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humorous
All posts tagged humorous
Just a quick mash-up of life on River Road. One of our girls passed on over the weekend. She was a buff orpington. One of a set of twins. No reason that we could see. She had a sluggish couple of days where she bunched herself up into a tight fluffy ball and sat in the corner of the yard. A good sign she was sick. She kept fooling me though by perking back up, stretching her neck out and bobbing around for bugs. I checked her out and could find nothing. It was a quick passing as chickens go. Two days, then she lay down in the corner and poof. That yew in the corner of our yard (ie. the chicken cemetery) is freakishly larger than all the rest.
Remember my recent posting Twenty Years and Still Farting? Well I’m sorry to say that the house has been painfully silent as of late. No, my spouse did not leave me, but she decided to try a wheat free diet. Fart free diet is more like it. Oddly enough, I have to admit I miss the midnight giggles from her rising bubbles as she turned over.
Spine? A natural progression from my most recent felted piece the pelvis. I have begun to felt a spine. This one is a mind bender. Turns out each vertebrae is different from the other. This is going to be a long-term project for sure. Here are the first three cervical vertebrae:
Lastly, I come to the subject of puppy love. My partner and son have been conspiring to get a second dog for over a year now and I have fully protested. I like my peaceful home which is challenging enough with a cranky pms partner, barking dog, puking old cat and a son who lives life bigger than broadway! They ignored me. For his tenth birthday my son got a puppy. He wanted a small dog he could hold. Great! A little shaky, yippy thing that like to sneak attack. Well, we found a mini long-haired dachshund mix at the shelter. 4 months old. Jo-Jo is his name, which we all agree is unfortunate but we make do with nicknames, joe, joey, joseph, goat(he eats anything). He has charmed his way deep into my heart. He is calm, smart, attentive, easy to house train, and totally dedicated to my son. This ten-year old boy has about faced when it comes to responsibility and accountability. The clincher and heart melter for me was when my son stopped me after saying goodnight and said: “You know how fun it is for you to get into bed with mama and snuggle while you fall asleep?” Withholding my sarcastic comments I said “Yeah”. “Well,” he said “now I get to snuggle with Jo-Jo at night and I’m not lonely anymore. I love going to bed now.” My knees just about buckled. Here he is helping me with laundry:
Took a trip to Washington D.C. this past weekend with my partner and son. Couldn’t truly afford it. What was once a $50.00 round trip is now over two hundred. Ouch! $650 later the budget of a school teacher and an artist recovering from a yearlong illness is stressed. We’re scrounging through the money jar from selling a few dozen chicken eggs to help pull together the mortgage. Pop ’em out girls! We need the cash.
So why break our back to make the trip? I come from a timid N.H. family whose eyes grow wide with fear at the thought of crossing the state line lest the heathen gangs wielding brass knuckles and machetes descend upon them, rape them, smash their car, take their wallets and then bludgeon them just shy of death, leaving them to survive and suffer with the memories. Therefore, it is extremely important to me that my son understand that there is a world full of culture and diversity beyond his rural bubble.
D.C. is no big leap, however my son’s favorite cousin lives there who is in her mid-twenties and loves our quirky little ten-year old. He adores her and her freakishly tall roommate. He’s as gay as they come and when he gets excited he reminds me of the huge blow up people that car dealerships have flailing in the wind to attract business. My son and he make ice cream together. This years flavor was basil. My sons idea and we all winced but it was absolutely delicious. They made garlic, rosemary and pine nut cookies as well. Another disgusting idea, but when my son sandwiched the basil ice cream in between and made what he called a pesto ice cream sandwich we all had a gastronomic awakening. It was quite delicious.
The weekend, however, was a series of unfortunate events to say the least.
Day 1: My sister-in-law suffered from dehydration after a day of walking up and down the mall to visit the Martin Luther King Memorial, sculpture gardens and natural history museum. The latter two merely a glancing for me, being the only artist. I would rather have planted myself in the sculpture garden for the day. Anyway, her legs were possessed by cramps, twisting and contorting, shriveling up right before our eyes. It was creepy and no doubt painful. After an evening of constant water supply she recovered. Whew! Thought that was going to be a hospital visit for sure.
Day 2: The next day was open embassy day for the EU. So we all piled into my other sister-in-laws car and drove closer to avoid the metro crowds. After what felt like forever we found what we thought was a great parking spot right on the corner. My sister-in-law pulled around, tucked in really close to the curb and that’s when we all heard a loud pop and the car sank. Flat! Okay, we’ll change it. No Biggie. We unearth all the necessary tools and the spare, put on the parking brake as we are on a slight incline, and begin to raise the car. I loosened the lugnuts and notice that one has a special nut. I’d never encountered this before. Apparently, it’s requires a special key so that your tire can’t be stolen. This is when I know I am no longer the young city student I once was. I just leave the keys in my dumpy ole truck. So the search was on for this lug key. A secret serviceman stopped and gets out to help us find the darn thing and as he and my son are digging in the back of the car he finds a Smirnoff Ice, turns to my son and says “I hope this isn’t yours”. In jest of course, but my son being only ten and hyper fearful of breaking rules and laws had a fleeting moment of sheer terror. The key is found! I began to loosen the remaining lugnut, set down the lugwrench for a moment and heard a clang. The wrench slid down into the sewerage drain. Gone! So balloon man proceeded to flag down the first Honda that passes. They lent us their wrench. A sweet Irish couple looking to move to D.C. They have a scrumptious baby and delicious accents. So all the others are happily distracted while I continued to raise the car. It’s up and I asked my partner to lift the tire off and just as she is about to, the teenie jack began to list. The parking brakes failed to hold and the car rolled off the jack stand. Kathump. It was time to call AAA. So I waited with the two sister-in-laws while the others went to the embassy around the corner. Tire replaced and ready to park, we realized our perfect spot wasn’t even a legal spot. We drove around and found another. Finally we can join the fun. As we are heading down to the embassy the others called to say it was a bust. Long lines, hot, and very little to do. My son and I split of to go back to the museums (I am so lucky to have a child that loves museums!) and the rest went to the Eastern Market.
Day 3: Sunday brunch. The sister-in-law with the car calls and cancels. They are ready to go home. Her daughter, who was also with us, has had an infection in her foot from some broken bone that wasn’t healing and currently the bone is dying. Ick! Any way, she was uncomfortable and her mom seemed a bit nervous about being in the big city and was stressed out from the tire fiasco. They were our ride to brunch. So we regrouped and ate somewhere closer. The other sister-in-law who is never quiet was. My partner gets a full glass of ice-cold water in her lap, my son did’t get his toast and home fries (a big deal to a ten-year old). So he pouts and while piercing him with my knock it off or I’m gonna… stare, I noticed he has a rash on his face. He felt fine but his face was red and swelling. We rushed to the pharmacy before our flight and pump him up with Benadryl. Minutes before we leave, my sister-in-law broke down in tears. Her son, who should be on medication and is difficult to relate with, has been angry with her for spending Mother’s Day in D.C. with his sister and not with him. He’d been threatening to keep her first and newly born grandchild from her. Rushed to catch our flight we do our best to console her and hurry off feeling less than satisfied with our trip.
Back home: Cat pee on the floor. (Cat is nearly twenty) Lawn far too long for this time of year. Son out sick from school the next day with puffy face which involved a trip to the doctor. Thankfully, it was just a reaction to too much sun or the sunscreen we used. Yet, we all can’t wait to go back. D.C. is a great city to visit.
Poor girls are cold! They are not big fans of the snow, this bunch. Normally, I open the coop door and a loud commotion ensues, all wanting to be the first to run off into the green grasses. But with these first few snow falls(which came very late this year) one, maybe two heads poke out to check the status of that nasty white stuff. Then it’s a very dainty promenade from their coop to my doorstep. If they had hands they would be hiking up their skirts, and bonnets or parasols would be a must. The last one out is our very own little Napoleon. He’s a little bantam boy. The only bantam amongst a dozen big girls. We ordered six bantams this year and all were roosters! That is far too much attitude and the girls were exhausted from all the harassment. So our kind friends who had a couple hundred hens and but one very busy bloke agreed to take the remaining five. Plenty of fish in that sea! Turns out that one of the adopted roosters fancied himself an ass and spends his days on the shoulders their donkey. But back to Napoleon. He is certainly a little cock with a big attitude. However, it is all attitude. As I said before, he is the last one out of the coop in any foul weather and only after all the girls are well on their way, to which he finds himself alone. This he does not like. He tip-toes down the ramp and when he reached the snowy edge he squawks and ruffles his feather as if mustering up some courage. Then he leaps and flaps, half flying, half running, like a puddle jumper, trying his best to avoid touching that nasty wet stuff until he catches up to the girls. Once back with his harem, he fluffs himself up big, belts out a song and side steps his way to the girls attempting a covert mount. I have yet to see him succeed. They are much bigger and as a group seem to have made a pact with one another to keep the little guy in his place. I am convinced the girls devise many a conspiratorial ruse just to ruffle his tenuous role as master of the coop. I have observed the group running to a freshly scattered patch of scratch, little Napoleon of course the last to know and the last to arrive. As they cluck and buck contentedly the girls have been witnessed slowly migrating away from the scratch, around the corner and out os sight of poor Napoleon. When he comes up from his eager pecking and finds himself alone, panic ensues. He paces in circles, bobbing his head this way and that as he calls out to the girls a sad whimper. “Cock-a-doodle-doo?” I can only imagine them around the corner of the barn giggling!
I did not think when we started chickens five years ago that they would be so entertaining nor become such a part of our family. Their personalities are undeniable. They have been the inspiration for much creativity from holiday cards, painting, home movies(we had one rooster named marble who crowed on command), and even my son has begun writing a cartoon series about them in the style of Spy vs. Spy. He calls it Chicken Vs. Chicken in which two enemy chickens are continually planting bombs in one another’s nests, eggs, etc. Not to mention that free range, organically raised fresh eggs from the back yard are not to be beat!
