Chicken Attitude

These chickens have serious attitudes! 

Last week, their water froze.  Before you call PETA, it was only for a few hours and they were fine.  Totally fine.  But they have major attitudes now.  Who knew that little bird brains have the space to hold a grudge?  They have been so mad at me.  I have been bribing them with extra cracked corn, but they are still mad.  They strut around, crabby as can be.  Only Alex can cheer them up.  He is more generous with the cracked corn, so they are big fans.  And, let's be honest, he is adorable -- who can resist his charm??   When their water was frozen, I left him in the Chicken Aviary while I ran across the street to grab water (the water at Jose and Beth's is still off due to The Pipe Misfortune).  Not entirely comfortable leaving my three year old with only Angry Birds to watch him, I was trying to hurry.  I wore my snowy boots in the house and was rushing, and my slick boots and the polyurethane on the floors were a bad combination -- I flew up in the air and landed on my back.  I was glad Alex wasn't with me, since I came up with a creative and incredibly memorable string of curse words.  After the concussion wore off, I was able to stumble back to the chickens with fresh water.   There was a squirrel in the Aviary.  It had gotten in somehow, but it couldn't figure out how to get out of the netting.  The chickens were going crazy, Alex was laughing, and the squirrel was freaking out!  It finally found a gap in the netting and made it over the fence.

This is Alex offering them some coffee.  He thought they might be cold.  Just kidding.  It's cracked corn, what else?

Turns out that the water bowl came unplugged, which is why the water froze.  My brilliant husband, Chicken Nanny Apprentice 2, diagnosed and solved the problem for me.  Whew.  Just it time for the blizzard of the year.

Still getting one or two eggs every day.  I'll post some awesome egg recipes soon!

Brrr, it's cold!

I have been in charge of the chickens for two weeks, and they are great.  Despite my worries about the cold, they seem to be dealing with it just fine -- much less whiny than I am.   In temps below zero, chickens can get frostbite on their feet, combs, and wattles.  If it gets any colder, I am going to try to put Vaseline on the susceptible parts.  That should make for good dinner conversation.  Other than the cold, so far, so good.  No raptor attacks, no crazy bird illnesses, no problems with poop.   I have more eggs than I know what to do with.  Actually, I made fantastic scrambled eggs with zucchini and bell peppers for dinner, and good ol' fake American cheese.  Yum.

The best part is having Alex help take care of them.  He absolutely loves them.  Every night, he goes over with me to sprinkle cracked corn.  For chickens, cracked corn is like crack.  They love it.  They go nuts when they see the cup of corn.  I let Alex carry it out, and he thinks they just really like him.  He tells them jokes (usually really, really bad ones that make absolutely no sense), and they cluck and carry on.  He thinks they are laughing at him, which makes me laugh, which further encourages the joke telling.  :)

Don't Blow a Head Gasket, and The Pipe Misfortune

First let me say that the chickens are fine, so for those of you only interested in the chickens, no need to read on... 

1. Don't Blow a Head Gasket

Awhile back, I went through a period known as The Heat Gasket Calamity.  Some of my followers will remember Ruby, my first "real" car. I loved that car. I would spend weekends vacuuming her, Armor-alling her dash until it shined. One evening, I decided to go to Detroit, the big city, to see some friends. Now, I am from a very, very small town so big city driving would make me nervous (aw, shucks y'all). On the drive, a huge van was following closely behind me and started flashing his lights at me.  He rode my bumper for miles.  I slowed to a reckless 65 mph to get him to pass but to no avail.  After a few minutes of the light flashing, he rolled down his window and started waving his hand at me, indicating I should pull over.  He pulled up next to me and gestured for me to roll my window down.  I grabbed my cell phone and waved it out of the window, as if to say "look, I've called the cops, so go away you depraved murderer".  Eventually he gave up and exited the highway.  I was convinced that I narrowly escaped a gruesome fate, grateful for my reliable car in this land of psychos.   I made it to Detroit with no other problems and headed home the next afternoon.  I stopped once to add coolant to my car after the dashboard light came on, suspiciously eying all the people at the gas station, surreptitiously looking for the van that had been following me.  By the time I got to Allendale, the coolant light was on again.  I called the Ford dealer and they said I could bring her in any time.  I made it about a mile down the road before the engine seized.   I got the car towed to the dealer and they called me a few days later.  The head gasket had cracked, and my engine was ruined...blah blah blah three thousand dollars.  The dealer said he was surprised no one noticed the coolant spewing from the back of my car. 

Let this be my official apology to the good Samaritan that I had pegged as an ax murderer.

My next car was also a Ford.  My sister and I went on a road trip to North Carolina to go white water rafting with a group of friends from grad school.  We were in the mountains, surrounded by confederate flags, when blue smoke started billowing from the back of the car.  I figured, "we're almost to the camp ground, it'll be fine".  No check engine light, no coolant light on the dash.  But, the engine seized yet again.  Are you kidding me?  No.  I hadn't even made half of the payments on the piece of junk.  I don't remember exactly how we got home.  I vaguely remember riding in a tow truck with a man with few teeth and a very thick southern accent, animal skins strewn about his truck.  And, we somehow escaped ending up in someone's freezer yet again. 

Nevertheless, my cars have all been Toyotas since The Head Gasket Calamity.

2.  The Pipe Misfortune/Thermostat on the Roof

This is the year of The Pipe Misfortune.  Many of you know that we had a slight problem with our pipes that ended up with us moving out of our house for a month while they fixed our ceiling.  Now, my bad luck has infiltrated my work as Chicken Nanny.   Yesterday, when Chicken Nanny Apprentice 2 (aka Will) went to check on the girls, he went in the house to fill the water jug.  He noticed the house was colder than usual and called me to ask if Beth and Jose turned off the water.  Uh oh.  Apparently the thermostat had died, and the house got cold.  It turns out that the batteries in the thermostat had died -- who knew that it would result in the furnace turning off?!  So the water in the pipes in Jose and Beth's house had frozen.  Major bummer.  CNA2 turned off the main water supply and turned on all the faucets in the house to drain the water from the pipes, in case a pipe had broken when they froze.  He got the heat working again, so disaster averted.  Hopefully, nothing is broken, or at least it'll be easy (and cheap) to fix when they get back.

Public Service Announcement:  Check the batteries in your programmable thermostat.

Joke of the Day

Joke of the Day:

There are two friends, Alex and Esteban. Alex asks Esteban to to watch his house and cat while he is away on vacation.  Alex calls Esteban to check in on his house and the cat.

"Hey, how are things?  House is still standing?  How's my cat doing?"

Esteban sighs and says,  "Well yeah man, your house is still standing.  Sorry to tell you this but your cat died."

"What?" Alex says.  "You just can't tell someone that their cat is dead.  You have to break it down to them gently. The first time I call you should say that the cat is on the roof trying to catch a bird.  The second call you should say that the cat lost its footing trying to catch the bird as it flew away, it fell and now it's at the vet.  The third call you should be to tell me that the vet says that it's not looking good for the cat.  On the fourth call you let me know that my cat died peacefully in its sleep.

"So," Alex continues.  "How's my Grandma?"

"Well, Grandma's on the roof playing with a bird."

My million dollar idea

The million dollar chickens have inspired me to come up with my next million dollar idea.  It's really a matter of perfect timing.  I have been worrying about the chickens in this cold weather, AND I just learned to knit (and by "learned to knit", I mean, someone showed me how to knit and I promptly forgot).  And the brilliant idea was  born...

Sadly, someone else thought of it, as evidenced by the image above.  No, I did not knit it, but IT WAS MY IDEA, darn it.  [Just like I thought of google, but their lawyers say I have no proof.  Sigh.]

I may have a whole wardrobe for your chickens when you return, Beth.  I'm thinking nice earthy colors, maybe a hat and four-toed gloves??

So far so good

The chickens have been in my care for more than 24 hours, and everything is going well.  Alex is totally excited about feeding "his" chickens and collecting the eggs.  I'm totally excited that three people are following my blog -- advertisers will soon be beating down my door.

The only problem I've had so far was trying to remember how to get Beth's back door to lock/close, and trying to sneak in the house without Dick seeing me and running over to ask for something!  ;)

Alex wanted me to share his favorite joke with "everyone", as if you haven't heard it a dozen times already:
Why do chickens sit on their eggs?
Answer: Because they don't have chairs.
(Raucous laughter)

I've been reading the book Beth gave me on Raising Chickens.  There is a very disturbing picture with the following caption: "An easy way to kill a chicken is to place a broom handle across the neck, stand on the handle, and firmly pull the bird upward until the neck snaps".   Um.....yuck.  Who uses their broom to kill chickens?  Do they sweep with the same broom?  I might end up a vegetarian again after I read this one, or at the very least hide my broom around chicken killers. 

We were eating chicken the other night, and Alex asked me why we call it chicken.  I told him that it is a chicken.  He laughed like that was the most ridiculous thing he ever heard.  At least he knows where milk comes from.  I guess we'll have to work on the chicken thing.

Day 0

Tomorrow is my first day as chicken nanny. Stay tuned for adventures in poultry.