Tails and Tidings: The Ovoid of Life

 It is the end of winter. The migrating birds are migrating, the crocuseses are crocusing,  and the air is filled with the sound of squawking hens, and the neighbor, pounding on the back door, shouting, "Your dog got out and she's killing your chickens!"?

 Yep. I'm sad to write, last week started with our big, muddy, puppy giddily galloping around the yard, snapping our hens' necks with a playful snatch n' shake technique we dog owners recognize from any game of tug-o-war. The whole event was shocking, and left us mourning the ladies we loved so. There were five casualties, when all was said and done.

Silver Lining: In times of strife, you learn a lot about the people around you. We would have lost our whole flock that morning, if our neighbor hadn't come to alert us. Also, Zelda's victims were cleaned, plucked, and given to a family who really appreciated the free organic food, thanks to my friend and farm wife mentor, Tawnya. The most helpful thing any of us can have on a journey of learning is someone who knows what they are doing and is inclined to help. We are humbly grateful for the smart, kind people in our lives. They kept a bad situation from getting worse, and even made the best of it.  

Back to Bloody Monday: At first, I was thinking like a pet owner. My girls! No more would I giggle at the sight of Rosalyn's cheekpuffs, or marvel at Pilar's beautiful silver-laced feathers. Anya, known as Onion, was our successful attempt to bring a Buff Orpington into the mix, without having  her end up a rooster. Pippi, who came to us in a post-rooster backwoods-style chicken trade, and fancied herself in charge (although we all know Hot Sauce is running the joint.) And the lovely Vilma, Blue Wyandotte who classed up the yard with her distinguished demeanor. I was heartbroken that I didn't do a better job of keeping them safe.

Then I started thinking like a farmer. A hungry farmer, who hasn't paid more than $20 for eggs in the last year. Five birds left, but six egg-eating mouths. We'd like to get an egg per person, per day, so we'd need at least six chickens. You do the math. Unless the guinea pigs suddenly start laying, we're in need of more fowl.

So we got two new chicks, because you just never know.*

*Step one in the process of starting over: When planning for the future, factor in a little failure.**

**Since beginning to compose this blog post, right after getting the chicks, we also lost Hot Sauce, our Rhode Island Red. The despondency-turned-resiliency cycle that kicked in around here went by so quickly, I nearly scrapped this whole post to make a big lofty one about never giving up. Instead, I'll just say that here, quickly. Never give up. Not until you're dead. If you give up while you're living, your days after that will be miserable disfunction, even if they aren't chockfull of frustrating failure. A dream, burning within you, is your best fuel. It may never be realized, but you are better off  powered by that than hapless resignation for the rest of your days.R.I.P, Hot Sauce, you elegant backyard boss. 

 Yo, you just got a blog post in your blog post, dawg.

 Returning to the issue at hand, and the regular-sized font: This was supposed to be the first year in a few when we would skip the fun of bringing chicks home from the farm store, Sure, they are cuteness walking, and I love that spring around the corner means the cheeping of fluffy little baby birds, but we were at capacity, until last Monday, that is. So, after feeling sad for a bit, I redirected my energy, dusted off the heat lamp and the tiny feeder I made years ago, and set up a brooder (a good place for chicks to stay warm during their first few weeks.)

Chicks need warmth, but they also need their area to have a cool spot. This is because they need to be able to find the right spot that's just the right temperature. During the day, the temperature around them fluctuates, and they will keep the all-important correct body heat level if given freedom to move from one temperature to the another. This is why they have a heat lamp focused on only one half of their cage.

The cage is the other thing. Usually, a high-walled container is ideal for a brooder, especially if it's going to have more than two chicks in it. I opted to put a high-walled area in the cage for them: an old basket with a door cut out of the side. They like to perch on it, and nap.

On the other side of the cage, we have the food, and grit, and water. The cool side of the cage is the best place for these things because the water can get murky under the warm light. I suspect all sorts of microscopic life forms might flourish in both their food and their water if it's warmer than necessary.

The sudden loss of most of our flock still makes me sad, but it's hard to stay that way when watching Parkour and Sasha, (Gold and Black Stars). Chicks are entertaining and engrossing. They're kind of reptilian, despite their eye-searing fluffy cuteness. Just like miniature chickens, they cock their heads, perch, scratch, preen their wing feathers and do battle: hilarious, wee warfare in which there is cranky peeping and tiny wing flapping. We call them our little dinosaurs.

They make me think of death and life. You usually see those terms reversed. Life, then death, right? But what if death is put first? Get out your mental pitchforks and help me turn this compost pile of ideas. Flip the cycle upside down and think of it that way, death almost seems like birth, because it gives way to what is next. As John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans." I agree with John, even when what happens while you're planning, is death. So, while I feel sadness at the unexpected end of something, it is me mourning a lost plan, and plans are just plans. They aren't life.

Life is waking up and stretching your wings. It's tunneling your way out of a boring place, to run free. It's sensing danger and acting instinctively to save yourself, even if you can't. It's sensing food and acting instinctively, to hunt. It's running and hiding in fear. It's running and hurting with glee. It's helping and comforting those around you shocked by a day's events. It's thinking of tomorrow, with your stomach. It's starting over and over again, and getting better at it each go-around. It's a flow of behaviors that continue as the organisms who carry them out cyclically appear and recede. People will always make plans, dogs will always chase things,  and chicks will always be cute, and welcome.

Tails and Tidings: Twisted again, try to keep up.

I was going to write an introduction of the all the animals we keep and clean up after, but the spirit of the holiday has overcome me. Besides, we're down one chicken. Hot Sauce started talking smack and I said to myself, "You know what? Maybe a little chicken tetrazzini would be just the thing for dinner tonight."
Oh, look at that, Hot Sauce! Somebody just cut off your head and feet! Whatcha got to say about that?

AprilFoolzJKLOL?

Not bloody likely! You may not eat chickens, but I feast greedily on meal worms and losers!

And, scene*

*No chickens were beheaded in the making of this blog post. They were, however, humiliated, and reminded that their owner is a dork. Maybe tetrazzini isn't a worse fate than that.

Tomorrow marks six weeks with our lovelies. They have gone from silky puffs of cheeping sweetness to big scratchy mottled pullets whose cheeps turn to hoarse clucks when they're startled, or thirsty, or peevish. We got them from the Urban Farm Store, in Portland, Oregon.

Here they are, waiting for me to finish cleaning their "cage". It's more of an "area", but I'm afraid that makes me sound like a "total slob", so let's go back to "cage". I've got tarps enclosing part of our laundry room. It contains them somewhat, but they could get out if they were really determined to do so; say, if someone forgot to dump and refill their water bowl after they meticulously packed it with shavings and feces. They'd cross the barrier, fashioned from crates, buckets, and a bag of goat feed, to find said owner, and cluck at her hoarsely.

So let's do a pullet line-up. Pullet is what you call a female chick when she's not cute anymore. That's just science.
Lenore is a Black Star, or Black Sex-Link. She is so-named because her gender is linked to her color. Males of her breed are brown. This is a great chicken for us because we knew from the get-go that she was a she. We're beginners in the world of chicken-keeping, and we have neighbors to think of. No roosters allowed. They are rumored to be prolific layers, so we have high expectations for Lenore. No pressure, girl. Just crank out enough high quality organic eggs to feed me and my enormous family. Think ovulatory thoughts.

You may remember Hot Sauce, from our prankery earlier. She's a Rhode Island Red and she's feeling much better than she looks. Not everyone has to be cute in the face, you know.

Candy is a Buff Orpington. She is starting to seek work as a model. She just looks so ideal. So chickeny.

I was saving the best for last. Cora, rocking the cheek puffs. She's an Ameraucana, has dark bluish gray feet, and will hopefully grace us with blue eggs. Most of the time, she can be found playing their drum (an overturned empty humus container) and touching up her eyeliner.

These girls will move outside in a month or so. I'm planting seeds for their outdoor yard: flax, vetch, clover and buckwheat. Geza is designing a two story coop/in-door yard out of an old kitchen table. Enticing, eh? Old kitchen table? What? You want to know more, don't you? You want to see pictures and squint at your screen and whisper "wow" to yourself, right? I know! Stay tuned!