Spring Cleaning, A Bit Late...

Spent the last two days cleaning out the pantry, right down to the bare shelves. Now it looks great--scrubbed clean, questionable stuff tossed out, remaining things arranged sensibly. We'll see how long THAT lasts.

Evil has a name, and it's called a three year old bottle of dried lemon peel. That stuff smelled funky. Discovered I'd done the Peanut Butter Trick with paprika and had no less than three little jars of it.

What's the Peanut Butter Trick?

That's where you look in your pantry, intent on building yourself a good ol' PB & J sammich. Oh...well, OK, you're OUT of peanut butter. Strange, you SWEAR you had some. Diligent searching ensues, alas, no peanut butter. OK, on the next trip to the store you grab some.

Time passes. Inevitabley the PB & J craving strikes again.

You go to grab the peanut butter...nothing. Well, DAMN, you say to yourself, did I not just BUY peanut butter not too long ago? You search. No peanut butter.

So, on your next trip to the store...you get the picture.

I once did this to the point where I had THREE jars of opened peanut butter going at once. The stuff just manages to get shoved to the back of the shelf where I don't see it. I swear, the damned stuff has a cloaking device, it actively hides from me.

So, I coined the term 'The Peanut Butter Trick' for when this happens and you end up with multiples of something that you KNOW you already have, but cannot find to save your life. Yesterday it was paprika. I also discovered that the curtains in my pantry window need replacing (my house was built by blind idiots and has the stupidest construction known to modern man)--yes, I have a window in my pantry, it faces west so as to gather as much southern California heat as possible and ruin my food stores.

Also, poor Bug, my daughter's favorite hen, has a NEW problem. After narrowly escaping death, she's finally recovering from her respiratory ills, eating and drinking on her own, gaining weight and continuing her molt. Last night as I was doing the beak count at dusk to make sure they were all in the coop for the night, I gave her a little pet...and found something stuck to the feathers on her back, kinda under the end of her wing. I investigated further and found that it was HER SKIN, dried and peeled back like a corn husk. I got a great view of her muscles underneath. She had a hole in her back the size of a large pack of gum.

So away to the house she was whisked.

Luckily, the wound is spotlessly clean with no blood or pus, just a big chunk of missing hide. I figure it's a slice from Phoenix the rooster's spur on that side from a mating attempt that slipped. So today it's off to the vet for antibiotics no doubt, and to have her sewn up if he can. If he CAN'T, it's going to be up to me to initiate cell migration therapy for her and try to encourage new skin to grow and fill in the area. It will mean slathering the area with antibiotic ointment and keeping it bandaged (not easy with a chicken) and changing the dressing once a day to clean and debride the wound--you DON'T want a scab to form or else new skin will not fill in the area properly. That takes mondo time, and the bird MUST be kept clean and away from dirt the whole time till the hole heals.

Bug is NOT happy with me, she wants to be outside with her buddies and is bored inside the house. Me, I'm not happy at the prospect of vet bills and having to have J. build a little special wire cage for her to sit & heal in--because I'm NOT gonna have a crabby chicken wandering my house for the next month!