Bitchypoo

Attention, people with mad graphic design skillz!

Reader Anita has a family member who has been diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer – some of you may have heard of IBC, but it’s not nearly as well known as the breast cancer we always hear about. You won’t find a lump because it doesn’t present itself that way. Most women who are diagnosed with IBC find out when they’re already in Stage IV. There is NO Stage V. It can look like a rash, or a bug bite, so many women pass it off. It’s very aggressive, and the prognosis isn’t good.

Anita started up a web site for Sherri, We Love Sherri, and they’re looking for someone to design a banner/ logo so that they can get a Cafe Press store up and running.

This is where you talented graphic designers come in! The only design elements they’ve come up with so far are:

1. a Berry (we call her Sherri Berry)
2. a pink ribbon

She says, Sherri is not working right now b/c she’s so sick, and she’s got 2 kids. We’ve had a couple of charity events for her, but of course, they don’t bring in a ton of money. I don’t imagine the t-shirts, mugs, etc will either, but I feel like I need to do something- anything. It’s all very sad and awful….

Who’ll help out? Email welovesherri (at) gmail (dot) com

And, thank you!

One of these days it will stop raining, and I will be able to mop my floors, secure in the knowledge that the cats won’t run outside, get muddy feet, and then tromp all over my nice, clean floors.

Yesterday was not that day. Today won’t be, either.

I meant to do some cleaning yesterday, but it was rainy and crappy outside, so I snuggled up on the couch with the kittens and Miz Poo and watched Grey Gardens (the movie with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange, not the original – though now I’ve added the original to my Netflix queue).

I actually thought that watching that movie would motivate me to get up and clean and declutter the house (if you’re not familiar with how the inside of Grey Gardens looked, there are some pictures here), because seeing TV shows about hoarders always makes me freak out a little and feel like we’ve got WAY too much shit and usually a cleaning frenzy commences.

Yesterday, though, I looked around and the house was relatively neat and organized, and I shrugged and said “Looks okay to me!”

(I bet that’s the first sign of being a hoarder, not seeing the mess that surrounds you. Someone’s probably standing on the front porch right now, ready to come in, remove 1,000 pounds of trash and junk from the house, and capture 450 cats and carry them off to the shelter.)

So, last week I said that the maternity/ little chicken yard is like a freakin’ Peyton Place. First, let me re-introduce the Mommas:

Red Momma and her two babies.

Buff Momma and her one baby.

Silkie Momma and her four.

You’ll note that Buff Momma has one baby. After I found Buff Momma’s baby snuggled up under Red Momma three or four times in a row, it became clear to me that Buff Baby was rejecting his Momma. I don’t know if Red Momma bribed him with better food or the idea of having siblings in the form of Red Momma’s babies (who were getting ready to hatch) were what convinced him that he’d rather hang out with Red Momma, but his preference was pretty clear. Then Red Momma had her two babies, and now she’s got her two and Buff Momma’s one following her around all the time.

Coparenting as they stroll around the chicken yard.

Sometimes Buff Baby will follow Buff Momma around if she asks very nicely, but most of the time Buff and Red Mommas stick pretty close together. I know that Red Momma is letting Buff Momma think they’re coparenting all three babies, but Red Momma’s babies have no interest in what Buff Momma has to say.

George Momma hatched two babies, one little yellow baby and one little black one. And then, because these chickens are HORRIBLE mothers sometimes, the little black baby got into the nest box where Black Momma was sitting patiently on her eggs, and guess what Black Momma did? Did Black Momma take George’s baby under her wing and love and snuggle it and teach it how to eat?

Why, no. There was no loving and snuggling and teaching from Black Momma. What there was, was MURDER. Black Momma pecked the intruder to death. TO DEATH.

And in the next nest box over, George just SAT and did NOTHING.

That’s right – MURDER IN THE BLUE COOP.

Poor little baby.

I’d like to say that George watches over her remaining baby with a close eye, making sure the baby is always near her and safe, except that that’s not true. MOST of the time George watches over her remaining baby closely and makes sure it’s safe, but if George and her baby are in the coop and one of us is outside tossing scratch to the chickens, that baby is ON HIS OWN.

However, if the baby manages to find George, George will cluck at it to show it where the food is and what’s okay to eat, and if another chicken gets too close, George loses her shit and runs it off. Apparently George requires a lot of personal space.

George Momma and her baby.

George Momma and her baby. See that white chicken on the left bottom of the picture? That’s one of the older chicks. It’s getting too close to George’s baby, as far as she’s concerned…

…so she ran it off.

Earlier this week, we found a dead chicken – one of the six week-old ones – in the maternity yard. It didn’t appear to have been chewed on (ie, not killed by a predator), so all we could guess is that it got too close to a baby, and one of the Mommas attacked and killed it.

If you ever thought of mother chickens as being sweet and maternal, get that thought right out of your head! They’re vicious bitches! It’s a fucking SLAUGHTERHOUSE over there. I told Fred that he needs to build a row of single-nest chicken coops, each with its own little yard, so the goddamn mother hens can’t get into each others’ nests and the babies can’t wander into harm’s way and get VICIOUSLY MURDERED.

The Mommas still see Charlie as no threat whatsoever, apparently. She’s like the mascot of the maternity coop.

See how Charlie gets all up in Silkie Momma’s space? Silkie baby’s all “Who’s that, Momma? Should I be scared?” and Silkie Momma’s all “Oh, that’s just Charlie. She won’t bother you.”

I would like to take a moment to apologize to Silkie Momma, though. She actually does a really good job of keeping her babies around her, now that Fred fixed the ramp into the coop so that they can get in there on their own. So far, all four of her babies are still alive. I guess it just took a day or two for her to figure out that whole mothering thing.

Keeping an eye on the babies.

Is it just me, or do the babies look like her security detail? Especially the two in the back, gazing off into different directions, alert for the possibility of a concealed weapon.

“Look, okay, you know what? We’ve been over and over this frickin’ CSS code, and I don’t know how to explain it any clearer. I think you’ve just not got a head for CSS, lady. It’s hard for me to use the mouse without opposable thumbs, but I will if it’ll SHUT YOU UP.”

Beulah works on her modeling poses. This is her “concerned” look.

Skeptical.

The wide-eyed innocent.

The look on Tommy’s face is cracking me UP. He’s like “Oh, THIS ONE again. She keeps following me around!” and she’s like “You’re purrrrrty!”

Previously
2008: I choose to believe it recovered and took flight.
2007: “GodDAMN I’m good-looking. Why am I taking orders from this old hag? Am I making enough money to put up with this over-polite shit*? I think NOT. GodDAMN I’m good-looking.”
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Questions answered, and a meme.
2003: Once again, pot-kettle-black.
2002: You can imagine the temper tantrum that followed.
2001: I would have preferred a candy bar, but unfortunately, we don’t got none o’ them ’round these parts.
2000: No entry.

So the things I need to work on as far as this site goes:

1. Fix the banner so y’all can see it no matter what size you’re viewing it at (hopefully that’s not beyond my skills!).

2. Add “before” and “after” links to the top of each entry (they were there with the last design, I’m going to have to see if I can figure out how I did that). For the record, if you click on the “comments” link under each entry, way at the bottom under the comments are “before” and “after” links. I know some of you would rather have them at the top too so I’m going to work on that.

3. Fix the colors in the sidebars.

Anything else that jumps out at y’all?

On Saturday, Fred was headed back toward the house after settling the chickens for the evening. It was, shockingly enough, another rainy day and the chickens hadn’t spent much time outside because of it.

They don’t really like to get their feet wet – or rather, I should say they don’t like to have their feet wet for days on end.

As he headed back to the house, he glanced over into the maternity yard and he saw what looked like a chicken, against the fence in the small chicken yard. He stopped and looked. It wasn’t moving, and he decided it must be a clump of leaves caught in the fence, but then decided to go take a closer look, just in case.

It turned out to be a little Rhode Island Red, one of the six week-old ones. The yard is fenced with welded wire, and he ran chicken wire inside that to keep the smallest chicks from getting out. This little one had gotten trapped between the layers of fencing – apparently before the rain – then held there throughout the storm. Worst of all, that part of the fence is right in the middle of the runoff area, so the poor little guy was probably in 4-6 inches of chilly water during the rain and after it.

Fred thought the chicken was dead, and then it blinked.

I was in the kitchen cleaning up after Snackin! Time! when the back door opened and Fred called “I need a box!” I found a cardboard box to hold the chicken, Fred lined the box with paper towels and put the chicken inside, set up the heat lamp, and brought the whole setup into the living room.

When he first brought the chicken inside, it looked pretty much dead. After two hours of sitting under the heat lamp, it was perfectly fine. Fred took it back out to the blue chicken coop, and the next morning we couldn’t even tell which chicken was the one who’d been heated back to life.

You could say the cats were interested.

Mister Boogers was both interested and a bit freaked out. And with a twitch of Fred’s foot…

…this was the result. We laughed ourselves stupid.

Miz Poo was less interested in the chicken and more interested in how she could get under the heat lamp, too.

::perk:: “Hey, guys! What up?”

Bessie was not interested in that chicken at ALL. She just wanted to bite on the corner of the box.

Remember how a few months ago we went up to Amish country and ended up ordering a cabinet to go in the kitchen where the bookcase is?

Sure you do. I wrote about it here.

Well, we thought it’d be mid-summer before the cabinet was finished, so imagine our surprise at the end of April when we received a letter from the man building the cabinet, letting us know that we could come pick it up.

We got the letter on a Saturday – I’m usually right out there checking the mail at 10:00, but on this particular Saturday I didn’t mosey out there ’til early afternoon. Had I checked the mail when I usually do, I probably would have insisted that we go up to Tennessee and get it that very day. We planned to go and get it the following Saturday (this past Saturday), but Fred the Weatherman worried and fretted and pissed Mother Nature off so that it stormed all day long. We knew pretty much as soon as we got up that morning that we weren’t going to go get the cabinet, because although we could wrap it in a tarp, if it was going to rain really hard – and it did – the cabinet would get wet, and it’s raw wood, so we didn’t want that to happen.

So we wrote a letter to the man who’d built the cabinet, apologizing for not showing up, blamed the weather, and told him we’d be up to get it on the next nice day.

We originally thought that we’d go up there Friday, but as the weather patterns changed – and they always do, don’t they? – we decided that yesterday would be our best day to go. Fred left work early, came home, we loaded up the truck with a tarp and a blanket, and we headed for Tennessee.

We got to the furniture shop to find that the man who’d built our cabinet wouldn’t be back ’til after 3 (this was at 2:20), but that his neighbor could help out anyone picking up furniture. We drove to the neighbor’s house, parked in the driveway, and Fred got out to look for the neighbor. Near the barn was tied a young cow, and as Fred walked away from the truck, she walked toward him with great purpose, like she’d been waiting for us to show up. She was adorable, and I wish I’d snapped her picture.

Fred offered the neighbor a ride back over to the furniture shop, and the neighbor hopped into the back of the truck. So of course all the way back to the furniture shop, we worried that Fred would hit a bump really hard, the man would go flying out and hurt himself, and we’d be on the Amish Shit List.

We made it back just fine, and Fred and I unwrapped the tarp and put it in the bed of the truck, then I stood outside and held one side of the tarp down (it was kind of windy), and Fred and the neighbor went inside to figure out which piece of furniture was our cabinet. Fred waved for me to come inside and look at the cabinet, and I went in and I’ll tell you what – that is one SOLID piece of furniture. It was also bigger than I’d expected, and I said “Oh my god! I love it!”

Fred hissed “Don’t say oh my god!” and I turned tail and ran back outside.

The thing that scares me about going up to Amish country is that I’m terrified I’m going to blurt something out and offend someone. I can FEEL the profanities on the tip of my tongue, just ready to be unleashed – “Hell-O, Amish motherfuckers, and how ’bout that goddamn rain!” – and so I do my best to just stand off to the side and keep my stupid mouth shut.

I offended no one this time, in fact I’ve never offended any of the Amish (that I’m aware of), but I can just FEEL it coming one of these days.

While Fred and the neighbor were trying to figure out how they were going to get the cabinet out the door and onto the truck, the furniture shop owner showed up. The two Amish men carried the cabinet out the door onto the truck bed while Fred held the doors of the cabinet closed. We got the tarp and blanket wrapped around the cabinet, tied everything down, and were on our way home.

I didn’t even flash anyone and bellow “I’VE GOT BOOBIES!!!!” or anything.

On the drive home, Fred told me that he was worried we weren’t going to be able to unload the cabinet ourselves, that it was really, really heavy and then he said something like “I think he made it all out of one-bys!”, which are words I do not understand and is probably code for something important.

Fred suggested many ideas for how we could get the cabinet out of the bed of the truck, and every one of them sounded to me like something that would end in the cabinet in pieces on the garage floor. Ultimately, we stopped at the corner store, and Fred went inside and threw himself on the mercy of the store owners and the old men who hang out in the store.

He came outside a minute later with an older gentleman. I got into the back seat of the truck, and we headed for home. We pulled into the driveway and got out of the truck, and I was starting to worry whether the three of us were really going to be able to unload the cabinet, when a truck pulled into the driveway and two teenage boys stepped out.

Secure that the menfolk had it all in hand, I went inside and started dinner. It took the four of them about a minute and a half to lift the cabinet out of the truck and set it in the garage, and then the three of them refused to take any money from Fred for their help.

This living in a small town thing? It kinda rocks.

So the cabinet is standing in the garage for now. Fred’s proclaimed that we must wait ’til the two week-old baby chicks in the brooder (in the garage) are moved out of there before he starts staining the cabinet so the fumes don’t kill them. It’s going to be a few weeks, at least, ’til the cabinet’s in place in the kitchen, and let me tell you – it’s going to be hard waiting!

The cabinet’s made of poplar – like the stairs – and we’ve talked about staining it the same color as the stairs. We’ve also talked about staining it the same color as the kitchen cabinets (or trying to, anyway). We’ll see – I think it’s going to be gorgeous no matter what color it’s stained!

Okay, yesterday I lied – THESE are the last of the pictures I took of the boys before they went to the pet store.

Jasper got adopted last night! I think our Sleepy will be very happy in his new home.

Such a big baby – he was whining at me because I wasn’t petting him enough.

Previously
2008: I ran after him screaming “NOT IN THE HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUSE!”
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: Hoverers make me want to just get the hell out of that store as soon as humanly possible.
2004: I think it’s a boy, though.
2003: He’s his usual Fancy self.
2002: “I can’t believe you let me go out in public like this!” I yelled at Fred.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

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.