This is Girl Person. So to continue from last week…this time, I will get right to the point.
We had sold our house. It was done. A done deal. No turning back. And yet, wow. We had a lot to do. So much to do in fact that it was hard to be emotional. We had to get our kids taken care of and that was top priority. There wasn’t enough time to find a house in California that would take all of us temporarily until we found permanent residence. There wasn’t enough time to immediately buy a house 2000 miles away. And who would rent to us with 3 chickens? What were we going to do?
We had to get the chickens first to safety. First, a chicken coop had to be built. If you know Boy Person, he is a perfectionist and the coop at our house wasn’t going anywhere with 3 foot of fence in the ground in cement. So before we even started packing, we got to work on a new coop. We planned to take our featherkids with us to California, no matter what that entailed, but first we had to get us all somewhere temporarily. Our business plan was in place for our treats, but now the kids. The coop. And we built it. We had a friend who said we could put a coop on his property and we could live there too before heading to California. This was falling into place. We thought we had it all covered. So we loaded up the coop on the trailer and it didn’t fit. Huh. Should’ve thought of that first. So we drove the 30 miles to our friend’s property at 30 mph. I believe it took ten years off my life.

Once we got the coop to its new location, we started trying to “train” the chickens into getting in a dog crate. This took weeks until finally Rooster Man said ok. We were feeling confident we could do this. We got back to packing. And we prepared for the exit of our lifelong home.
They say real friends help you move. And wow, did they. Real friends and family also help you move chickens. We loaded them for transport the night before closing.

They were scared. Real scared. They cried and paced and it was heart wrenching. We only had 30 minutes of driving, but it was enough for us all. By the time we arrived, it was dark, their new coop was all set up and I lifted Rooster Man and the girls out of the cage.
Why did I think this was going to be easy? I was moving them from the only place they had ever known and they were so scared. Big, tough Rooster Man cried and I cried and I cursed myself for putting us all through this. What was I thinking? We got them “tucked in” for the night and had to drive right back to finish packing. We worked through the night literally and I was covered in mud, dirt, chicken feathers and tired. Real tired. We had taken Brickle and Digby to their favorite sitter’s house. I didn’t want them to see the moving truck and think we were leaving them. I didn’t want them to be stressed, and thought they should have a literal vacation from this madness.
So here we were. Chickens safe. Dogs safe. Standing alone in our house and ready to shut the door for the last time. I sat on the floor and cried. And prayed. And cried. And prayed. Should I change my mind? Boy Person looked at me. I looked at him. And we said not a word out loud.
I went to the blackboard I had left on the wall and simply wrote “Welcome home. Enjoy the gopher turtles”. That. Was. All.

It was a normal Thursday for everyone else. For me, the end of the world. We drove to the title office. I threw the keys on the table, signed my name and that was it. How was it this easy? I felt generations of my family upon me. Letting them down. Was this going to work out for us?

We left and drove straight to the chickens. There they were.

And they were happy to see us. I cried again going on no sleep for 48 hours. And all I wanted was to sleep. We stayed with my family for a few days until we could rest. And then, the night before I was to get Brickle and Digby from the sitter, the deluge of all deluges rained down upon us. And right into our temporary rental. So huh. This was totally not working out. And it was killing me not to tell our fans in real time what was going on.
-to be continued tomorrow…
Girl Person