I made lotion this morning–a lovely whipped souffle type thing. It’s stuffed with rosewood, katafray, and patchouli essential oils, all of which are supposed to make you look 10 years younger. If you’re in Seattle or environs and want to swing by, I have a few extra jars.*
*Offer extended only to people I know. One would think this is a given, but apparently not.
Steve elbowed me. “Did you hear that?”
“Mpphhh,” I said, snuggling deeper under the covers and returning to my dreams in which a giant chicken was chasing the mass murderer H.H. Holmes, on whom we had watched (part of) a movie on the night before.
“It was your rooster.”
“No it wasn’t,” I said groggily.
And then, piercing the early morning stillness, came another crow.
“It must be another rooster,” I amended.
But this morning, after I let them out of the coop, and after they went hurtling up the small rise wings aflap (which always gives me a lift), my rooster lifted his beak to the sky and let out a bellow.
Well good morning Captain Beefcake. We salute you too.
“How many eggs do we have?” Steve asked yesterday.
“One.” I said. “From the buttercup.
“You have useless chickens,” he told me.
And now? Stubbs is molting too.
A while ago, I did something not very nice. Shocker, I know.
I was visiting my mom, and our cousin took us to dinner at his new Italian restaurant. He had invited another couple, to return a dinner invitation. Or rather, he asked the guy, who brought along his latest squeeze. The restaurant was so crowded that we had to sit in the bar, wait times for food were averaging about 45 minutes, and the waitstaff had that frenzied, “Oh my God” look in their eyes. The squeeze couldn’t just order off the menu–oh no, she had to ask for veal piccata, only made with chicken. “I hate animal cruelty,” she explained. “It makes me just sick to think about those poor little calves not being able to move.”
She was driving me a little bonkers anyway, so I went for it. “The chickens can’t move either,” I said, conversationally.
“What do you mean?” she asked, blinking her mascara at me.
“They stuff chickens in boxes so small they can’t move and breed them with breasts so big they couldn’t walk anyway even if they had room. Oh, and they shave off their beaks, too. So really, eating veal is just as humane.”
I know, I know. Not very nice. She was obnoxious, and it was STILL not very nice. But this is the kind of selective thinking that drives me crazy. I am the first to admit that my own meatball dish probably came from factory cows, and they’re not treated that much better–at least in the finishing stages. As a country, we spend five billion dollars a year on our pets, yet the way we treat ALL animals destined for our plates is appalling. It takes a lot of work–and a lot of money–to find sources or truly organic and truly free-range meat. And it’s true that we all make compromises of one sort or another in our quests. But to choose factory chickens over veal for reasons of animal cruelty is just, well, it’s just stupid.
And then, you encounter an example of senseless cruelty. Meet Stubbs, the toeless chicken. Someone just lopped them off. She’s a nice little chicken, and Carrie–who gave her to me–assures me that she lays an egg a day. (I haven’t found her nest yet–it’s time for a Stubbs stakeout.) And while she gets around just fine and her toelessness doesn’t seem to bother HER, I confess that it bothers ME.
Can you blame me?
Ben, Steve’s nephew came out to visit for a week. Steve took him camping. This is really cheating, because I didn’t go on the trip. Instead, I stayed home and worked. They were gone six days. Not many pictures for six days, but what Steve took is pretty cool. Pam, I’ve burned all the images onto CD for Ben to give to you. But he may lose it, the way he lost his shoes. We still haven’t figured that one out. Steve gave him his Tevas to wear; Ben was not happy. Apparently, Tevas are not cool with the about-to-be sixteen crowd. Who knew?
I eat meat; therefore, I think it’s important to be honest about where meat comes from and slaughter a chicken if it’s called for.
Called for it was: I had three extra roosters. My plan for today was to kill and roast them up. But I just couldn’t do it. I had raised the Houdini twins and Madame Bovary (who ended up being Monsieur) from wee baby chickiepoos. They would come running over whenever they saw me, and peck at my hair, thinking it was something toothsome. I would have no problem killing the Welsummers (who, by the way, have now entered a fevered molt now that they are deloused) because I’m not attached. So I sold the three on Craig’s List instead.
And bought a barred rock.
I won’t bore you with the details of the stakeout, but it’s pretty exciting: I found two mother lodes–one from the buttercup (seven eggs) and one from Stubbs (only two eggs, so I think she has another stash).
They can free range again.
Or rather, Kiyoshi Saito meets crazy chicken lady meets crazy chicken lady’s unemployed boyfriend meets the alley-facing back of our garage.
But that wouldn’t fit in the title area. And it probably wouldn’t make a lot of sense. Not that the name Kiyoshi Saito necessarily makes a lot of sense either, unless you’re a fan of sosaku hanga.
Anyway, I have a Kiyoshi Saito woodblock print of two roosters called Competition for a Charm. I love it. There are other prints of his that I covet fiercely and can’t afford, but I remember this one from my childhood, when it hung in my parents room. It went with me to college and it has been with me in every place since.
And of course, now I have become a crazy chicken lady with a boyfriend that has too much time on his hands. Not, you understand, that I’m complaining. “We need some chicken art on the back of the garage,” he said the other day. “I know what I’ll do!”**
**Steve credits his inspiration to Joy Wants Eternity. If anyone should feel so inclined, he would love free tickets.
The welsummers haven’t laid a single egg. Now this could be normal because from everything I’ve read, it can take several weeks for them to get over the trauma of being moved. But again, you don’t know why they’ve been sold at auction. Perhaps they’re just old. “Check their vents,” one Web site urged. “If they are moist, they’re of egg bearing age. If dried and puckered, the hens have probably outlived their usefulness.”
(If the above grosses you out, read no further.)
So I checked their vents. This, for the unititated, basically means running around after chickens who don’t want to be caught, rounding them up and herding them into the coop, and lunging at their feet–at which point you dangle them upside down. The hens don’t like this, but at some point, they give up–and just kind of go stiff, like they’re dead. Which made life much easier.
And which made it much easier to see that they were crawling–CRAWLING–with lice. There were eggs crusted around their vents, creepy crawlies scurrying over their skin. It was gross, and those poor hens must have been miserable.
Now I had dusted them before they went into the coop in the first place, but obviously it didn’t work. So I dusted them again with diatomaceous earth (which, by the way, totally kills any chicken poo smell in the coop and I’ve started adding to their feed as a dewormer), and went down to Del’s to get a permethrin spray. I would like to be all natural and everything, but sometimes you just need to use chemicals. Came back, cleaned out the coop, sprayed it down. Caught ALL the chickens, sprayed them down too (though no one else seemed to have lice). This was Sunday; yesterday, they were clean and clear.
So what I think is that they just had a bad infestation and stopped producing–and that’s why they went at auction. Could be wrong, but it’s a working theory that allows me to the luxury of thinking that one day they will produce.
Oh, and I battened down the hatches of the run yesterday. The buttercup and Stubbs both gave me an egg. So there’s a clutch of eggs somewhere out there in the yard ….
