Country Living (warning:chicken death scene)

* I read a statistic today that half of rural dwellers don't have smart phones. Well, of course not, because we don't have reception, so why bother? I have what you might call a "nearly nonfunctional smart phone." My phone has an IQ of slightly above average. 101 IQ points. 

* We had a mean little chicken. She was very little. She looked like a little brown dove, but so mean. Every day, when I went out to feed her, she would peck at me. She jumped up and pecked my legs over my boots. I couldn't stand it. Every day! Pain! Finally, Thursday morning, I grabbed that little chicken by the neck and put her in a cage. I had things to do. I left her there. Later in the day, I got my big knife, the one Grandpa Alvin gave me (he was a chef at Mel's drive in in San Francisco.) I asked Z (age 8), "would you like to witness a brutal murder?" 

"Well," she said, "Yes. Yes, I would."

And so she did. 

We went out to the killing tree. The day was warm. The cone was ready. I had to pick my way through the poison parsnip through to the cone. I had the chicken by the legs. I put her in the cone, but she was too small. I apologized before I slit her throat. As I returned her to the karmic cycle, head thrown to the bushes, she slipped through the cone, and headlessly bounced around the grass. Cloudy the sheep came to take a look. Cloudy has four giant horns. Cloudy said,

"Bah." (What else would he say?)

Z said,

"Can I touch the dead chicken?"

"Yes," I said, "But I think it might move."

She walked up to it, and it did move, headless though it was.

"Wow," she said.

"You know," I said, "there is a saying, 'don't bite the hand that feeds you.' That chicken won't be biting me, any more."

* Z (age 8) will be showing our sheep, Candy Darling, at the county fair. Every day, we walk out and catch that silly little sheep, and Z puts it on a leash and walks it around the pasture, practicing for her fair presentation. I have never even watched a sheep at a county fair, but every day, Z asks me questions, and I have no answers. I do have some faith, however, in the goodness of a girl and her favorite sheep.  Are blue ribbons in order? Perhaps not. But, you know, you have to spend your time doing something. Why not walk a sweet little sheep around in circles?  Our sheep are so rare, we have to be in the "exotic animals" category. 

New Chicks!

We got the "Choice Layers" mix from McMurray Hatchery. (Let's hope their "choice" isn't to not lay eggs!)

I'm pretty sure this one is a Polish Hen, (the kind in the coloring contest). That wasn't supposed
to be one of the choices, but I'm not complaining! They are cute, and nice, actually- the coloringcontest picture is entirely fictional. We can't keep them alive at our farm, though, because they like to wander off, far away from shelter, and that poof on top of the head blocks their vision, and the flying predators eat them. But, hey, we'll try again with this one-
and the other two they sent. (Look at my fine lady hands! :) My hands are so beautiful. I just host tea parties.)

Cute as can be, but too fast to catch on film.

The Imposter

What's going on here? I've been seeing wild birds a lot in the chicken coop, warming up and eating the chicken feed. I don't mind. Whatever gets you through the winter. Then today, I was mindlessly collecting eggs (I'm a practitioner of mindlessness) when I noticed we have an unusually small egg: 

Is that a cowbird egg? (I think cowbirds lay eggs in other birds' nests and let the other birds raise their young.)

We don't have any miniature chickens, and all of our chickens are way too old to lay practice eggs. 

 

John Francis (Wheatbread Johnson)

Would this be called Chicken Pox?

Meta Snow Zombie Chicken

Three Weird Things About This Chicken:

1. Our chickens don't normally go for walks in the snow unless the temperature is above freezing- and it isn't.

2. Chickens usually go for a walk as a flock, with the rooster checking things out ahead if the girls. This one is all alone.

3. A few days ago, one of the chickens died while sitting on an egg. She seemed frozen solid. I guessed that she didn't get up to eat or drink, because she thought the egg would freeze. I put her body outside in the snow. Her body is gone, and this chicken looks exactly like that chicken. 

She followed me all the way to the house, so I gave her some old bread crusts. I'm thinking of naming her Lazarus. 

The Birthday Presents Have Started Arriving

Thanks, Dad.

You're jealous. I can tell. 

It's what everyone needs. 

Chickens Line Dancing

So sunny and above freezing! Let's do a dance. Line up. Face away. 

Now form a circle.

Dosey do!

Okay, let's take it from the top, girls!

New Chickens! Just Hatched.

Two chicks hatched last night! We just removed them from the incubator, and I took a little movie of them. Little Z named them "Cheepsickle" and "Muffin." (I'm glad she chose food names...)

We incubated 23 eggs, so we're hoping these are just the first two of many.

Chick

Looking at pictures of this last year, I came across this little dude:

“Look into the eyes of a chicken and you will see real stupidity. It is a kind of bottomless stupidity, a fiendish stupidity. They are the most horrifying, cannibalistic and nightmarish creatures in the world.”

-Werner Herzog

P.S. After the first comment, I thought I should clarify: I love chickens. It's just a crazy Werner Herzog quote. He said the same thing about me in 1987.

Free Chicken Food: A Photo Montage

The Singer Goes Mute

This rooster of ours (Rosie Junior) crows so much that I'm seriously considering making him for dinner. As soon as I turned the camera on, though, he stopped crowing. And so I tried crowing, so he would follow my example.

New Chicks Arrived Today! So Sweet...

Are you my mother?

A few days ago, I had my friend Amelia over with her dog Henny Penny. We were taking a picture of Amelia to enter into this contest. [She was like, "Do you want to wrap me in plastic and make me up like a dead Laura Paulmer and take my picture?" and I was like, "HELL, YEAH I WANT TO WRAP YOU IN PLASTIC AND MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A DEAD LAURA PAULMER AND TAKE YOUR PICTURE! THAT IS DEFINITELY MY IDEA OF A GOOD TIME!"] This is the picture I took of Amelia to enter into the Twin Peaks contest:



Yes, this is what we do for a good time in the country.

Meanwhile, Henny Penny the dog was running around, enjoying farm life, and bit one of our chickens on the butt! Amelia was really, really apologetic. The hen was bleeding just a little bit, and really freaked out, so I put her inside the barn with our four little two week old chickens, thinking she wouldn't get hurt anymore.

Now, the hen is feeling better, but she has another sort of pain in the butt:



The little chicks think she is Mama. She is so annoyed, always trying to run away, but there's nowhere to go. Her life is changed forever.

Meanwhile, Henny Penny nearly poked her eye out while playing frisbee, and now Henny Penny must wear the cone of shame:



It's that instant karma, Henny Penny. It'll get you every time.

Went to Chicago for a day...

And we came back to a whole lot of chicken eggs! Look at the size variation between the different ages and breeds. 

Tree Dweller

This is that crazy chicken who always runs by me and screams. She has been living in the rhubarb patch- the other chickens don't let her stay in the coop with them. Poor thig. And now, tonight, she has perched in this tree outside our back door. I've never had a tree dwelling chicken before. I hope this works out for her. The only problem is that she still seems to scream at us a lot, and now she's right outside the door. 

Psychic Chickens

Last night, the younger flock of chickens, who roam free, would not go inside. They preferred to stay low in some tall grass. I finally caught them all and put them into their rather flimsy coop, but it wasn't easy.

I said, "God natt, sov gott," and went to sleep in the second story bedroom of our house.

I slept like a person who sleeps well through life-changing weather events. (I could say I slept like a baby, but babies wake up a lot in the night and cry.)

In the morning, BAH got an email that said something to the effect that if he had planned a meeting in a certain meeting room at his work, he needed to find a new venue because the meeting room was destroyed by a tornado last night. And then it turns out there was more than one tornado. So, I slept through multiple tornados. When I was a baby, we lived right next to a highly frequented railroad line. It was sort of like that scene in the Blues Brothers where they go home to their flat. Or so I imagine. And ever since then, pretty much my whole life, I can sleep through anything.

I do remember some flashes of light last night, vaguely.

BAH has this new eye mask, which blocks out the summer light here in the Great White North. He did not see lightning due to the eye mask. I originally thought he said, "iMask" and that I was out of touch with new Apple products. So, he slept through it all, too. Little Z saw the lightning and went back to sleep.

All in all, the chickens would have been safer from tornados in that little place where they wanted to stay. The chicken coop is high up and flimsy. But it did not fail. Also, the hops poles stayed up. Yay!

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Not to change the subject, but we seem to have a chicken with mental health issues. More on that later.

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Tonight: floods predicted! Yay!

Perhaps next week a swarm of locusts or an army of frogs will descend upon us. And everything will be fine.

******

I'm sorry I haven't been writing the Paris book. It's too much work here in Spring. And there's an art show, soon! I must paint pictures. Perhaps I shall paint a picture of the chicken with mental health issues, because I have trouble describing it in words, the way it looks at me when it runs by, screaming, with those blaming eyes. Animals don't usually judge. Have you ever noticed that? But I'm quick to judge them. Here I am, calling a chicken crazy.

********

Good night, friends, and may you always sleep through tornadoes and awaken unharmed.

Early Birds

These chicks weren't due to hatch until tomorrow, but they hatched yesterday. They are literally early birds. No worms yet, though.

Fashion Is A Chicken On Your Head

I love this chicken. He's new to us. We named him, "Mo."

I was thinking that, now that I am forty, I should maybe stop wearing shirts with words on them, but how else would you know that that's my shirt?

Mary the Flying Chicken

You know what I like? I like the feeling of that little burst of wind you get when a bird flies just over your head, and it makes your hair move a little, and you hear that SHWOOSH!

She flew over my head, just after I took this picture. Mary the flying chicken.

Chicken on Top of the Turkey Coup

She feels safe up there. 

In the morning, she'll fly back down to be with her friends in the chicken coup. She's an exceptional flyer. She's one of the chickens who came back to life under the heat lamp, after freezing to death. Got up just like a little zombie.

I do love my chickens.

Our barn has many spider webs and transportation devices hanging from the ceiling. 

Think I'll name her ... Mary?