Month: April 2009

Happy birthday, Mom!!!

Troubles says “hi.”

So, I walk into the blue chicken coop, the one I also refer to as the “medium” chicken coop (because there’s one smaller and one bigger, obviously) and the “maternity ward coop.” As I walk into the coop, George the chicken (named after Curious George for her curious ways when she was a baby chicken) is stomping back and forth, squawking and bitching and whining.

This is George the chicken:

It takes me a few minutes of peering at the chickens, but eventually I realize that something’s wrong in the maternity coop. One nest box is empty, of course, because Silkie Momma (aka The Bad Mother) is outside, this time with all four of her babies following her around.

In the next nest box is Red Momma, who’s sitting on eggs that are due to hatch any time now.

This is Red Momma:

She’s in the correct nest box.

The third nest box over is empty. No chicken, no baby chicks, no eggs. This is Buff Momma’s nest box; she hatched one baby a few days ago, a cute little black chick.

This is Buff Momma:

The fourth nest box over contains Buff Momma. This nest box does NOT belong to her, and it takes some investigation on my part, but I realize that she’s sitting on six eggs. That do not belong to her. The nest box Buff Momma is in belongs to Black Momma.

This is Black Momma:

Black Momma is in the fifth nest box over, sitting on eggs that do not belong to her. This nest box belongs to George the Chicken who, as I mentioned, is having herself a hissy fit. Here’s a reminder – this is George the Chicken:

She is having herself quite the temper tantrum, and no wonder – her eggs are being warmed by a strange chicken, and what if the eggs hatch and the babies think Black Momma is their Momma, when really George Momma is their Momma?!

In the sixth box is Americauna(ish) Momma, who is minding her own damn business and prefers not to be involved, thank you.

This is Americauna(ish)Ma:

I am befuddled. Where the fuck is Buff Momma’s baby? Why are these stupid chickens sitting on the wrong eggs? For that matter, why is Buff Momma sitting on eggs at all – her baby hatched (only one egg of four hatched; perhaps she’s mourning the loss of the other three babies?)

I poke around some more, and I see a small black baby chicken with Red Momma who, as I mentioned, is sitting on eggs due to hatch at any moment.

More befuddlement on my part. I poke around under Red Momma and find eggs there, no egg shells, and the little black chick.

I go inside, get the phone, and take it out to the blue coop with me. After some discussion with Fred, I realize that none of Red Momma’s eggs have hatched, that the baby hanging out with Red Momma belongs to Buff Momma. Buff Momma is sitting on Black Momma’s eggs, Black Momma is sitting on George Momma’s eggs, George Momma is having a possessive temper tantrum, and AmericaunaMa is minding her own damn business.

So I get down on my knees and I pull Buff Momma out of the nest box she’s in, and I put her in her nest box. She does not care for this maneuver. She shrieks at me and calls me names. I quickly dig around under Red Momma and pull out the baby chick, and put the baby chick under Buff Momma. Baby Chick says “Are you my mother?” Buff Momma says “You again. I thought I gave you the slip.” Baby Chick climbs over Buff Momma and slips underneath her feathers. Buff Momma looks grumpy, but settles in.

I pull Black Momma out of the nest box she’s residing in, and she shrieks in a most unladylike manner, kicking and flailing and calling me names. I put her in her nest box, and she gets in, shakes her feathers, and looks around.

“This will not DO,” she says, tsking, and immediately begins arranging her eggs in the preferred pattern. A few moments later, she settles down and glares at me.

This leaves George Momma’s nest box – with six eggs in it – empty of a Momma, and I go outside to look for George Momma. I don’t see her anywhere, decide she’s gone under the coop to pout, and go back inside to make sure the Mommas have not gotten all crazy and switched nest boxes again. While I was outside, George Momma slipped past me, and is now sitting on her eggs.

All is well in the maternity ward. For NOW.

I’m telling you – it’s always SOMETHING.

Yesterday I walked into the front room to find a puddle in the middle of the floor. I sighed, stomped to the laundry room, got the bottle of Stink-Free and a couple of rags, and stomped back into the front room. Then I stopped and looked closer at the puddle. It looked less like something an angry cat (I AM LOOKING AT YOU, BOOGIE) would have left, and more like something that had dripped from the ceiling. I looked up at the ceiling and saw a single drop of water hanging there.

It hadn’t rained in days, and aside from that, we’d never had an issue with the roof leaking in that particular location. I sniffed the puddle to be sure it wasn’t cat urine. It wasn’t.

I stood and pondered some more, staring up at the ceiling, and then realized that where the water was dripping from (or rather, had dripped from) was exactly where the water bowls in the foster kitten room are located.

I went upstairs and found I was right – the little brats had overturned a waterer at some point, which ultimately caused the puddle downstairs.

I should totally be a detective, dontchathink?

Speaking of detectives, I’ve gotta say – doesn’t it seem that the bad guy in just about every detective novel ends up going after the cop/ detective’s family? I think it’s time to get a new plot device.

I’m curious to know how often it happens in real life that a criminal goes after a cop/ detective’s family, because judging by the world o’ fiction, I’d say it happens about 75 percent of the time.

While my parents were here, Caleb earned himself the nickname “Troubles”, because that boy is into EVERYTHING. He races around and races around and races around, and gets into everything, chews on every wire he sees, jumps on all his siblings and kicks and bites them ’til they cry. And then when he gets tired, he climbs up on and cries like a big baby. Even if you snuggle him and kiss him and tell him I know, it’s a hard life, it’s okay baby, still he cries until he falls asleep.

Then he sleeps for about ten minutes, and he’s refreshed and ready to race around some more.

He loves to play with his brothers and sisters, but what he REALLY wants is to be buddies with the big cats. The big cats, however, are not all that interested.

They’ve got plenty of friends already, THANKS FOR THE OFFER, KID.

Poor Troubles.

Inching ever so closer to Mister Boogers (who did not put up with this for long).

Like a rock, this one sleeps.

Suggie goes for a ride on his Daddy’s shoulder.

Previously
2008: I thought you guys would want to know.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: So, Fred has now been officially neutered.
2004: All I have to say about the kayak is this: those fuckers are HARD to get out of!
2003: Except that best laid plans and all that jazz.
2002: I love old houses with deep porches.
2001: No entry.
2000: Even now, Fred and I talk about that, and we refer to it as my “Walking the gauntlet.”

Before I forget – I emailed those of you who asked where we get our Frontline online, but in case I missed one or two of you, or my email got tagged as spam, I said:

In the past, I’ve ordered Advantage and Frontline from this site in New Zealand with good results, but Fred discovered another site over the weekend that’s a few dollars cheaper – AND in the US (so, one assumes, we’d get it quicker).

This is what we order – that’s about what we paid for three tubes at the local Co-op, so it looks like a good price.

I haven’t tried that site yet, so I can’t recommend it yet, but it certainly seems worth a try.

In my comments yesterday, Elizabeth added:

I urge you guys to check your vets office of Frontline pricing! I know things are cheaper online, but its not always true! We keep ours below online prices and right now (and usually) the makers of Frontline are offering a buy six doses, get one free deal. PLUS, Frontline bought thru your vet keeps your money locally and supports them AND comes thru legal channels. The drug company does NOT sell to anyone but practicing veterinarians so who knows where the stuff you buy elsewhere really comes from.

And yeah, obviously if you can get Frontline through your vet’s office for a comparable price, you’ll want to do that. In our case, the vet charges more than the Co-op does – and the Co-op’s price is twice as expensive as the online price.

(Click on any picture to go to a larger version of it)

George and Gracie are doing well. They’re happy in the back forty with their flock, and they’re happy when we go out to hang out with them – and they’re ESPECIALLY happy when I bring snacks out for them. I’m trying to limit how many snacks I bring them because too many snacks isn’t good for anyone, of course. But they get SO HAPPY when I make them sit and give them snacks that it’s hard to refrain.

They spend a lot of time sacked out under the coop (it amazes me a little that they can actually FIT under the coop, as big as they’ve gotten), but they’re happy to crawl out under the coop and come greet us when we come to visit.

I made a movie of them back in March, and of course I’m just now getting around to uploading it. It probably wouldn’t hurt to turn your sound all the way off so you won’t be irritated by hearing me incessantly asking the dogs what they’ve got. At one point, I swear that George looks at me and he is clearly thinking “Lady, I’ve got a carrot. You GAVE me the carrot. What the fuck do you THINK I’ve got here?”

George & Gracie, March 2009. from Robyn Anderson on Vimeo.

“The Silkie is broody again,” Fred said. “Should I try to break her? Maybe we should put her in the blue coop with a few eggs under her, and let her hatch some babies. Everyone says Silkies are really good mothers.”

“I’ve heard that too,” I said. “Silkies are really good mothers. Everyone says so! And I’ve heard they go broody at the drop of a hat. We should let her fulfill her destiny and have some babies!”

So Fred put the Silkie in the blue coop with some eggs under her. She brooded and brooded and brooded. And then after three weeks of brooding, she had her four babies.

On Friday as I was on my way out to the big chicken coop, I saw that Momma Silkie had her babies outside, and she was walking around the chicken yard with them, showing them what to eat. Mother chickens make a very distinctive “Hey! Food!” sound that baby chickens know, and when they hear it they come running, and they eat whatever Momma’s showing them to eat. About an hour later, I decided to go outside and take some pictures of Momma Silkie and her babies.

I walked around the entire chicken yard, looking for Momma and her babies, but they were nowhere to be seen. I decided that they’d likely gone under the chicken coop; they like to hang out under there, where it’s cool. I decided to go out to the back forty to visit George and Gracie, figuring that Momma Silkie would just come out later. As I was walking by the little chicken yard which contains our youngest chickens, the ones we got from the hatchery and our purebred Marans, I glanced over, and then I took a second look.

There were two little chickens that were much, much smaller than the chicks that surrounded them. It took a moment of hard thinking, but I realized that somehow two of the Silkie’s babies had escaped the medium chicken yard and were yucking it up with the chicks in the small chicken yard. I have no idea how they did it – the two yards share a common fence, but there’s chicken wire all around the inside of the small chicken yard and they shouldn’t have been able to squeeze through it.

I went into the small chicken yard and – after quite a bit of chasing, and with the eventual use of SCOOP HANDS – caught them. I took them into the medium chicken yard and put them down, sure that Momma Silkie would see them and call to them, and there would be a joyful reunion.

Except that when I put them down, the babies wandered around the yard cheeping sadly, and Momma Silkie was nowhere to be found. Which is when it finally occurred to me that Momma Silkie could possibly be inside the coop. I opened the big door to check it out, and that goddamn chicken was in the coop with two of her babies, gaily kicking shavings around and looking for food.

“Momma!” I said. “Your babies are looking for you!”

She ignored me, just kept on with the kicking and the pecking. Kick and peck. Kick and peck. Kickkickkickpeckpeckpeck.

In the yard, her babies cheeped sadly.

“You,” I said to Momma Silkie, “Are a bad BAD mother.”

She ignored me. Kickkickpeckpeck.

I turned and began chasing her babies. I managed to catch one of them pretty quickly, and I went to the door of the coop to place the baby inside the coop. The baby cheeped in alarm. When she saw me walking toward the coop with one of her babies in my hand, Silkie Momma came running over, making her Alarmed Momma sound, and puffing her feathers up so she’d look as big as she possibly could.

“OH,” I said, setting the baby carefully down. “So NOW you’re all the concerned mother! You didn’t give a shit about this baby two minutes ago when you were kicking and pecking!”

She glared balefully at me and herded her baby into the coop and began again with the goddamn kicking and pecking, joined in her dance by three of her babies.

Behind me, baby number four cheeped sadly.

I grabbed the SCOOP HANDS and began chasing the last baby around the chicken yard. Here’s the thing y’all probably don’t realize about tiny baby chickens – not only do they run fast as the wind, they are also TINY and thus very fucking hard to catch. I would come THIS CLOSE to catching the little fucker, and it would slip through my SCOOP HANDS. Or it would run under the coop. Or it would disappear and reappear behind me.

I got so pissed off that I finally bellowed “FINE YOU LITTLE FUCK THEN DIE OF LONELINESS!, threw my SCOOP HANDS as hard as I could over the fence, and stomped inside to call Fred and blame it all on him.

He gave me a few good ideas, I eventually calmed down, and I went back out to try again. Last time we had a number of mother and baby chickens, Fred took a cat carrier and put a piece of wire across the front of it. That way, you can put a mother chicken in the carrier, and – in an ideal world – the mother chicken will call to her babies, who will come running and slip through the wire into the carrier, which you can then take into the chicken coop to release the chickens.

It works really well when the mother chicken isn’t a flighty little bitch who is STUPIDER THAN THE STUPIDEST CHICKEN EVER KNOWN IN ALL OF HISTORY. I put that goddamn Silkie in the carrier, and she squawked and shrieked and just generally acted like an idiot. I took the carrier outside and put it near the coop so that her baby (who was under the coop the last time I’d seen it) could hear her. Except that she didn’t make her “Come here, baby” noise; she made her “OH LAWD JESUS HELP ME I AM BEING TORTURED” noise, and that is not a sound that attracts wee baby chicks. I sprinkled some food in the carrier and she went “LAWD JESUS GOD WHY HAVE YOU FORSA- Oh hey look, food!”

Still no baby.

And I got down on my hands and knees on that dirty ground and I looked under the coop, and there was no baby to be seen. So I looked in the coop in case the baby had somehow figured out how to go up the ramp into the coop, but there were only three bewildered baby chickens in there, and so I threw up my hands and I stomped around the yard and I looked for that baby. Which is when I glanced into the little chicken yard, and that baby wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to get to his Momma, but he was apparently smart enough to get into the little chicken yard AGAIN, and I still have no clue how he did it.

I went into the little chicken yard and chased that little fucker around, and finally when he was trying to fit through the chicken wire, I caught him and I carried him into the medium chicken yard, and I put him and his mother into the chicken coop. And Momma Silkie began kicking and pecking, and her babies began pecking at the food she unearthed, and all was right in Stupidville again.

The Bad Mother.

First, the mother bird on the nest:

Then, the eggs:

I saw the mother bird headed for the nest with a worm in her mouth over the weekend, and I decided to check the nest. Then I promptly forgot about it. Two days later I went and checked, and voila:

There are at least three of them, maybe more. I’m doing my best to stay away from the nest ’cause I don’t want to traumatize any of them, but it sure is hard!

::slurrrp::

::slurrrp::

::slurrrrrrrrp::

::zzzzzz::

Tom on a mission.

Previously
2008: And Mister Boogers lives to het again.
2007: No entry.
2006: I love my cats, but sometimes I really HATE MY FUCKING CATS too.
2005: KIND OF LIKE HERPES.
2004: The mind boggles, does it not?
2003: Sam’s! Whoo!
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Ah, the intrigues of 11 year old girls…

George and Gracie lovers, pictures (and a short video!) will be up tomorrow.

Anita sent me the link to this page, and it cracks me UP.

You know what annoys the shit out of me? When I am required to call a company to cancel my account. When I signed up for Stamps.com back in 2000, did I have to call to sign up with them? Why, no. No, I didn’t. I was able to sign up right on the computer, never had to talk to a living person even once.

Last Friday when I was balancing the checkbook, I realized I was still paying $15.99 per month for the privilege of printing out postage online, and that’s ridiculous. Know what? When you print out postage at USPS.com, it costs less than when you print out postage at Stamps.com. As an example: if I send a 3 pound 2 ounce package to my sister via Priority mail, it costs 66 cents less if I print out the postage at USPS.com than if I use Stamps.com or took the package to the post office. Granted, 66 cents isn’t SUCH a big difference, but it adds up.

So I was paying $15.99 a month PLUS full price for postage – and I suspect that Stamps.com pays the lower price and pockets the difference. Which, I know, they’re a company and they’re in it to make a profit, but I DON’T LIKE IT.

I tried to cancel my account online, but apparently it is not possible to cancel your Stamps.com account online “due to security and privacy concerns.” MY ASS. I note that they were never all that concerned about my security or my privacy at any point in the past nine years of my account.

I got all fired up and called the customer service number, ready to be an asshole when they started offering me special deals and trying to talk me into staying. The longer I sat on hold, the more fired-up I got, knowing that it would be pointless and that I’d end up talking to someone in India and have I mentioned that I hate talking to strangers on the phone in the first place, let alone someone I can’t understand?

But then I got to balancing my checkbook and by the time the customer service rep – who did not appear to be located in India – answered the line, I was so distracted by what I was doing that I was perfectly nice. (It helped that she was perfectly nice, too. But then, most customer service reps are.) She tried to talk me into saying, offered me the cheaper $9.99 plan (which, I note in retrospect, was not listed on the site when I went to see if there was a cheaper plan), and eventually she said “Is there anything I can do to convince you to stay?”, and I said “I’m sorry, no.”

Yes, I APOLOGIZED to her for not keeping my account. I guess that showed THEM.

So my Stamps.com account is closed, and I’m totally going to use that $15.99 a month to parTAY.

Know what else annoys me? When you’re looking for something in particular online – like such – and instead of listing the price, the site says “Call for pricing.”

Um, no. If you can’t be bothered to list your price on your web page, I have no desire to call you up so you can try to get me to buy 6 other things along with the ONE THING I’m interested in. If I can’t find it somewhere else, I’ll go without, THANKS.

Last week, I finally got my ass in gear and updated my links page.

Man, I read too many blogs and journals. No wonder I’m perpetually behind!

The link to that page resides in my sidebar to the left, the one with the picture of Miz Poo that says “blogs i read.” I’ve noticed a lot of people doing site searches for my links list lately, and so I thought I’d point out the link in the sidebar. To the left.

My friggin’ iPod shit the bed last week, doing the same thing it was doing before I sent it off to be fixed (I get a screen with vague unreadable blue lines on it). I ordered a Zune off eBay on Wednesday, and it arrived here (from San Francisco!) on Friday. Of course, by the time it got here, my iPod had started to work again. I figure I’ll just use the iPod ’til it stops working completely, and then I’ll sell the stupid thing on eBay. It amazes me that people buy iPods that don’t work on eBay, I assume they use them for parts.

The Zune is about a third the size of the iPod, which should make it easier to use when I’m puttering around outside doing stuff.

Speaking of puttering around outside doing stuff, yesterday I finally got my plants planted in the planters on the front porch (Caladium bulbs, with Impatiens and Pink Splash), but of COURSE it wasn’t ’til I finished the planting that I remembered that I’d intended to plant banana peels in the pots since I’ve read that they’re good for most plants. Figures.

Then I cleaned out the brooder in the garage to ready it for the newest chicks (a woman in Madison borrowed our incubator and bought a dozen eggs for hatching so that her grandkids could see eggs hatching; then she gave the resultant chicks back to us. In other words: MORE CHICKENS, eight of them, to be exact. Thank god, because I was afraid we were going to run out!), vacuumed the house, and did some laundry.

Saturday was actually a busier day for me – in the morning we went to the feed store where we buy some of our cat food, we went to the co-op to buy pig and chicken food and Frontline for the dogs (and I kicked myself for that – it’s so much cheaper online, I just forgot to order more, and we needed it immediately), we stopped by Lowe’s so Fred could buy a few things and look at their fruit trees, and we went to Wal-Mart to buy a take and bake pizza.

On a side note, I went to Sam’s one day last week, and while I was there, I picked up a pepperoni take and bake pizza that we were going to have for dinner Saturday night. I also bought flour and sugar while I was there. When I got home I put the pizza atop the extra freezer in the garage (which we don’t currently use) so that I could put the flour in the freezer we do use, and then I was going to put the pizza on top of the bag of flour and shut the freezer. Well, I got distracted, put the flour in the freezer, and then wandered off – LEAVING THE TOP OF THE FREEZER OPEN AND THE PIZZA ON TOP OF THE OTHER FREEZER. When Fred got home from work Friday (Friday being THE DAY AFTER I’d left the freezer open; I don’t know why he didn’t notice it that morning when he left for work), he saw the freezer open, the pizza set on the unused freezer, thought I’d been abducted, and came running into the house to find me laying on the couch, covered in kittens, watching The Reader. We didn’t dare eat the pizza, since it’d been sitting out for a day and a half, so we ended up going to Wal-Mart Saturday to buy a (more expensive, grrr) pizza there.

(Same pizza, same size, a dollar more. Not that great, either.)

When we got home, Fred went out to start working on the new shade structure on the front of the big chicken coop and I cleaned up the kitchen and started baking. I made:

Tomato Soup Chocolate Cake. Neither of us really cared for it, each ate a small piece, and the pigs are getting the rest of it.

Chocolate Chip Teacakes. Surprisingly good! I rolled half of them in powdered sugar and put the other half to the side for (you guessed it!) the pigs.

Amanda’s Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies, with some changes. First, I didn’t have an entire cup of dried cranberries, so I used about 3/4 cup of cranberries and 1/4 cup of dried blueberries. Second, I didn’t have – and don’t like – white chocolate, so I used milk chocolate instead. They came out really good – though Fred said that the cranberries and blueberries were sticking to his teeth. I didn’t have that problem, though, and I liked them a lot.

So all in all, a pretty good weekend as far as baking goes. I’m really disappointed in that Tomato Soup Chocolate Cake, though. I had hoped it would be good, but it was just blah. (Fred, of course, said “What did you expect? It has TOMATO SOUP in it!”)

Friday evening, I was in the house putting the kittens in their room. At this point, they’re being let out into the house around 8, and then I give them their evening snack and put them back in their room around 6 – sometimes later, depending on what they’re doing. They are awfully cute and sweet, but having seven of them bouncing around like wild things can be a TAD overwhelming, and not only to me. They’ve pretty much taken over the cat beds on my desk, and Mister Boogers (I assume) registered his displeasure by peeing on a magazine I’d left on the couch.

The latest issue of Backyard Poultry, damnit, and I’d only read half of it! FUCKING CAT. Now how on earth will I ever find out what good alternatives to Cornish Crosses are???

So I was putting the cats up, and the phone rang. Fred, who’d been in the back forty digging holes with the tractor to set posts for the shade structure, wanted me to come let him (on his tractor) through the gate. I told him I was putting the kittens up and I’d be just a minute, then I rushed through giving the kittens their snack and scooping the litter boxes, and as I rushed to the back door, I saw that His Highness Princess Fred had tired of waiting (LITERALLY TWO AND A HALF MINUTES) and let himself through the gate. So I’d rushed for nothing.

I charged him a $1 Douchebag Tax. AND HE PAID IT.

In fairness, if he’d realized what I was asking for the dollar for, he might not have paid it. But as I told him, the fact that he paid the $1 indicates acceptance and thus he is required to pay the Douchebag Tax WHENEVER I DEMAND IT in the future.

I foresee big bucks from this new venture.

(Yes, he did threaten to turn around and charge ME the Douchebag Tax when I’m being a Douchebag (which is often), but I informed him that (1) I do not accept the Douchebag Tax and will not pay it and (2) If he tricks me into paying it, I will then turn around and charge him an Copycat Tax of TWO dollars, so there.)

If you don’t read Love & Hisses, you missed some really cute pictures last week. I’m just sayin’.

Beulah roared past the one-pound mark this week – she’s now at one pound, five ounces. She’s still far outweighed by her siblings (Bessie’s the closest, weight-wise, and she weighs a pound more than Beulah now.), but she’s getting there!

Bessie and Caleb are both over two pounds now, so they’ll go to be spayed and neutered this week.

Doesn’t it totally look like a patch of orange tabby leaked off her brother onto her stomach?

Suspicious.

I swear she looks just like a little bulldog.

“What?”

I don’t know just how she does it, but somehow she manages to get cuter with every minute that passes.

“Quick! Behind you! A serial killer! Or maybe nothing at all! Same diff!”

Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: I have no skillz, but I’m a quick learner!
2005: Spot let out a sad, drawn-out demon-from-hell sound.
2004: Meme-licious.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: I live to please you, my beloved readers.