Long-Weekend Fallout, The Exploding Breakfast and The Great Chicken Chase

Long-Weekend-Fallout
So Memorial Day, Monday May 30, was the my second full day off since I started with Mendocino Caregivers on February 21. (Weekends I get my neighbors' brain injured son out of bed and ready for the day. That's a trade for part of my rent on the great 2-bedroom cottage with the fenced yard and "white water" ocean view, which Frank now shares with me.) After I slept in on Memorial Day (aaahhhhhhh), Frank and I went to Orr Hot Springs to soak and to Montgomery Woods State Reserve to hike, and it was all glorious and sunny and I could feel my real self coming back, and then on Tuesday I got to work and it was like I had never done the job before. Scheduling program? Never seen it before. Phone calls? Oh, well. I swilled around for a while and after an unpleasant meeting with my boss, who seemingly speaks to me only when something has gone wrong, I realized, "Square peg, round hole, I've been here before," squashing my artistic sensbilities into the tight box of the bureaucrat or the narrow slot of the "helper." That night I had a dream about some sick, dissapated people who were trying to rip me off, and on Wednesday I applied for a publicity job with the Mendocino Art Center. It closes June 10, so I'll keep you posted.

The Exploding Breakfast
I had left my car at Frank's mother's house and he had an early meeting at the Fort Bragg Advocate News, so we were in a hurry this morning. I got out of the shower to the smells of bacon and boiled eggs (Atkins diet, dontcha know). Something was humming away in the microwave as Frank made his dash for the shower, and then *pop* *BAM* something happened inside the microwave. I opened the door to find a fine mist of boiled egg yolks and chunks of whites sprayed all over the inside. It felt good to laugh so hard so early in the morning.

The Great Chicken Chase
Lest the only story be told on Frank:
When I got home yesterday, some of the chickens were in the yard, some locked in the chicken house run. We keep the tiniest ones in there all the time so they don't fall prey to one of the neighborhood cats or a hawk or raven. The others are big enough now to put up a fight.

I got it in my head that I would put them all in the run before I left for Frank's mother's house to meet his best friend from Iowa and his wife and their baby.

Now, chickens have basically three thoughts -- "food," "brood," and "panic." All their interesting behaviors stem from variations on these three things.

Ours aren't laying yet so they are too little to be "broody," which happens when they decide to try to hatch eggs. They become coo-y and soft and sit in one place and talk to themselves and they also become very defensive of that spot and chase other chickens away. Which leaves "food" and "panic."

We've conditioned ours to associate food with "Here chick, chick, chick" or "Here chook, chook, chook" and it works. So I got my bowl of chick scratch (coarse corn meal) and scattered some at the open gate to the run, saying the magic words and they came running -- from both sides. The ones who were in came out and half the ones who were out went in. The other half of the ones who were out continued to pick at the clover like nothing was happening.

I made a big, slow circle and shooed the ones who were out toward the gate, while the ones who were now in ran flapping out. Hazel, my long-haired Siamese decided this was a good time to get in on the action and did a butt-wiggling crouch followed by a pounce that sent the ones headed for the gate into "panic." They scattered.

This time the big, slow circle netted me 2 in and 4 back out, and I caught my pants on some chicken wire that was patching a hole at the bottom of the fence. The next attempt resulted in the tiniest ones out and the 2 biggest in, and I caught my pants on a zig-zag piece of barbed wire that was protecting some new vegetable plants. Then I swore at the top of my lungs. Big Mistake. PANIC! Chickens in all four corners of the big yard, racing past the open gate and into the little cul-de-sac by the deck, cowering in the corners of the deer fencing. I finally resorted to catching them one by one, and to their shrieks of indignation and protest, tossing them into the chicken house run, closing the gate after each toss.

I used to say of something chaotic, "It's like herding cats." I think from now on it'll be like herding chickens.