Goodbye, Jack...

Well, just to keep the depression going, we unexpectedly lost Jack, our 8 year old Barred Rock rooster last night. He and Wild Child were a couple, the grand old couple of the flock. He died suddenly but quietly in his sleep less than 24 hours after Wild Child went, and we buried him right next to Wild Child in a bed of roses just like hers.  He had been clearly distressed and depressed, searching for her...I think if it's possible to die from a broken heart, Jack just may have.

The rest of the flock is mostly standing around staring at each other or wandering aimlessly about the yard in clumps. They look at each other as if to say, "Well, what do we do now?" In two short days they have lost their father, protector and lover in Jack, and their mother, matriarch and guardian in Wild Child. The flock dynamic has been thrown into turmoil with no clear successors to either the Head Roo or Head Hen posts.

We are trying to keep them company as much as we can. When we go out into the yard they group around us more than they normally do, even the normally more standoffish birds. I'm trying to adjust to the loss of two long-time and well-loved pets. Anyone who has ever had an older pet, no matter what kind, knows how incredibly cool and laid-back they are to have around. I also can't help but look at the others and wonder who is next. Several of our chickens are older and recent events have left me gun-shy, trying to steel myself to finding another dead bird. It's no fun.

Jack was our household symbol. We use his image and his name in our email, our Internet dealings...so many things. Emotionally I'm a train wreck, but that is, indeed, the cost of keeping pets. It's just hard when such a big bill comes due all at once.

This has not been a good week.

Wild Child Passes

Well, we have lost another one.

This time it was our flock's Head Hen, a lovely Silver Laced Wyandotte with the clunky and graceless name of Wild Child. She gained that name nearly ten years ago when we brought her and her two sisters home from the feed store. Then they were tiny, day and a half old baby chicks with their egg tooth still attached. For those that don't know, on birds the egg tooth is the small, hard tip of their beaks that assists them in breaking out of their shells when they hatch. It falls off within the first three days of life.

The reason she was named Wild Child was because we had given the three chicks temporary names to help us tell the new arrivals apart from each other. We figured that we would come up with real names for the chicks shortly. 'Wild Child' was what we called her since she was a very boisterous chick, running around and jumping on her sisters' heads when they weren't looking.

Unfortunately for her, the name stuck. So Wild Child she became for good and all.

Wild Child naturally took on the position of Head Hen--she can peck everyone else but no one pecks her, she is leader of the flock. She is the one in my previous posts that climbed up on top of the coop, couldn't get down and had to call us out in the yard to rescue her. She was the one who would call out and alert us to trouble in the yard.

The day before yesterday we noticed that Wild Child was refusing food and simply standing, eyes closed, in the shade under her favorite bush. Yesterday was the same, so we knew that something was up and strongly suspected that she was making her exit. She wasn't sick, just old.

I brought her into the house around 3PM and offered her a small dish of goodies, which she looked at but politely shook her head, refusing. Now when a chicken won't eat, something is wrong. Her body temperature had also fallen. I wrapped her in a bath towel and sat with her on my lap for the next 5 1/2 hours, gently stroking her head and talking to her as she slept. I had mixed up a small amount of baby bird handfeeding formula with some other things, and this I gave her with an eyedropper every 45 minutes to keep her comfortable and hydrated. Around 7PM I had gotten up to stretch my legs and as I walked by the back door, I noticed that every single chicken of our flock had crammed themselves up onto the back porch, something they had never done.  Jack, our Head Roo, was in front, looking at me and waiting.  I knew what they wanted and opened the back door so that they could come in and visit Wild Child, which they did quietly and one at a time before filing out again.

Over the final several hours Wild Child got quieter and quieter and we knew the time was near. Finally it was 8PM and my daughter's bedtime. She gently petted Wild Child and told her goodnight and goodbye.

Not two minutes later Wild Child gave a single flap of her wings and died.

We'll miss her. Today the other chickens are wandering about looking lost, Jack is especially distressed. She would have been 10 years old this coming April and was the cornerstone, guardian, mother, flock representative, disciplinarian and matriarch of the flock. She led the group out of the coop in the morning and called them to roost in the evening.

When you have a pet for that many years they are a member of your family, no matter what kind of animal they are. They become as much a part as your personality and entangled in your family history as any other member of your household.

Our most affectionate farewell to Wild Child.

New Additions To The Family...

Making a simple trip to the feed store can be dangerous.

Pictured here are three of the newest additions to the group of Garden Destructors we have living in the back yard:

These are two small--but incredibly heavy and solid--Dark India Cornish Rock Bantam hens that so far have the unflattering name of "The Tank Girls".  Cornish Rocks are the game hens you see mostly wrapped in plastic at the grocery store.  They are extremely sweet and have that so-ugly-you-love-it quality to their faces--they remind me of the extinct Dodo bird. They are wider than they are tall and have a definite waddle when they walk. They can't climb up the ladder to roost, so we'll need to build a lower perch for them. With their gravely voices, they don't cluck so much as burble.  Their feathers are small yet incredibly soft, and their feathering is tight with little to no fluff.  Think a shot put with feathers.

Here's the other new one--a young White Crested Black Bearded Polish hen, so hungry for attention that she runs up to us and jumps in our lap, or pecks your shoes to get you to pick her up. This behaviour led to the people at the feed store labeling her as not only a rooster, but 'mean' as well. This bird was obviously someone's lap pet before she came to us and doesn't have a mean bone in her body. Also with that huge poof of feathers on her head, she can't see worth a darn.

The new birds are settling in well, and our other birds are taking the new additions in stride. Of course, we have been doing some major league sucking up to the new and old birds with the help of a bag of mealworms--the equivilant of candy (or Crack!) to chickens.

We went to the Orange County Fair yesterday for the last time this year--it'll be gone soon. I'm trying to give our daughter N. classic childhood memories whenever possible and the county fair is an important part of that. Our daughter had a great time; played some games and won a large stuffed red dog (which was actually mostly a 'give' from the carny who ran the booth, she can sucker in adults and wrap them around her little finger like no one's business), rode several rides all by herself which she proudly told anyone about who would stand still long enough to listen, J. had a turkey leg and I had deep fried zucchini (strangely, it wasn't on a stick like everything else) which we shared with N. We stopped by the small animal barn and admired the many chickens and rabbits that were on display. I'm not a fan of the cloven hoofed animals-- when I was a kid we lived a few doors down from a LARGE smelly pen of goats and I still can't get past the smell.

At the end of the evening we loaded the stuffed animal prizes, leftover zucchini, the remains of a cinnamon roll and a black pearl that N. had gotten out an oyster she had chosen, into the car. We had ended up with one lone ride ticket at the end of it all--all of the rides take at least three tickets--which we left on one of the tables of a food booth for someone to find and use.

Today my main job is to search IKEA online to see if they have a decent twin bedstead for N.--she has outgrown her crib so it's 'Big Girl Bed' time--great excitement over that. So it's computer and soak my aching feet time.

Beyond that I'm incapable today. Besides, the Los Angeles county fair opens in a few weeks, can't miss that!

Circuit Boards, Spoiling The Child And A Permafrost Behind

I've decided to spoil my child. Thoroughly and completely.

Not in that horrible, out-in-public-screaming-because-she-didn't-get-her-way spoiled...just...kinda indulged. If she suddenly suggests stopping the ice cream truck, so be it. If she wants to go outside and dig in the dirt, where's the harm in that? I plan on keeping her out of school now and then to go to the beach and toss stale bread to the seagulls. My dad used to do this for us once in a while and it's one of my best childhood memories. She's the only child I'm ever going to have, and I want her childhood done right. The one thing I draw the line at is TV and electronic games, both of which suck IQ points away in my opinion.

Yesterday, for example, we decided to go to Disneyland for the evening. We got there at 7PM and kept the kid up WAY past her normal bedtime. Normal bedtime be damned where Disneyland, fireworks and the Electrical Parade are concerned. Every kid should be taken to Disneyland at least once in their lives, stopped by their parents at the front entrance and asked, "What shall we do first?" And then do it, by God.

Her first idea was to go on Grizzly River Run in California Adventure. We had been on it twice before and enjoyed it, and the kid loudly stated, "It's my favorite!" Of course it is, until you mention Star Tours...Roger Rabbit...etc. You get the picture.

However, this was the first time for one unknown feature of this ride. The line was nonexistant and we three had a raft to ourselves, which had us grinning. We whined and laughed at each other for getting splashed.

Until the end.

Until the geyser.

Hey, did you know that every so often the picturesque fake geyser at the end of the ride is turned onto some poor dumb smucks in a raft? And that it is roughly akin to standing in the way of a fire house turned on full blast for about 5 or 6 seconds? To say we got wet is like saying the Mohave desert is a tad warm. Even though my motherly insticts clicked in and I threw myself over my child to shield her from the worst, we were all thoroughly drenched. All we could do was stare at each other and spit water.

Yeah, great idea kid.

Now that we were wet, we decided to share it and see some of the shows. We sat through the Bug's Life stage show (cute, and to my kid's credit did not scare her), the Muppet 3D show, also cute and featured a live chicken!

Next it was over to Disneyland proper for the fireworks. I haven't seen them in years and they have changed a bit, fewer colors but more "ooh-ahh" value. Still very cool and the kid loved it. At the end of the show we were right in front of "It's a Small World" anyway, so on it we went.

Forgetting for a moment how soaked we were.  'It's A Small World' is one of the coldest rides in the park, chilled to approximately 30 degrees.  And it's a leisurely 20 minutes long.

OK, at the end of it my behind is beginning to resemble permafrost. I am beginning to doubt if I will EVER dry out and/or warm up, but at least I had a dry sweatshirt squirreled away for the kid so she is OK. Next we toddle over to the River and grab one of the last primo spots for Fantasmic, another show my kid hasn't been awake late enough to catch yet. Again, to her credit she covers her ears (it's REALLY loud) but gamely enjoys the show. The little girl whom we did not know but invited to stand beside my daughter during the show to watch, lost her nerve halfway through it and scooted back to her dad.

After this it's time to go. 11PM and the kid is claiming NOT to be tired. Yeah, OK. Well, we ARE so it's still time to go, besides which they are closing the park and smilingly but firmly booting everyone the Hell out.

Get everyone home and thaw out first the child and then myself with a warm shower and jammies, and into bed. For a bedtime snack I've gotten a glass of milk and pilfered one of the kids' fruit rollups.

These particular ones feature a 'tongue tattoo'--designs like stars, wavy lines, hearts, etc. printed over the fruit leather in green food color. Lay it on your tongue and it transfers. I unroll this one to find...

A circuit board.

Huh?

Yeah. OK. I lie there, my tired brain trying to discover what the Hell a kid would find 'fun' about a circuit board. My brother-in-law the sound engineer might find it mildly entertaining, but a kid?

Never mind.

Strawberry Preserves, Home Movies And Personal Injury

One of my favorite thrift stores is closing--this is the second time this year that this has happened, and they are not in any way related to each other. As of June 1st the store is gone for good. It annoys me because THIS one had remained relatively inexpensive and still yielded the occasional Really Cool Goodie Thing. The only saving grace is that this week, their last, they had everything at 80% off. One of the things I scored was an assortment of large canning jars for mere pennies each. Canning jars means, of course...

...that we started off on Saturday with a trip to the local strawberry field. N. always enjoys going there and begins shrieking loudly, "Strawberry field! Strawberry field!" while we are still a block away from it. This makes us giggle and at the same time plead with her for the state of our near-shattered eardrums.

"The Before Version"

The field is nicely kept with a lovely double row of mixed wildflowers on either side of the narrow concrete walkway, flowers that are nearly as tall as I am. Clouds of honeybees wander from flower to flower, intent on the coreopsis, poppies, batchelors buttons and nigella. J. is allergic to bee stings and it makes ME so nervous as he wanders lazily along the path that I have to force myself not to grab him by the collar and seat of the pants and frog-march him quick-time past the flowers. Just beyond the flowers is a small patch of assorted beans, squash and tomato plants, all in various stages of bearing. N. is fascinated by seeing produce on the hoof, as it were.

The prices are a bit stiff but since it's the only game in town, there ya go. They have it down to a science, it's just enough to make a face at but not enough to walk away from. Then a quick stop at the market for Certo pectin, a 5 pound box of superfine sugar and two boxes of new jar lids and bands...well, maybe not QUICK since the store manager, miserable human being that he is, has decided to rearrange the store again. We collar a worker and are told that the canning supplies have been moved from the baking aisle to the hardware aisle.

Home again to the strains of the child begging for a strawberry (No, they need to be washed first--we'll be home in just a minute--I KNOW they smell good, just hold on!). Then it's time to round up the oversized kettles and huge wooden spoons, the neato special rubber coated jar-lifter tongs that make life so much easier and that special nifty flat spoon that skims away any foam that forms. When canning it is important to get everything ready ahead of time, because once you start there is no stopping.

The jars, lids and bands are washed in hot, soapy water and then left to boil their way to sterility in the big black and white spatterware enamel kettle. The berries are washed and piled into a large 1940's era yellow and white Pyrex bowl. N. has been begging to help, so she and I retire to the living room with the sparkling berries where we sit on the floor with them. I remove the stem from one and show her how to hold it in one hand, give it a good squeeze and drop it into the oversized 8 cup Pyrex measuring cup. We work surprisingly well as a team, her little 4 year old self balancing the delight of squishing the berries, with the icky mess it leaves on her hands afterwards. Trying to teach math, cooking and family traditions I go over the basics with her: we need 4 cups of crushed berries, 7 cups of sugar and one pouch of pectin to get 8 cups of preserves. While we work I tell her stories from my childhood of harvesting and canning fruit. The living room survives with no fatal strawberry stains and the kid is sent off to wash up.

Much as N. wants to, this is the part where she is NOT allowed to help, or even be near. The berries and the sugar go into the large stainless steel pot, along with a tiny bit of butter to reduce any foaming. The Baker's Sugar, really just a superfine grind, is neat since it doesn't have the sandy, gritty texture that regular sugar has. Really nice for baking.

After the berries do their bit and boil, in goes the pectin. Another minute of boiling and then it's off to the races. This batch has foamed a bit so it's skimmed, then it's ladeled into the jars within 1/2 an inch or so of the top. Check the jar threads for any residue and then fish a lid out of the pot where they seem to swim away with jerky little shrimp-like movements, slip it into place and then screw on a band. I use a kitchen towel to hold the jar and lid in place while I crank the band on tight. It never does to forget that you've just filled that jar with boiling fruit and grab it bare-handed. The the jar is transferred to the far counter and placed upside down, where it will remain for 5 minutes for the heat to work it's magic on softening the seal of the lid. Same with the rest of the jars. A small bit of leftover jelly from the pot is scraped out of the pot into a little Pyrex dish as a treat for N, and the canning implements are left to soak with hot water. After 5 minutes the jars are turned upright and left to cool.

I take N. her treat of the jelly sample and she is very excited to be tasting the end result of the morning's adventure that she helped with. The sample is also a test to make sure that the preserves will set correctly--not to stiff, not too watery. This batch seems to be fine and I sit to relax a while and wait for the musical "Tink!" of the jars as they seal themselves. It's a sound that always takes me right back to my childhood in Norco, where every summer was a festival of canning peaches, apricots, plums, nectarines, quince, assorted vegetables and bread-and-butter zucchinni pickles. The zucchinni yield at our Norco home was ALWAYS, without fail, insane. And my father was determined that nothing would go to waste, so when he bought a packet of seeds, they ALL got planted, thank you--which led to ridiculous piles of zucchini.  We canned and froze as much as we could. I never thought to ask him why he planted so many damned zucchinni plants in the first place.

While the jars cool in the kitchen I sort through some old video tapes that need work. I pop one in that I made for myself and my far-flung family members back in 1993, it's a collection of events I filmed that year. Also on this tape is a collection of family photos that I gathered from everyone, videotaped and set to music. The tape has deteriorated some and is in shockingly bad condition. J. and I talk of moving up to DVD format with this stuff and I'm seriously thinking of redoing the photos as I still have the master 8mm tape and the music cassette to work with. Time will tell.

Just we finish watching the video, for some reason known only to preschoolers N. suddenly leaps up and runs through the hallway, slips and fetches up with a truly sickening thud against the doorjamb with her face. She doesn't cry but stands up and walks quickly and directly back to me. My heart is in my throat but I try to keep the panic out of my voice as I get her to come over and let me see what she's done. She points to her upper lip which is already beginning to swell and bleed. OK, she's punched an upper tooth through her lip, not too bad, my inner voice says. I look inside her mouth and swear inwardly at the ring of blood around one of her front teeth--my years as a dental assistant leap to the fore with the cheerful diagnosis of a tooth broken off at the gumline or somewhere up inside the root. As I know from personal experience it's a painful event, especially on the Saturday night of a long weekend within days of a full moon. Any trip to the ER is guaranteed to take so long as to require a picnic basket and a change of clothes. I perform lots of dental exam techniques trying to produce the dreaded tooth wiggle or tell-tale yelp from the child, thankfully to no avail. I do find another cut on her lower lip as well though, and she is entertaining herself by listening to the funny way she talks through rapidly swelling lips. She gets a dose of children's ibuprofen and a popsicle to suck on, both of which do their trick. Seems that this time she was lucky and her lips saved her teeth--time will tell since tooth trauma like this can take days, weeks, months or even years to develop into problems down the road. *sigh*

After such an adventurous day it's time to get ready for bed, during which N. again runs through the house to the strains of both J. and I yelling for her not to.

Another near-perfect-slice day of good times and bad.

Actually, all things considered, today I think the scales have dipped in my favor a bit.

The Circle Of Life...For Today, Anyway

My back patio is a disgrace--covered in dust and chicken poop it will have to be cleaned very soon. I mentally add it to the list.

Life...and I mean everyday, run-of-the-mill life...is such a fleeting, tiny slice of adventure.

My daughter home sick with a fever and cold symptoms and the accompanying grumpy 'tude, a visit from a very nice city official regarding the dirt on and the weeds under my '69 Plymouth--she said she felt stupid bugging people about it but it was a new thing she had to do. I promised to clean things up and everyone was happy. Later I listened to the guy on the next block rev his Top Fuel dragster at heart-stopping decibel levels for two solid hours while he worked on it, and wondered where the city's priorities were currently being housed. I had a few unladylike ideas. One of my sisters calls this kind of typical City thing a "Cranial-Rectal Inversion".

After that I went out to the back yard a few times to hang out some laundry. Each time I appeared the entire flock of chickens would come running up joyfully, hopefully...but no goodies. Did you know that chickens can look dissapointed? Then the siren call of Patio Cleaning was heard, so I took daughter out armed with sidewalk chalk and plastic dinosaurs plus the boombox and an ELO CD for me. She was no problem but the chickens and the tortoise kept getting entangled in my feet or would go spelunking in the Mysteries of the Open Garage and then would have to be rescued and/or hauled out. The tortoise felt a deep inner need to carefully....slowwwwlllyyy...investigate every tool I was using. She also came back later to play in the hose water when I hosed off the patio,resulting in my shoes getting soaked.

The patio needs revamping, right now it is an ugly and uninviting holding pen for things like the trash cans and the barbeque. I just have to figure out how to use what I have to improve it, and step one was cleaning. On to step two!

After cajoling Miss Grump into ingesting a tuna fish sandwich I accidentally stomp a HARD plastic Disney 'Stitch' toy which cheerfully tries to imbed itself in my bare foot. As I yowl with pain I try not to use any words I'd rather not have a parent-teacher meeting about later on. Where are my shoes? Out back on the porch drying, of course...

After this I load the kid into the car, preparing to descend on the cable company office and fling money at them. Bless my stars, just as I get into the car my husband arrives home and volunteers to go drop it off, the darling. He also mentions that he has a sore back and neck from tossing several hundred pounds of machinery on his back and running it up some stairs. *sigh*

Take confused 4 year old back into the house and spend the next 20 minutes explaining to her what just happened. Four year olds must have Union rules which state that each occurence, question or statement must be repeated 20 times. After that I give up.

Tonight I skip the 5 o'clock news in favor or sitting in the back yard savoring the cleanness of it, blowing bubbles for the kid and playing with the chickens.

One of whom has pooped, right in the middle of my nice, clean patio.

Horrid Tasty Thing

So this afternoon I was out enjoying the waning of the day...the chickens had been fed and were wandering contentedly about the yard...my daughter was playing happily with the bubbles I was blowing.

Suddenly, one of the young chickens darts across the yard over by the coop in what was clearly the furtive "I've got a really cool goodie" dash, with three other birds in hot pursuit. Problem is, I haven't handed out anything, and it was clearly a large, tasty something that this chicken had in his beak. Off I go to give chase, wondering what the heck they've gotten into NOW. As I join the chicken parade and we all double-time it in circles around the yard, the Tasty Thing is looking more and more like...a fish.

A smallish fish, to be sure...

Wondering how in the Hell a fish has made it into my landlocked suburban yard, I get serious about getting Tasty Thing away from a very determined bird. By now the rest of the chickens have wisely given up the chase, since Phoenix has it, and the Head Hen (me) is obviously showing waaaay too much interest in Tasty Thing.

Except now Tasty Thing is actually looking kinda like a human finger...! A decrepit and rotting finger, but still very fingerlike nonetheless.

At this point I pick up my daughter's toy shovel, intent on getting Horrid Tasty Thing OUT of my pet's beak. Meanwhile, my husband, who throughout this entire time has been on the roof working on the air conditioner and has had a ringside seat to this fiasco, is shouting, "What is it? What IS it?!"

"I dunno!" I yell back, brandishing the toy shovel at Phoenix, who has by now taken refuge under the patio table. NOW, here comes my 4 year old daughter to 'help', saints preserve us. I make one last, desperate, blind lunge at the chicken under the table, and am rewarded with a loud squawk. To my relief the offended bird runs out from under the other side of the table, sans Horrid Tasty Thing. Oh goodie, now I get to play with it.

"Jesus!" I involuntarily yell when I finally get a good look at it.

"What IS IT?!" Again from the roof, sounding anguished and disturbed.

"Uh...." Ugh, necessity dictates that I now look closely at Horrid Tasty Thing, assisted by a half-hearted prod from a handy nearby stick.

"Geez, it's a SNAKE!" I call up to the roof. Actually it's just the head and an inch or two of neck/body, and judging by the many beak holes in it, is obviously a discarded snack from the local crows...double ugh...

"Where in the Hell did they get a snake?!" from above in disbelief.

I don't know, but I've learned that where there's one, there's more. By the way, my brain whispers to me...where's the REST of Horrid Tasty Thing? 

Away to the coop I fly, searching for more bits and pieces. To my relief I don't find any, but this is also worrisome since I now wonder if my preschooler will be next to produce a grisly offering. I return to further inspect the decapitated monster, and decide that what it really is, is a REALLY BIG lizard. Great. Lizards we have in abundance and I welcome them, although I much prefer them alive. Much better.

That poor chicken never did get Horrid Tasty Thing returned to him, but I did slip him a piece of pizza crust to help sooth  ruffled feathers.

Ahh, another sleepy day in suburbia...