Dirty Catholic

Nothing Unusual

Mr. Man and I are not really picture people. I am generally annoyed with the process of taking pictures ("Everybody say 'Cheese!'  Oh... wait let's take one more. Oh, You have a camera you want to take another picture with? Hold on. How do you work this thing...okay! Just three or four more. Keep smiling!'") and Mr. Man lacks the follow-through to do anything with the pictures once they are taken. So we are pretty much picture-less people. No photos of us in the house. The wedding pictures are still in a box in the spare room. Just about the only thing I can (barely) motivate myself to take pictures for is this website.

Which brings me to the topic for today: baby pictures. It is a well-known phenomena that the first born is photographed within an inch of her life while the youngest is lucky to have one picture of his infancy. Having no children, we have already experienced this process with our...chickens.

Remember when we got our first flock? Those things were constantly photographed, visited by friends and neighbors, and songs were written about them. They even got their own sections in the archives of this website.

In January we bought 2 more chickens. Maybe I mentioned it on Facebook? Anyway, the other day I noticed that they had grown up.

That's Pepper on the left and Hilde on the right. They haven't started laying eggs yet, so I guess this is analogous to introducing you to a 10-year old that I just forgot to mention for the last few years.

God help our future children.

Cognitive Dissonace

You know when you hold two mutually exclusive beliefs, like say, "American consumerism is bad for the world." and "I love to shop!" ? That's called cognitive dissonance. It can be an uncomfortable experience. Some people can simply ignore it. Others begin to believe in conspiracy theories. You know, your choice.

As a chicken-owner, I've developed a particular case of cognitive dissonance, the kind that making barbecued chicken, while feeding treats to your pet chickens, can give you. Of course, when the same chicken later jumped up and stole a piece of chicken off the grill, I stopped feeling quite so guilty. At least I'm not a cannibal.

The discomfort returned this week while paying vet bills. Growing up, our pets lived outdoors and trips to the vet were strictly end-of-life visits. Money was spent on doctor visits for kids, not pets. This background and the fact that I'm only willing to pay about $6/pound for schmancy free-range chicken at the store, makes it almost absurd to pay for a chicken's medical expenses.

But, our Ameracuana, Emmy, became egg-bound this past week. (Egg-bound is when an egg gets stuck in her who-ha.) The common (free) cures include warm baths and massages. You know, take your chicken for a relaxing day at the spa. Emmy's spa-day did not help.

Emmy is not exactly our favorite chicken. She's nice and all, but she's also flighty and moody and really only nice when she's laying eggs. Unlike every other female on the planet, the hormones make her calmer, apparently. Despite that, it is hard to see a living thing suffer and, at pm at night, we began to call around to find an emergency vet. As we drove to the city, Mr. Man and I decided that we wanted a confirmation of our diagnosis, we would try some non-surgical options, but would probably have to put her down.

Did you know Pitocin works on chickens? It stimulates contractions is the same way. Of course, Emmy is a big advocate of home-birth, so I think she refused to participate just to make a point. Despite her orneriness, the vet seems quite fond of her. He offered to do the surgery for free, we'd just have to give him the chicken.

Uhmm....okay?  So we signed her over and said goodbye.

 Maybe he wanted a free-range chicken dinner? Maybe he fell in love with her sick-sweet demeanor and was overcome with the desire for a pet chicken? Maybe he belonged to a secret group of vets who collected odd cases and gathered, late at night, to try experimental procedures? (Maybe I was beginning to believe in conspiracy theories, myself?)  In any case, we didn't really think we'd see Emmy again, but felt better thinking that she was contributing to science, maybe.

To our surprise, the vet called us two days later to report that she had miraculously made it through the surgery, was walking around, eating, and making mischief again, and would we like to have her back, as a gift?

Uhmm...okay? So we drove back to the city and picked her up.

It's hard to strike the right balance of gratitude in cases like these. Had we been very poor, Emmy our favorite child, and a doctor offered a free surgery, I would know how to express overflowing gratitude. Had we paid for the surgery, I would have known how to express gratitude. But how do you express gratitude for an expensive gift that you technically could afford, but choose not to? How do you express gratitude for a $300/lb ornery chicken who needs 24-hour inside care for 2 weeks and can no longer lay eggs? I stuck with complimenting his surgical skills, a couple thank yous, and a positive yelp review. 

When I got home from work last night, I let Emmy out of the dog-crate in the back room and let her wander into the kitchen to stretch her legs. I was cooking $6/lb chicken, feeding vegetable scraps to my $300/lb chicken, and as she began to greedily eye browned pieces of meat, I wondered why it no longer bothered me.

Famous Friends!

Well, hello! Long time no see.

You see, I was stranded in the wild snowed-in landscapes of Idaho, without a wireless Internet connection. I nearly froze to death.  And before that was running around in a mad attempt to get everything done two weeks early. And before that...I was in jail. In Antarctica. It was a tough month. 

Okay, enough with the excuses. I'm not going to go as far as to say that I've made a new years resolution to post more...I'm just going to try harder. 

As it turns out, the December break from the Parish where I used to work turned out to be a break from all things churchy, and a needed break it was. I'm feeling much better now and able to resume my on-line life. 

Because the best way to jump back in is with video, here is a very cool news video about godchild #2 (and her parents) and their chickens!  (I wish I knew how to embed it, but I'm not that savvy.)

In chickeny news, we're trying to get 2 new chicks in the next few weeks. I'll let you know how that goes. 

Things Grown-Ups Do

As a child there was a vast wonderland of mysterious things that only grown-ups could do.  Most of them turned out to be worth the wait (like drinking and sex), while others I never really thought about until I got here, like paying the mortgage. The ones that really stood out in my mind were the things that grown-ups had to do because no one else would.

My father was always doing these mandatory grown-up things, the ones that made being a grown up look a lot less fun than being a child. Things like fixing the sinks, working at not-the-dream-job to support the family, making the hard decisions about sick pets.

I particularly remember when he buried our pets. It couldn't have been helpful, hearing a chorus of four  little girls crying as he set out to his task.  I remember once watching from the window as he dug a hole in the far corner of the back yard. It was dusk and and hard to make out what he was doing, the mystery of it slowly covered in darkness.

Today I thought about this as I dug a hole for one of our chickens. Our Buff Orpington had been acting out of sorts for a while and this morning she died. As I dug, I wondered how many times I might do this again, how different it would be to explain it to kids, how burying a pet was always something I thought someone else did.

It's a funny rite of passage, burying a pet yourself. It's different than flushing a fish or giving an animal away. The consideration I needed to give to very physicality of it all --like where to bury the animal, the detail of how to keep other animals from digging it up, struggling with a stiff body while trying to put it neatly in the ground-- reminded me of the wonder of life, how changed, somehow less real, an animal is once it is dead. To some degree I laughed at the irony of burying this particular animal, when in most other circumstances I happily eat other members of its species. But mostly I realized how I'd always taken for granted that someone else would do this.

But now I am strangely grateful. Grateful to the vet who made it seem normal, grateful to my dad for the many, many times he did this same thing, and grateful for the realization that even though I am a grown-up, I still have a lot of growing up yet to do.

Thinks She Owns The Place

While working on the garden project, I kept giving firm commands to the chickens.  Things like, "Don't even think of going out this gate!" and "The basement is NOT for you!"  They were very compliant in general, staying out of trouble and in the back yard.

Except for Tsipy.  Tsipy was our little conscientious objector. Denied of all the places she wanted to go, she found the one that I hadn't mentioned that day.  I walked in the back door to find this:

 

Earning their Keep

Well, the chickens are finally earning their keep. Tsipy started laying about 2 weeks ago, and Emmy began about 5 days ago. Here's a picture of the eggs we haven't eaten yet:

Buffy II, Penny, or the otherwise unnamed chicken we sometimes call Spaghetti, is still in stress mode and hasn't laid another egg. It probably doesn't help that she obtained a mystery injury that detached part of her comb from her head. She has healed now and we keep telling her it was just a flesh wound, but she isn't buying it.

Right before they started laying, the chickens stopped running away and started to do this squatting thing, letting me pet them and arching their back ends up, kind of like a cat. At first I was delighted, thinking, "My chickens are so sweet- they love the scratches and rubs!" Then I did a little research and found out that they think I'm trying to have sex with them.  Fantastic. I just spent two weeks getting my chickens all riled up.  I think I need to take a shower.

New Chicken Friend

So, Buffy, the She-Rooster, went to a farm in Santa Cruz on Wednesday. (I know that sounds like a euphemism for turning him into chicken and dumplings, but it is not.) In exchange, we got this lovely lady:

She is very docile and sweet, and has already laid an egg:

St. Francis was surprised with the turn of events and has so far been rather prissy about offering his usual "animal protection services" to the new hen, who has been picked on by the old chickens. Since Francis is being uncooperative, we built the new chicken a temporary coop under the porch and put up a Hamsa hand. We'll try to reintegrate them when we get back from vacation. (I am currently writing this from the colorful Motel 6 in beautiful Corvalis, Oregon.)

In the meantime, we need a name for the new chicken! Wanna help?

Here are the rules:

1. It can't rhyme with the other chicken's names (Tsipy and Emmy)
2. We'd like it to end in "y" but would consider other possibilities.

Suggest away in the comments!

Gender Identity Issues

Oh, our poor Buffy. About 2 weeks ago she began making a sound that was very much like a rooster's crow. (Don't let any one tell you it's "cock-a-doodle-doo." It's more like "Ur-ur-ur-uuuuurr!") Anyhoo, I ran outside and pointed at her and said, in my voice of authority, "Stop that or I'll turn you into stew!"

She stopped for a week or two but is back at it again and no matter of threatening will stop her. Luckily, she only crows around 8am, and only about 4 or 5 times. The neighbors have been very nice about the whole thing since she's quieter than the dogs (and babies!) nearby. But sadly, keeping roosters is illegal where we live.

I really want to keep her, but her physical attributes are all pointing to the fact that she is probably a rooster, even if her friendly and docile personality makes me think she's a hen.
 
Well Crap.

 Does anyone want a rooster that thinks it's a hen?

Delinquent

What?

I've been busy...doing stuff. You know, like turning my backyard into a pub and trouncing my husband at darts. And experimenting in what types a foods a chicken will eat. (Blueberries? Yes. Hamburger bun? No. Though lately they seem most interested when I'm eating chicken... freaky little cannibals.)

This weekend we had a Father's Day for the Delinquent party to which we invited the childless, those too lazy to visit their fathers, those who's fathers are with the heavenly father, and those whose fathers are too appaling to deserve a Father's Day. Most of our guests, like ourselves, fell primarily into the "too lazy" category. I did manage to send my father a card, however. ("DC," my mom said in a voicemail, "I wasn't at all upset that you didn't send me a Mother's Day card," she lied unconvincingly, "But I think your father would really appreciate a card for Father's Day.")  My father is generally a great guy and in fact was a major help in the backyard pub project, drilling brazenly into the neighbor's cinderblock fence to hang the dartboard, but somehow I have a hard time imagining that a guy who would take his wife to the hallmark store to show her the cards he could buy her - instead of actually buying one for her - would invest a lot of emotional energy into whether or not his daughter sent a Father's Day card.

In other news, the family that my sister and I have worked for ages (as nannies) took advantage of the great state of California's recent decision and got married yesterday. Their kids were adorably excited, but it was unclear if it was because of the wedding or the fact that after the wedding, they got to drink soda.

Today friends from graduate school get into town for another wedding this weekend (of my friend and the occasional commenter, "Mo") so I'm off to clean the house and make sure the chickens don't take the Vespa for another joy-ride.

Yes, it's a fabulously exciting life, I know.

Games with God

So, I know you're busy with world peace and all, but could you please heal my chicken?

I know there are tons of kids with cancer who's parents are also praying, but if you have time, could you throw some efficacious-God-healing-power toward...my chicken?

I know it's your will and all, but really, how is a backyard chicken's living or dying going to disrupt your grand plan? So why not let her live?

Did you get that? Sick chicken? Needs help? Thanks.





ps- Thanks for the help with the chicken. Now can you help her fly?