Giant Cream Cake - I am on honeymoon and we got some bad news
Me and my husband eloped in January. We are not big party people so we just went to our local Church of England with two friends and his brother. Instead, we booked a two week honeymoon in Antiqua.
We inherited a flock of chickens we are very attached to from the previous owners of our house. They are what made us go vegetarian. We also have two dogs, four zebra finches and some koi fish. I work from home and come by four or five times a day to give them pets and treats on my way back from the bathroom. They all have super unique personalities and over the years I have bonded with all of them closely nursing them back to health from various illnesses. We did our best to predator proof the run but it is in an inopportune location in the garden. However, we have had the chickens for four years without issues. They also have a securely locking coop that opens way after dawn and before dusk. We thought they were safe.
A week into our honeymoon we get a text from our pet sitter that a fox broke into our run and killed nine of our chickens. The remaining five are injured and she’s taken them to the emergency vet. I am so grateful for her, she is an amazing pet sitter and I’m so sorry she had to experience this trauma. We immediately rebook our flight to come home early but it still takes two days to get home due to flight availability and it just being far away. While we are trying to get home three more died or had to be put down. I now have two left and one is doing badly so I’m currently taking her to the vet again. I’ll probably loose her too.
I’m really not ok. My husband is also really really not ok. I’m more action oriented in my grief so I’ve been busy taking care of our two remaining girls. I wasn’t able to cry the first two days, I was just frantically coordinating and trying to be there for him. We are building a small but super predator proof run for the remaining chickens which has given me something to focus on but I’m also getting really sad now. We watched Project Hail Mary on the way back in the airplane. It is a really good movie. We held hands and it helped a little bit. We’ve been saying “Words of great encouragement” which is what Rocky says to Grace during the movie to each other when it gets tough.
The cake is a ginormous cake my husband had ordered to the hotel room the day we got the news. He did not realise how big 12 inches are but we kept it in the fridge and we ate it when we were busy coordinating and took some on the plane so it turned out pretty helpful. I had some this morning but it is definitely not edible anymore now… The second picture is my favourite chicken Baby who we lost in the attack. She was very tiny even for her breed but super feisty. Her excitement noises were super unique and adorable. I miss her so much.
Edit: Just got back from the vet with the one of the two remaining girls that’s doing less well. Turns out the antibiotics we got from the emergency vet aren’t good for this situation. The bird vet says she’s pretty confident the new antibiotics can make her better. I might keep two of my ladies and they may get to keep each other.