach that NOAC built for a summer of fun. Kai is Michelle’s daughter who will be staying here this summer as she has her old job back at a local restaurant/ice cream shop.
I have a flock of 16 laying hens and one rooster. The hens are 1, 3 and 7 years old (only one is 7). From October to April they are free roaming. I cannot let them be free during the garden season as they will tear up my gardens and also destroy my lawn. In the world of chickens, every day, generally in the late afternoon, the rooster breeds each hen.
This winter I noticed the 7-year-old hen was staying in the hen house, keeping her head in the corner all the time and getting pecked apart by the other hens. Over a period of time, I realized the cause. The Old Red Hen was not letting the rooster have his way any more. In January she started sleeping by my front door instead of the safety of the hen house, I made a nest for her, gave her very nice treats and every late afternoon she would come wobbling over to her nest. I would hold and pet her and she would rest easy.
By mid-February I had enough of watching the rooster punish her enough for not allowing him to have his way. I figured 15 hens was enough. Instead of April, I penned them up then.
The Old Red Hen went from a skeleton that could hardly walk to a very heavy chicken that had the run/waddle of the property. She is like clockwork; about sunset she hits her nest and sunrise she is up and at ‘em. I hold her like a kitten, and she loves me. When the Old Red Hen was 6 months old, Kai’s mom, Michelle and I were about as happy as a couple could be. Kai was in 7th grade and Selina was in her senior in high school. Probably the happiest year of my life. Now Selina is a biologist in Missoula, Kai is a “Razorback” down in Alabama going to school for nursing, like her mom, and Michelle is in heaven. Three years ago, the Old Red Hen was four, pretty close to the end of her laying life but the Queen of her flock and one by one her sisters passed away. Michelle and I had just purchased a new Polaris quad ATV so that we would not be breaking the law by riding on my 2013 which is not a Quad. Kai was working at the ice cream shop “on Highway 21”and as always, Michelle and I were running bear baits and always had our Tuesday night “date night.”
On June 15th, 2022, Michelle passed away unexpectedly from sepsis. Many lives were at least temporarily shattered. Michelle loved the chickens, and I am betting The Old Red Hen misses her.
The following March our swimming pool which Michelle also loved, disintegrated. I had had a pool for 22 years. Within a day I came up with the idea of building a pond. The pond has been the most physical and time-consuming project of my life. I named it Lake Matilda and the Old Red Hen enjoys drinking out of it.
That fall I harvested a large black bear at our favorite bear bait and a 6x6 bull elk on a solo hunt in Montana. No matter how bad the bugs were, how cold it was or how much she got beat up, “Matilda” always demanded to participate and was my partner in every adventure possible.
This was also the time that Necedah’s school administrator, who is my very close friend Tanya Kotlowski, talked me into starting an outdoor club for Necedah what would become NOAC. We have built an ice skating rink with lights, a beach with picnic area and this week we finished a first rate disk golf course. At each of these locations we hold events that are a lot of fun.
The Old Red Hen is as happy as she can be, Selina is coming home in three weeks, Kai is making money to exist during the school year, bluegill are about to spawn in the Lake Matilda and I’m thinking the perch already did. I have a bear tag and an elk tag, and my old saying is true as ever and that is, “no matter how rough things get, the sun always comes up in the morning.”
Plow forward! Sunset
Lake Matilda is a labor of love.
The Old Ren Hen is living a good life these days.
Walters puts in a lot of time in the spring and summer running his rototiller.
