King George has lost his mojo

King George was a very proud rooster standing tall with his chest pushed out and his tail feathers held high. He crowed each morning long before the sun came up, eager to start his day.

When he was finally let out of the coop each morning with the girls tagging along behind him, he would do his little morning dance and then spend his day watching and listening out for his girls, finding food for them and generally standing tall with enough crows throughout the day so that any roosters within hearing distance, knew he was boss. He loved life and he loved his girls.

Then something terrible happened. He started to lose his beautiful feathers! Beautiful rooster feathers lined the coop. Beautiful rooster feathers were all over the lawn. His beautiful neck and tail feathers were gone.

King George did not stand proud anymore. King George did not crow anymore. King George did not do his morning dance anymore. King George did not find food for his girls anymore. King George was sad. In fact he didn’t feel like a King anymore.

He was just plain old George who did not love life or his girls anymore. He was miserable and he was grumpy and all he wanted to do hide was hide in a bush and hope no one sees him.

King George had lost his mojo.

In case you were wondering

I have had backyard hens and my “chook” blog since 2012 and have loved every minute if it. Yes, both the hens and the blog.

In November 2013, my husband’s daughter and her 7 month old baby came to live with us, joined by her partner a few months later. I was struggling to manage my life and all of the additional stress that came with it.

Early one weekend morning in April, when I was lying there panicking and almost in tears, thinking of all the things I had to do that day, I made a very difficult decision to close two of my three blogs down. My blogs are a big part of my life and require energy and love and lots of time. If energy, love and time is not able to be given, then as far as I was concerned, I was not able to continue for myself or my readers.

A few more months have now passed and we have one less person living in the house. (We still have mum and baby, who is now a 15 month old toddler).  For some reason in the past few weeks, the grey fog that was surrounding me has lifted. Maybe I have come to terms with my new life, or maybe my tiny flock of backyard chooks has helped to lift me.

We are past the shortest day here in New Zealand and my chooks have started laying again and King George, my magnificent rooster, has most of his feathers and his mojo back.

When I closed my blogs down, I made them private. I did not delete them. I am sorry to my readers that I didn’t put up a post to explain what I was doing. I am now ready to start blogging again about my tiny flock but forgive me if the posts are a bit few and far between. I realise I would have lost most of my readers but maybe they will see my posts and start to come back.