Tag Archive | chickens

A Very Bad Hen

Sep19

I had three black Araucana hens, two of which died, one by a predator, one from unknown causes. The one remaining hen, who I named Condoleezza, lays the beautiful blue eggs for which the breed is renowned. However in April she went broody for about four months recently snapping out of it and now again this stupid damn hen is at it again. She sits on useless eggs that’ll never hatch and of course then doesn’t bother to lay her own.

I’d just been proudly handing out blue eggs to people like Trevor and Elsa, but now we’ll have to wait months for more of them. I know, I could get another Araucana or two, but then if they also like sitting on the nest all day it wouldn’t be worth the gamble. I’ll just eat the other hens’ more normal coloured eggs and put up with this idiot of a chicken.

I need to renew my passport as Margaret and I are off to our beloved Yucatan in February, and I said to Calvin I decided to just get the paper copy and do it the old-fashioned way. He said he had to do it that way himself, given despite having a Bachelor of Computer Science, he couldn’t bust the Government of Canada website to do it online. So if he can’t do it, no one can.

And speaking of technology that could cripple a Boomer, I’m now waiting for Trevor to format my memoir, Nuttier than a Fruitcake, in preparation for its launch on the Amazon book site. Then we still have to meet to fool around with pricing, and I’ll have to write some preamble or other, and hopefully with God’s good grace, we can have an ISBN by September 30.

Why September 30 you ask? Because the Canadian Book Club awards require a submission by that date, and they have memoir as one of their categories. Vain and impossible, I know, but I’m doin’ it anyway. I’m going to enter my book and see what happens. Stranger things have occurred, right?

Mom remains a handful and mainly because she still believes she’s the queen. I was there a couple of days ago, and Luke and Jan came for dinner as usual. No one but mom wanted dessert, and at that point Luke stood up and said his back hurt and he wanted to go home. Jan was surprised he was leaving but then left with him.

As mom was chowing down on the prune cake with whip I’d made, she decided to get pissy, and just as Jan was going down the stairs she called her back. I waved Jan on. Then I came in and said what did you want to tell Jan? Mom said I want to tell her never to leave the table when someone is still eating. I said well from now on, unfortunately, things like that will occur and you won’t be able to control them.

Mom’s still scared shitless of dying, too, so that kind of hard control of everything makes life very difficult. She worries about so many useless things that at 100.5 years of age, one would have hoped she would have come to terms with them. She’s no Buddhist, I can tell you that for sure.

Meanwhile I revel in simple joys, such as learning how to make a nice yeast dough for the aforementioned prune cake. I’ve been frightened of yeast in the past but just decided to take the bull by the horns and give it a try, and then what happened was a lovely, fluffy bottom crust. As I said if you don’t try you’ll never win. Fingers crossed for my book.

The contest won’t announce anything until November, so I’ll have to try to be Zen.

Shopping Marathon

Jun13

My friend Beverly, who I met 47 years ago when we were both teachers of the deaf in Prince George, came for a few days, and she wanted to go to thrift every single day. I certainly wasn’t opposed to it, so we began with the Women’s Shelter and the Mission thrift stores and ended the day in Rutland at the Rutland Hospital Auxiliary.

The next day we visited Value Village which overwhelmed Bev with the volume of stuff. Luckily Dairy Queen is right next door, so we went over for medium-sized chocolate dipped cones to calm our nerves. You know how a glass of milk before bed is supposed to be soothing.

On Monday we went to the SHARE society store downtown and then rewarded ourselves with delicious crispy chicken burgers and fries at the Railway Station Pub. When I think of it, our time together was spent either eating or shopping. Both excellent pursuits.

It likely won’t surprise you to know that I didn’t leave a single store empty-handed, though Bev often did. It’s funny how that works.

Then Elsa wanted to go treasure hunting which we did yesterday, so we hit the Mennonite, iThrift (everything is $2), Gospel Mission and Salvation Army stores. Because it occurred so recently, I can actually recall a couple of items that I purchased. One was a Villeroy and Boch ceramic tile trivet for $3 but $25 on Etsy, and a hand-beaded evening clutch made in Hong Kong for $3, but $40 on Etsy. Not that I ever sell anything, but I could if I wasn’t so damned lazy.

This was something that I was so hopeful I would do this year, but it doesn’t appear to be happening yet. I want to sell my grandparents’ old typewriter, mom’s old Singer sewing machine and other items like that to collectors who may like them, because as Luke has already explained when I die, “All this mom, right into a dumpster.” So ya know, I gotta get at it.

Denis used to describe my thrift store shopping as “bringing home other people’s garbage.” How wrong can you be? You remember the old saying, “one man’s meat is another man’s poison.”  Those of us who shop at thrift are so very grateful to the hockey wives bored of their $500 bag after one season of use.

Fifty percent of my hens are still acting like a. holes. Three of them, Kate, Condoleezza and Rhonda, insist on sitting in the nest box all day long and have to be forcibly removed several times a day. I go into the coop at least three times a day, scolding the hens for wasting their days inside, pick them up and toss them through the opening into their pen.

They seem grateful to have the spell broken as they dust bathe, and peck around happily. However, a few hours later, bam! Right back into the coop and sitting on eggs from the other hens, the “good” chickens, that will never hatch. I do hope to God the whole brooding episode ends soon as they don’t lay while it’s going on so it’s quite the annoyance.

Being able to waste enormous amounts of time in a lazy stupor, I’ve set myself the goal of mid-September to have my memoir of the fruitcake biz completed and ready for Amazon. Trevor, who illustrated Okay I’ll Bite, has all the equipment I’ll need to make an audio version as well, so that’s what I plan to do. But as we all know, “everyone has a plan ‘til they get punched in the mouth.”

New Eyebrows

Mar31

As we age a lot of ugly stuff happens, not the least of which is the loss of eyebrows. I realized I had maybe half of one left over each eye and was wondering what a person does about it. Then I heard about microblading, and intrigued, decided to go ahead and have it done. Turns out it’s actually a tattooing of brow “hairs” which look amazing and natural. Who knew?

Maintenance is time-consuming and expensive, but what can one do, just leave things as they are? No. Poor Calvin has witnessed many beauty treatments around here and so is used to seeing me resembling either a burnt mummy or a bruised car accident victim. End result: less visible aging, so pain be damned.

But of course the old carcass isn’t fooled as for the past few days I’ve been digging in the garden and my hands and haunches are killing me as a result. I’m digging out voracious grasses that have practically consumed entire perennials, shaking them out, and putting the plant back. Due to lazy neglect, I have hours more to do. Had I just weeded faithfully into the fall, but no.

Because I have to be in Osoyoos for four days early April, then I’m leaving for Germany mid-April, I’m not able to do the usual volunteering for the election. I certainly wouldn’t have booked the time away had I known, because you know how much I like politics. Because I’m leaving before the advance polls open, I have to go to my local Elections office to vote early.

And as it turns out I may be too late going to Germany because Mom’s cousin Doris, age 94 and who I always stay with, is in hospital and not doing great. So that’s a terrible surprise as I was looking forward to our coffee, bread and jam in the mornings. I’ll stay with her sister Hannelore, age 92, instead and it’ll be just as lovely, but different without Doris.

You know how cocky mom is and when she turned 100 she said “Now we’ll see who’s gonna die next.” Luke and I turned to each other and said “Ballsy!” But with that kind of omen I wonder if it isn’t poor Doris who might be the one. Mom has a way of casting spells that’s hard to explain.

My six lovely hens are all laying nicely and the one Aracuna is laying blue ones. Now my eggs all look very bespoke and ready for Pinterest. Some are dark brown with speckles, some almost mauve, the blue, and an almost white (from Kate the old Sussex hen). I like giving them to friends who are quite impressed.

Tomorrow the former gym women are coming for a coffee klatsch. I made a hopefully moist cherry, chocolate and pecan loaf and in keeping with the fruit theme, cookies made with dried strawberries and dark chocolate chips. It’s all for naught really, as they’ll have a couple of cups of black coffee and then leave. Gym women!

And then it’s pretty much a sprint until I leave due to being in Osoyoos for four nights to babysit mom. It’s wonderful having the camera as I can see her using the walker to go into the kitchen, pour a glass of wine and make her way back to her chair to eat some chocolate and watch TV. So she seems to be pretty good for her age, but it’s too dangerous to leave her alone at night, hence the babysitting.

I can get Luke, Jan and mom’s feedback on the new eyebrows, so that’s one good thing.