Poor Chickens! Poor Cats! Poor Dead Dog Walking! Poor Fish! Poor Woodchuck! Poor Pouf!

We're off to Disney World in the morning, our annual trip.

Just so you won't feel too envious, the Dude says unfortunately, it's going to be full-blown summer temps there this week. We go in May to avoid that. Oh well. E is still excited. And I think I've remembered to pack both the camera and the uploader-thingy. Next entry from D-World.

Frog Out

We interrupt this blog to bring you a very important message. Today is International Respect for Chickens Day. We would like all of you to consider eating red meat or no meat at all today. And we would like you to feed us bread crumbs. Oh, and we would like to run around free for a while this afternoon...


http://www.upc-online.org/spring08/irfcd.html

That is all.

Walkabout and the Girls Out

Ok, so this is excruciatingly boring to all but a few. Footage by bicycle from last July when I was at Taos Toolbox because otherwise the Dude's black wagon wouldn't be in the driveway along with my brown one. Two miles of very, very slooooooow footage. Questions answered in comments or by email.

( slow video )

She seems to be doing better. If she were going to keel over, it happens quickly with chickens. One day they're walking, the next they're pushing up daisies.

Thanks for all the heartfelt outpourings of affection for Walkabout and her people. Thanks especially to mount_oregano for her wonderful post of the Running Chicken Nebula. So nice to know that the heavens take care of chickens, too.

Walkabout began to eat bread as offered. In fact, she is the only chicken who will take bread out of my hand as she sits on the roost. I tried this to make sure she got a special share of E's crusts each morning. Especially as she seemed to have difficulty getting down off the top rung. The first day she was not as piggy as she usually is, but she was willing to eat. The past couple of days, she's been her usual piggy self about the crusts. Tomorrow morning I may try letting her out again. When I originally posted about her not feeling well, I had let her out, even carried her to the house, but she just walked back down to the barn again and stood there. It broke my heart to watch her slowly walking back.

Meanwhile, we had more than 4 inches of rain. And all at once, the hole we call a vernal pond had water in it again. And our peepers and frogs woke up. This has made Walkabout Farm a happy place. We love our frogs, toads, and assorted other beasties. After all, if the tree frogs aren't happy, I won't see the birdhouse frog this year. The cacophony is incredible. It's nothing at all like hearing it coming from acres away in the swamp across other properties. It's so in-your-face when it's right in your yard. Most people don't like the sound. It's so beautiful to us, a constant symphony of different calls. They're making up for lost time because they're a good six weeks late. Good luck to them. We'll need more rain for the tadpoles to survive to maturity. Fingers crossed.

Frog Out

Walkabout is clearly subdued. The Dude, upon reading my post yesterday, affirmed that she has been quiet in the evenings, was still in a box Tues night. It's possible she has an egg that she can't seem to lay. She's moving like a ship under sail, stately, slowly. Her head is more erect today, which is good. She gets down off the perch, but she was already hunkered down when I put the girls to bed last night. (The Dude has now acquired E's cold while recuperating from his other, work-related, cold.)

On the plus side, there were three old girls still on the top rung this morning. The other two had no idea what I was offering them, special access to the crusts from E's sandwich. But Walkabout knew. And she graciously accepted the treat, ate from my hand. Not quite as greedy as usual, but with appetite. Later she was drinking outside. These are good signs.

Frog Out

Edited to add:
WriterGuy G has arrived and asked whether there is a patron saint of chickens. Apparently, there is. A St. Gallus, who left Ireland for the continent in the 6th century and ended up in Switzerland. So along with St. Bernard, the Swiss have St. Gallus, of the canton of Gallen. Apparently his name means "rooster."

This morning one of the six remaining old girls is moving very slowly, head tucked in. With chickens, this is not a good sign. She responded to bread as a treat, got off the roost, but is showing a preference for standing in the strong morning sun.

It is, I hesitate to say, The Great Walkabout. When civilization as we know it has collapsed under its own weight and we huddle around makeshift campfires in the wasted wilderness, bards will yet sing her story to wondering children and adults alike.

Frog Out

A very peaceful day, the 15th. Traditionally, that's how it should be. In fact, it usually ended with a major blowout party when I worked for Arthur Andersen. But little happens on the 15th. I spent my weekend answering stray questions designed to freak me out that something was wrong with a return, mostly on Saturday. Something like this IM:

Client: Should I be paying self-employment tax?
Me (panic mode as I try to find client's file): No...is the return showing any?
Client: Nope, just asking.
Me (sigh of relief as adrenal flow quickly shuts down): ok
Client: well, it's all just fruit to me so I'm trying to think up intelligent questions to ask as I review it.

I was up til midnight putting the final touches on my own return, always the first one drafted and last one completed. I needed the Dude's signature before he left for work, of course. So when I got up, it was to coffee and writing. Ah, writing. Wow. How I missed you, even the non-fiction stuff I'm doing.

The chickens were peaceful too. All the little ones have started laying, we think, based on the sudden increase from 1-2 eggs per day to 6-8 and 9 today. That was 6 from the little ones and 3 from the big girls. Egg cartons are beginning to fill in the fridge.

A client called a few minutes ago. I almost skipped the call since E was already going to bed, but I went and checked the message. Last minute panic attack over a login that wouldn't work. Worked fine for me so I fixed the problem and now I truly believe we're done for the season. Two on extension, but completely mitigating circumstances.

Oh and that cold with fever The Dude had? It hung on for a week. I managed to avoid that by sleeping elsewhere. Then E came home from school with your normal stuffed up nose cold, the kind I really hate. I dodged the one bullet but not the other. Finishing the last week of work with a head cold was a pain in my rear. I felt all fuzzy headed and worked at about half my normal speed. I'm still a bit stuffed up, but soooo much better than two days ago.

So that's why I've been offline. I've been sort of keeping up with the f-list, but now I'm behind a few days.

Frog Out

I am so watching "The Stunt Man" in ten days.

"How tall was King Kong?" keeps running through my head as I work.

God I love that movie.

Frog Out

Well, safewrite is a new grandma. Not in any way to diminish her new role, which is very cool and I'm very happy for her, but I sort of feel like a grandma myself.

It doesn't really fit in the carton, but it's cute.


Here it is, flanked by the super-jumbos our girls lay. They often don't fit in the carton either, but for a different reason.


Basically, it's currently too cute to eat. And no, it won't hatch. Weatherdude is the only rooster allowed on Walkabout Farm.

Frog Out

We have been here almost six years now. Five years ago, we asked the neighbors who breed Herefords on their 20 acres (that block us from the main road) if they would mind if we dug out a weedy, poison-ivy, scraggy, hedgerow along their fence line and replaced it with, well, forsythia. They didn't mind. The previous owners of our property were the ones who let the fenceline deteriorate. The Dude and my dad spent the late fall and early winter digging out the hedgerow completely. Weekend after weekend of work.

My father is a mad gardner who thinks BIG. Really big. Our ten acres is about right for his scope. That first spring, my father and Weatherdude planted 100 sticks 3 feet apart because forsythia was a plant we could all agree on. The next spring they planted another 100 mail-ordered sticks. Dad watered and loved and we put cow manure (from the neighbors pile) onto some of these sticks. Each spring he and I have trimmed these "sticks" after they bloom, which is the correct time to prune them.

We have begun to realize his vision...was he mad or a visionary? ( judge here, with photos... )

Yesterday was a bit too exciting for this time of year. It started when I woke up with a painful knot in my right shoulder. Gee, I guess it's less than two weeks to the 15th.

The Dude is home with a sore throat, cough, low-grade fever. Gee, let's not catch that in the final two weeks before the 15th. (Though I do hope it isn't serious, I'm not that unfeeling.)

And it ended with a chicken taking off in the coop a bit too high and landing on my head instead of my shoulder. I think I'll wash my hair.

Frog Out

There are still 16 hens, six old girls and 10 newbies. The newbies are still being hazed. Which is to be expected, I guess. I expect humans to rise above the cycle of hazing, but it's a bit much to expect similar noble behavior from chickens.

The Dude has taken it on himself to remind the old guard exactly who is Top Chicken in this part of the world. There can be Only One Rooster. Almost thirty years of living with The Dude and he is still boyish about animals. It's part of his charm, that he insists on mucking in animal behavior and that animals like him, accepting his outrageous interference. Me, I'm an observer of nature in situ.

Tax work proceeds. I've killed my right hand's tendons 10-keying by touch. They burn.

Rapping aggressive hens on the beak to make them stop pecking little ones has an effect. The brightest little ones want to ally themselves with The Top Chicken.

The Dude had a nasty sore throat yesterday, so he is definitely looking peakish in the following photos.

For more, see the cut...
( photos! )

Thank goodness for boring days without incident. Sixteen girls this morning, no stomach heaving, though it was touch and go when I went down there. It takes courage to turn on the light. Or rather, you have to send your emotions to a distant place, send your awareness away, just so you can cope with whatever the light reveals.

Yesterday, G* came by on his way to work when I called to tell him we lost another young one. He sees his egg source slipping away, he does. G spent about half an hour putting new fence over holes in the chicken wire attached to the roof of the coop, nailing on a board or two. When The Dude got home, he put more boards on spots he knew had weaknesses. Neither thinks something could come up through the floor boards, just over the top.

And when I came home from my writing group last night, The Dude had left me an email, which I paraphrase:

He was watching the chickens from the house to see when they went into the coop so he could go down and shut the hatch. He thought he saw one outside the fence, so he went down to check. One of the new girls got out. He rounded her up (much more difficult than one of the domesticated girls) and put her back in. Several appear to be pretty good fliers at their current weight. So his theory is that she flew out. We've both checked the fence line and can't find another opening. Shades of Walkabout. Not her baby, but has her genes. They came from the same farm, I'm sure.

So The Dude now doubts his count of 17 the night before. He's no longer certain he had them all locked in. Since there was no clear sign of a new struggle, no door unlatched, this is a welcome thought. Not something getting into the coop. Something getting out. Of course, if she did, she's fox food by now. The fact that I didn't see her in the morning outside the barn would indicate she's gone one way or the other.

And finally from The Dude's note, as he stood in the coop last night, rapping old girls on the beak for aggression, one of the babies flew off the top runf of the roost and onto his shoulder. Perched there and settled down, as if for the night. He was startled, but quite pleased. Animals like The Dude.

So to recap:
One baby lost because the door wasn't latched; full evidence of the event available
One old hen lost due to disease or injuries sustained when the door wasn't latched
One baby flew the coop (?) leaving no trace of her adventures
One baby flew the coop and was recaptured
The coop roof, walls, floor have all been tested and secured

I'm beginning to see stories in stories in stories in these farm adventures...

Frog Out

*I'm going to need a better name than "G" for G. He's a historical fiction writer (Virginia and Civil War his specialty) still waiting for his book contract. For food and shelter he paints and does various repairs. We met when he prepped our townhouse for sale and he's done work on this house for the past six years. He just finished replacing the roof on my cabin. He's also the big brother I never had, e.g. coming and spending half an hour sealing up the coop yesterday morning.

Letting the girls out is fraught with anxiety and concern. Sixteen this morning. Another baby gone. Door latched properly. Now we have to figure out how something is getting into the coop and taking a bird back out. Because there's no body, just some blood. And not enough feathers. No trail.

The Dude wants to know if a baby monitor's signal can travel from the coop to the house, but that's pretty far. I want him to take a closer look at how something is getting in. There are some pretty freaked-out chickens this morning and I feel responsible.

Someone else is going to have to open the coop in the morning. I'll put them to bed. Problem is, the Dude leaves the house at 5am, prime hunting time.

And no, I really don't want to be in the midst of a continuing soap opera for the blogosphere's benefit.

Frog Out

Judy seems to think I have karma to spare and that I bring her good karma when I visit. The chickens might agree about my karma, but they might not agree that it's good. Unless they're being reincarnated as higher beings, that is. I'm not sure the chickens are volunteering for their jobs as Bringers-of-Rain. But then again, what do I know? For all I know, being a sacrifice to either your coop-mates or humans may be the highest goal a chicken can attain.

Sic transit Featherless Biped #1. The Dude has laid her to rest in the dry vernal pond in hopes of bringing rain as her sisters did, Anya and the rest. Six big girls remain.

Let's just brush over the details, shall we? No? Well, I went to the coop at 8 this morning on an empty stomach and for the second time in 2 days was 1 chicken short in my count. But this time I knew the door was latched properly. I turned around and searched to find a feathered, headless, carcass behind me on the floor. Ugh. And yes, I bagged it. With gloves. And then threw pine shavings everywhere because, well, there were these long pieces of...

Chickens just aren't nice at times.

A quick sigh of relief that both Walkabout and Gimpy were up on the top rung where they belonged. And a glare at Featherless Biped #2 who was down on a lower rung and trying to look as if she were completely innocent of cannibalism. Indeed.

And if that isn't a horror story, I don't know what is.

Frog Out

Well, not quite what one wants on Easter morning.

The night before E could not fall asleep and I was still sitting with her at 11. When I got up at the lazy hour of 6:45, she was already up. Since she normally gets 10 hours of sleep, this did not bode well for the rest of the day. Especially as we thought we still had time to play Easter bunny outdoors. So the Dude started a fire and went out to get wood with eggs in his pockets. And then I went out at 8 to let the chickens out with more eggs in my pockets. We're sneaky that way. 31 eggs, btw. A cat rearranged a few. E still loves hunting eggs. She loves it so much she begged her aunt to hide them again and again for the rest of the day...twice more outside and once inside. But the first time? Oh, that was the Easter bunny that hid those.

Oddly, I could only count 18 hens instead of 19, no matter how many times I counted. I've been down this road before. There were the seven in the old guard and eleven new kids. Not an even dozen. There was an unshelled egg by the hatch and some feathers and when I arrived, the door to the coop was unlatched. But no feathers in the barn. And the hatch had been latched shut.

Well, I got the Dude to help me count several more times and we prowled around looking for feathers. We found them on the back side of the barn near the garden shed and followed the trail to the property line where we have our grass mulch pile. Lots of feathers there. Clearly the kill spot.

But it's a mystery as to what happened, other than it involved the Dude having forgotten to latch the door last night. One theory is that something was actually in the coop, a fox we suspect. Another theory is that when a big girl got down to lay an egg there was an altercation and a baby pushed the door open and sort of fell/flew out. Then headed for the spot where the cats and woodchucks go in and out of the barn in the back wall because it was dawn and there was light. And then was caught. Because there weren't any feathers at the hole as if she had been dragged through there. Or it was some combination of the two.

But there's no body to be found. Which means she will not join the others in the hen graveyard in the bottom of the dry vernal pond. Which is a really good indication of just how dry we are starting this year. We don't even have enough water in the pond to have spring peepers and frogs this year. I've only heard them in the distance in the swamp.

So a little one is gone already. Well, even a fox has to eat and if we're stupid enough to leave the latch off, these things can happen. But you can bet the Dude double-checked every latch tonight.

Frog Out

Greg Frost sent this around, not just to me, but to his entire list of email victims. However, he knows of my current obsession with anything Bollywood, so blame him for the following video starring Winston Spears, a Toronto comic with a pretty amazing talent for the visual.

His lip-synch is superb and his imitation of the stylized expressions is, well, see for yourself.

Frog Out

For those of you playing along at home, 12 new hens arrived on Monday. "Hen" being a relative term indicating their purpose in life at a later date. These are young girls somewhere around E's age in terms of development. Like, they haven't a clue what their purpose is.

The thought was that if the girls were young enough, the remaining 7 would mother them, teach them what to do. My conclusion is that chickens don't do that. They just aren't wired for parenting, at least the way these were bred. Their behavior more resembles that of an older sibling who used to be an only child presented with the arrival of a baby sister. Lots of baby sisters.

( Full chicken story and photos... )

Short post.

I read "Childhood's End" and "Against the Fall of Night" in 7th/8th grade (yes, that was a long time ago). They remain my favorites from his body of work. Both contained ideas that blew me away, bent my teenaged mind forever. Judging by what's being posted, a lot of the community was similarly affected by his writing.

My SF book club edition of "Childhood's End" has no print date, but my 60 cent copy of "Against the Fall of Night" is dated April 1970 for its 5th printing. Obviously, both are still on my shelves.

Frog Out

Shhhhh!

Maybe slavedriver (not) won't notice that I'm surfing and posting instead of writing.

It's my last full day here in the Super Sekrit Regeneration Location. The novel has been blessed as good in Her sight, what there is of it, which was a HUGE questionmark in my head. Big sigh of relief. I also got some very wise feedback on the story Stan bought that I needed to hear. I am such a fricking neophyte some days. But everyone should have a proper anointing, a brainstorming, a gripe session, a renewal of spirit, a blowing out of cobwebs, someone making all decisions about food for a span of time.

Frog Out

PS. I have to go home, much as I might not want to. One week to the arrival of one dozen new hens. G is working on the run as soon as he finishes redoing my cabin roof. All kinds of things were nesting in its rotting cedar shingles.