Chicken Adventures – Day 55

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It’s possible that having the run so close to the house might have been a strategic error. Coping with the 5am wake-up just outside the bedroom window call every-single-morning has been quite the little challenge to come to grips with. Clearly memories fade after a decade of no chickens or some slightly different choices might have been made when planning this little lot. Fortunately, I’m an early riser and an even earlier lie-awake-and-ponderer so at least I don’t suffer an unduly startling wake-up call. Himself, however, has had to hone his capacity for ignoring extraneous noises to a whole new level. As of yesterday, I think the chickens are probably winning, given the grumbling!

Since my last post, we have renamed Braveheart. Her seemingly unlimited capacity for standing in the middle of the run and SHOUTING at the world is to blame for this. She’s particularly vocal when Chicken-little clucks off into the nesting box to snuggle down in the straw to lay an egg. So much so that, if no response is forthcoming, she’ll stomp up the little ramp into the nesting box and CHASE her sister out into the run! This seems to be because being all aloooooooone with a couple of (apparently) marauding pigeons who’ve fluttered in to snack on the leftover grain is very dangerous when she’s all on her own! Chicken-little eventually caves under the pressure – and chivvying – and scuttles out to see what’s up. She wanders around for a while, looking confused because the pigeons are gone and there’s clearly nothing noteworthy, then goes back to her disturbed egg-laying.

With all this in play, Braveheart somehow no longer seems to fit the bill! Coincidentally, I came across a tiktok-snippet in which a rooster is crowing very enthusiastically and his noise been voiced-over to sound like he’s shouting EliZ-zabeth(!). The name seems to suit her personality and I must confess that it’s easier to sound exasperated muttering EliZ-zabeth(!) as I head out to the run to save the neighbours – and my own – ears.

I reassure her (only somewhat impatiently…) that all is well and that the pigeons pose little risk. I go on to suggest that she quietens RIGHT DOWN about now ‘cos the number of her days remaining on this planet is probably more at risk from me than any imagined alternative! She’s less than impressed, but does settle down for a bit after that. Since having the wireless on when I’m out seems to comfort our little fox, I’ve also taken to leaving one on in my craft room all day, tuned to ABC Radio National. It seems that the chitchat of various podcasts and news broadcasts provides the chooks with the illusion of company and some sense of security. They both seem more settled, although they’ve taken to standing at the  edge of the run at various times and staring in through the window. It’s disconcerting, but moderately quiet – so I’ll cope.

Anyhow, about a week ago, EliZ-zabeth(!) laid a shell-less egg. This, in addition to her previous two offerings looking rather like thin papier-mâché, was a decided worry. My on-call chicken whisperer’s comment was, ‘She’s fine. It happens sometimes. If you’re worried, cook up a ration of oats and mix in some grit to make sure she eats it (the grit).’  So, bright and early the next day, there I was cooking up oats porridge for the ladies! When it was cool enough, I duly mixed in a couple of tablespoons of shell grit and served it – still warm – with some mushroom and sweet potato leftovers. Gourmet chook food apparently, compared to the grain I put out at the same time. That they left for the pigeons!

Of course the next egg EliZzabeth(!) produced was of a good size and looked (mostly) normal. So, there you go – Chicken-whisperer knows her stuff!

Fortunately, Chicken-little has caused less stress and has consistently laid medium-large eggs, all with good shells. She’s also shown no sign of any need for creative artistry in their production or started to indulge in pronouncements of the sky being about to fall or the pigeons invading. She even copes with being bullied. Small mercies. 

We’re averaging 9 eggs a week, which is pretty good, and I’m starting to give some of them away now. Not too sure that the eggs make up for the noise and fuss, but at least the rodents haven’t been eating my zucchini, tomatoes, etc., so I’m hopeful that the primary reason for getting the ladies has – possibly, probably – paid off.

Chicken adventures – part 1

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As part of our mini-sustainability programme, we’ve been growing an assortment of vegetables to see what works in our garden and what we can actually use. Our root vegetable adventures have all gone well but, other than tomatoes and spinach, our above-ground crops tell a whole other story. It turns out that we have rather active resident rodents lurking behind / under the compost bins. These charming little critters seem to have quite the refined palate and consistently pipped us to the post on the broccoli and the Italian cucumbers. Being the refined eaters that they are, they prefer to sample and move on – causing just enough damage to ensure what’s left isn’t useable. The last straw was when they then went for the plums, nibbling and discarding as they foraged. The little blighters even ventured to gnaw on the pink grapefruit when pickings got a bit slim!

Clearly it was well past time to do something more than put out ‘eco-friendly’ traps of various sorts that have zero effect except perhaps to make the rodents snigger to themselves at the human ineptness as they nom their way through zucchini and so forth. Discussing this with DaughterDearest – my local equivalent of wildlife-and-farming wrangler – we came up with two alternatives, neither of which held enormous appeal: 1) get a kitten / cat, or 2) get some chickens – replacing the pair we had about 10 years ago, who were admittedly excellent little raptors.

Now, although I’m very fond of my five grand-kitties and enjoying spending cuddle time with them, petting them and telling them they’re beautiful, I’m very happy to then go home to my little fox of a dog, no kitty litter boxes and no dramas about keeping her indoors. Ignoring any feeding and/or cleaning aspects of cat ownership, acquiring one sounded like a complicated and also seemed to come with all manner of complicated issues that sounded unlikely to make my life easier. For best outcomes, DD suggested keeping the cat indoors for the first six months or so to ensure she knew where and who home was. After that, it would be good to walk her on a harness to get her used to the scope of her domain (the garden edges), then move on to walking her OUTSIDE the property so that she learned how to come home and not to venture onto the road.

Right. That’s so not happening! The rodents are eating the crops NOW and watching the decimation of my hard work for an additional 6 – 9 months across the prime growing seasons of spring and summer whilst training up a possible solution didn’t sound like the best investment of my time. Also, our little fox is a free ranging hound – she comes and goes as she pleases and wouldn’t take well to being shut in – or out – of the house during kitty-training.

That left us with the chicken option to consider. Coincidentally, DD had a few spares up at the farm from a fairly recent hatching and said she was happy to pass a couple of the young ones on to us. As an undertaking it seemed fairly straightforward: build a hutch, whack up some fencing, get some feed and straw, install chickens – and goodbye rats. After discussions with Himself, we decided to give it a go. After all, we’d had backyard chickens once before and, although the memories of them had dimmed somewhat after a decade, neither of us remembered it being unduly tricksome. The words “how hard could it be” were voiced…

Some research later saw me ordering a flatpack ’chicken cabana’ – which sounds a lot fancier than it actually is, although it is pretty nifty. In due course said cabana was constructed (despite the instructions included) and the next phase commenced. This involved a number of cascading events, because no plan is ever as simple as it sounds to start with. Over the next couple of weeks we had to:

  • relocate a small tangelo tree to our verge garden, but
  • only after relocating a small lemon tree from there into a pot for rehoming,
  • moving the compost bins, but
  • only after emptying them first
  • erecting a run under the fruit trees, but
  • only after constructing an access way (steps and gate)

In due course all was done and a positively palatial domain awaited the arrival of our two rather bedraggled-looking fowls. Bedraggled because they’d been given a bit of a hard time by a young rooster up on the farm, but also because they’re naked neck chickens and tend to look a bit that way at the best of times. Although sometimes known as turkens, naked necks are simply fearsomely ugly chickens (fuglies) with no neck feathers and quite distinctively featherless bottoms. They’re pretty much flightless, good layers and don’t suffer heat stress as much as other chickens – definitely a plus in Perth and a win for us.

On top of all that, our girls are frizzles. This means they have curly, rather than flat, feathers, apparently caused by an incomplete dominant gene (F) that results in the feather shafts curling upwards and outwards rather than straight (like a regular chicken). This anomaly makes the ‘pretty much flightless’ naked necks very definitely flightless, making free ranging them  a lot simpler for us as we won’t have to factor in clipping wings and so forth. But the frizzle-factor doesn’t reduced their general fugliness, or not yet anyway. Perhaps when their feathers – lost in the stress of the move and seasonal moulting – grow back, we’ll be amazed by their quirky beauty!

Adult Orphans and the End of an Era

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Most of us grow up with at least some understanding of the inevitability of death.  Even so, losing a much-loved childhood pet didn’t prepare me in any substantive way for the loss of a parent. I suppose young-me assumed that they’d live, if not forever, at least well into old age. That they’d remain the safe and secure corner stones of my life, no matter what. So when my Mum died and then, just a few years later, Dad followed suit, I felt abandoned and rudderless – and far more so than I’d thought I might. Despite being all grown up – after all, I was 24 by then, I felt like an orphan in a storybook. Somehow, something I hadn’t yet fully come to appreciate had come to an end and there was suddenly no-one to provide the imagined security of unquestioning love and support.

Everyone deals with grief and loss in their own way. Some reject it absolutely, others dive into it, pouring their feelings into reminiscences, sharing photographs and stories with family and friends. Then there are those who keep themselves busy, focusing on details and generally getting on with life. It turns out I was the keep yourself busy type. No surprises there, but that meant it took me longer than necessary to process what I felt and how best to deal with it. I got there in the end, but the loss still bites from time to time, even decades later.

Now, just recently, I’ve witnessed the passing of FiL and MiL within 8 months of each other. These losses have been more drawn out, with ill health, memory loss and so forth gradually taking their toll. Even so, the loss of a parent is no small thing, and the loss of two so close together even more so. FiL was farewelled in September last year and, having known the family for 30+ years, it’s been interesting to observe how each of the siblings has come to terms with the parent-shaped gap in their lives.

Over the years, when she talked about funerals, MiL often expressed a desire to be “sent down the river on flaming Viking longboat.” This, she said, would be a “proper send-off”. So, with that in mind, Himself set about trying to bring into being something that would have both entertained and pleased her.

This involved many hours of planning, of sourcing schematics and scaling them down to a plausible size, purchasing balsa wood and other bits and pieces, and acquiring permissions from local council and the water authorities both, providing them with detailed plans, lists of materials, fire control measures and so on.

MiL had been privately cremated soon after passing away and her ashes kept Himself company through the process of the actual build. Each piece of the model was handcrafted in our garage, in the evenings and over weekends. Gradually it started to take shape as the pieces were painstakingly put together. Part of the process was a number of test burns of scrap pieces of balsa outside our garage to see what combination of flammables would produce the best – and least polluting – result.

When the day of the send-off finally dawned, it was grey and overcast with rain pending. Despite the longboat being completed with a few hours to spare, the prospect of a successful launch appeared unlikely. Even so, after a memorial afternoon tea, a contingent of hardy friends and relatives headed to the river for the final farewell.

It seemed fitting that MiL’s final resting place would be where she learned to swim as a 4-year old. Mason’s Landing, on the Canning River, has changed a great deal in the intervening 83 years, but was still recognizable from paintings of the area done by her mother in those early days. She was lovingly placed on the longboat and the siblings waded out into the river together to see her on her final journey. There was some chaos, a few false starts, some hilarity and – finally – success was achieved.

I think MiL will rest easy at Mason’s Landing and we’ll all remember her Viking send off with a smile and a light heart.

On Happines and Bicycles

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My much loved Indi hybrid bike, aka George, combines 21-speed comfort with good suspension, tyres like a mountain bike and sit-up-straight handlebars. All of that has made for enormous fun as we’ve trundled around Perth together over the years.

George has been my window of independence for many years, even when riding a bike wasn’t possible. Knowing she was there – waiting for me whenever I needed her – made me feel safe. Silly, perhaps, but the idea of getting rid of my bike made me feel lost and less independent.

On that basis, I’ve been shilly-shalling about rehoming her for months. This, despite the fact that riding her had become increasingly difficult and she had become more part of the background garage decor than something in regular – or even intermittent – use.

After my usual New Year internal review, I created a vision board to help me to focus. Following on from this, and as a step towards being more active, I went and acquired an electric-assist bike. It had been under consideration for some time, but I’d stalled out as it seemed like taking the easy way out. Instead, it’s allowed me to actually get back to riding regularly – something that’s always been a happy-making thing.

In short, my new magical electric velocipede – let’s call her Little Bird, is working out just fine. Even if I only use the electric assist when I absolutely have to, having it makes all the difference – making the thought of the hills far less daunting and the fun of the ride all it should be.

Cycling home in the cool of the morning today, I felt relaxed and happy. Not special-reason-happy, not epiphany-standout-moment-happy… just regular smiley-type-out-on-my-bike-happy. And it was suddenly clear that it was well past time for George to stop lurking in a corner of the garage, neglected and gathering dusk. It was time  me to say goodbye and for her to  head off on new adventures to visit new places with a new human.

So this afternoon I advertised George as a free-to-a-friend bike – and she was snapped up in no time at all. As it turns out, sometimes, letting go of something can be surprisingly unstressful. Instead of feeling lost  or sad as I helped to load her into the back of her new human’s car later on, I felt pleased – both that she’ll be able to ‘keep on trucking’ and that the lass who’s taken her home was so delighted to have a bike again. 

Maybe one day she’ll hand a bike on to someone else who needs one – who knows. Meantime, LittleBird and I will be out and about at every opportunity!

Extraordinary ordinary people

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Whilst getting over the winter lurgi (aka bronchitis), I read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Except, as it turns out, she’s not. The intense loneliness of her day-to-day life, the ways neurodivergent Eleanor tries to fit it and to create a narrow – but very safe – existence for herself, and the ways she eventually tries to break out of it was – what? touching? moving? desperately sad? All that and more.

“… by careful observation from the sidelines, I’d worked out that social success is often built on pretending just a little. Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don’t find very funny, do things they don’t particularly want to, with people whose company they don’t particularly enjoy. Not me …“

Once I’d finished Eleanor, I unpacked my response by doing a bit of doom-scrolling on the topic of loneliness and isolation. Depressing? Yes, but also food for thought. I ended up questioning whether, as a society, we are all lonelier than we were in ‘days gone by’, as so many articles and writers suggest, or is that  just perception? Does it really matter?

Pondering this took me down the pathways of songs for a while – and there are many (many) songs about loneliness out there. Really. SO many. But the closest I got to where my thoughts of Eleanor had taken me was Green Day’s The Boulevard of Broken Dreams – or, as my family refers to it, the walk
straight song.

“…I walk a lonely road / The only one that I have ever known / Don’t know where it goes / but it’s home to me, and I walk alone… My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me / My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating…”

Oh Eleanor Oliphant, this could have been written for you. Or, I suppose, for any number of people who feel disconnected. Strange that I should find this so interesting, given that my working (and volunteering) life in community development has been all about connectedness. Most of the people I’ve encountered have been in their 60s or older, most are/were active and engaged mentally and, in general, physically. Whenever I came away from a group session, planning meeting or event, I found myself thinking, “I want to be like them if I get to be that old!

These interactions changed my views on ageing. Given that my starting premise was that 60 was old, this is not surprising. Admittedly, this view was predicated on my own family experiences: a mother who passed away at the age of 60, after a protracted period of poor health, and a father falling prey to cancer when only slightly older. So my expectations from my early twenties was that, in all likelihood, I would follow suit. 60 was old – and then you died, probably after some wretched illness. This wasn’t something I
worried about unduly, it was just reality as I saw it. I am, after all, a pragmatist.

Working with seniors – such extraordinary, ordinary people – over the past three decades I came to realise that there is actually no reason why I wouldn’t or couldn’t be just like them and live a full, healthy and connected life well past my assumed end point. What a revelation that was! More than that, I observed that social interaction is key. Of course, being physically and mentally engaged are very important too, but the social environment – the support networks, friendships, sharing and more that these provide – works to encourage engagement in every other sphere. Community organisations, places where people can meet up with others – whether friends or strangers – to participate in activities, listen to talks, go out group outings, or just have a natter over a cuppa, are enormously valuable community resources in this arena. They are where connectedness is nurtured and thrives, allowing friendships to develop and people to feel included in their community.

Now that I’m part of the recently-retired contingent, I’m having fun trying out various activities to see where my pathway will take. Currently, MahJong lessons have been replaced by regular games with a group – yes, at a community centre – and these are proving to be fast, furious and great fun. MahJong players take no prisoners! It’s interesting that, somehow, between thinking 60 was old (and headed for doom) and now, I have in fact become one of those people I aspired to be. How lovely.