Sprinkles

Monday, November 30, 2009

Hawks 2 - Chickens 0

Missing: 2 chickens. One black/white Dominique, answers to the name Jaye-Bird if she isn't busy preening her feathers. One brown/black Araucana, named Henny Penny, lays a blue/green egg every other day.

My husband and I went for a walk this afternoon and when we came back, there were no chickens in the courtyard to greet us. Usually, they are right there to say hello when we drive back from town, or walk down the driveway. We went straight to the coop, and there they were (two chickens, two Guinea hens)-- they were quiet, subdued, just standing there in a huddle. Right away, I knew something was wrong. Two seconds later, I realized that Jaye and Henny Penny weren't in there with the others.

We walked around the house, around the cottage and the barn, into the back of the barn and out the front.... looked underneath the cottage, behind all the bushes, even looked into the fountain where poor Edie-Bird gasped her last water-soaked breath a while back. Not a sign of Jaye or Henny Penny anywhere. No piles of feathers in the grass, no signs of struggle. Nothing.

The only thing we can think of is that the chickens were taken by hawks. I've seen a hawk capture a Blue Jay, back at our old house in Clear Lake. It was so fast, just two seconds for the hawk to fly down and capture the poor Blue Jay in its talons and off the hawk went, too fast for me to see more than a blur of blue as the helpless Blue Jay was taken away.

My only hope is that the end came quickly for both of our chickens. Henny Penny was a sweet bird.... she gave us such pretty eggs every other day, and she was a friendly chicken. Jaye-Bird was growing into such a beautiful chicken, and just this morning, I told my husband that her red comb was growing in so nicely this past couple of weeks. We were expecting her to begin laying eggs any time now, if only she would just quit fluffing up her feathers.

We knew when we got these chickens that hawks and raccoons would be their enemies. My husband did everything he could to safeguard the coop against raccoons who come out chicken-hunting after dark, but there was nothing we could have done to keep the hawks away, save for keeping the chickens locked up in the coop 24 hours a day.

So now we have two chickens-- Dolly (my sweet Rhode Island Red who gives us a big beautiful brown egg every day) and Audrey (the black/brown Aracuna who is past her egg-laying days, but she's such a nice hen). We also have the two Guinea hens (Dottie and Jeanie) who haven't given us eggs, but have begun to give us headaches because they squawk like geese at times, which is typical for these hens. We didn't realize that when we got them, but now that we've heard them screaming, we aren't thrilled with that characteristic of this breed.

My husband asked me if I wanted to go back to Watson's Farm and get more chickens. I told him I'd be happy to get two more chickens, but only if we can bring back the two Guinea hens. I don't even expect Watson to give us a refund for these two hens... I just want to bring them back and be done with all the squawking that they do. They don't have the personality of the chickens, they're not as smart as the chickens, they're not as friendly. We keep feeding them, and all we get in return is the squawking. So I guess my husband is thinking about it. If it were up to me, those two Guinea hens would have been long gone, back to Watson's Farm.

Oh well. I don't know what we can do to keep hawks away. And even if we had been home, we couldn't have saved those chickens from the talons of a hawk. But two hawks? Grabbing two chickens? What are the chances of that happening, for goodness sake?!

When we couldn't find the chickens today, it was my husband who said that he wished the hawks had taken the Guinea hens instead of the chickens-- I was thinking that very same thing, but he had picked out the Guinea hens so I didn't want to say that out loud this afternoon. Had the hawks flown away with Dolly, I would have been really upset, since she's the one who follows me around the yard, who will come when I call her, who lets me pick her up and pet her... she is just the sweetest, most friendliest hen.

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day, Scarlett. Scarlett. Now that's a good name for a chicken, especially another red hen.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Don't touch the sheep!

My parents' Nativity set is on the buffet in the living room. When I was little, I never could resist playing with the animals, especially the sheep. Time and time again, my mother or my dad would tell me "Don't touch the animals... they're watching the Baby Jesus." And, time and time again, I would make it a point to walk into the dining room, take the little sheep from the manger underneath the tree, and bring them up to my playroom or into the living room. I'd always put them back when I was done, but I never could get them in the exact spots, so my parents knew if I had touched them.

So here I am now, more than fifty years later, and that same Nativity is with me once again. I don't like a manger scene underneath a Christmas tree, which is why I put it up on the buffet. It's easier to see all the details of this set, plus I thought it would be safer there, away from the prying paws and curious whiskers of my cats.

Silly me. Less than an hour after I finished arranging the Nativity and all its pieces, Mickey Kitty jumped up there and was playing with (of all things to chose from) the sheep! He moves the sheep from one side of the manger to the other, and sometimes he will put his paw into the manger and try to get the donkey out. I keep telling him not to touch the sheep, and if he hears me walking into the living room, he will jump down before I can say anything.

I have already lost count of how many times I have had to set the sheep back up on their legs after Mickey Kitty has pawed them down into the hay. And of course I always know if he has played with them because once he has knocked them down, it would be impossible for him to set them upright again.

Each time Mickey Kitty plays with the sheep, he also eats a little piece of the hay I spread out underneath all the pieces in the Nativity set. I'm guessing that by the time Christmas comes, there will be precious little hay left under the animals in the manger.

With all the table-top Christmas trees in every room of this house, plus countless Santas and angels, pixies and elves, the only thing Mickey has chosen to play with are the sheep in that Nativity set. Maybe he's trying to squeeze himself inside the manger. Mickey is a small cat, and if all the figures weren't in that stable-like structure, he could probably get in there and curl up for a nap.

Our cats have grown up with all sorts of decorative items around the house, and they have learned to play just with their own toys. But I guess the sheep are just too irresistible for Mickey's little paws, just as they were for me so many years ago.

Now it's time to say good-bye....

... and that's what we did this morning-- said good-bye to my old boss and his wife. It was wonderful to see them again-- I think it was five, maybe six years ago when we saw them last, at our old house in Clear Lake. When they called to see if they could come by after Thanksgiving, Mrs. H told me that she was "older and more wrinkled," as if she were apologizing. To me, both Mr. and Mrs. H looked just the same, just a bit grayer. But so what.... unless everyone is making monthly appointments at the hair salon, everyone we know is getting a bit grayer.

The "bicycling duo" is still on the road, still packing their fold-up bicycles and bringing them mostly everywhere they go. Not only do the H's go bicycling, but they also go roller-skating at a nearby rink where they live in Pennsylvania. They both keep active, they see the bright side of everything, and they are completely joyous in their outlook. I'm guessing that they are both in their early 80s now, and with all their travel adventures over the years, maybe that's one of the reasons for their totally sane and realistic perspective on life.

Mrs. H truly appreciated this big old house, as did Mr. H as well... they too live in an old farmhouse in a rural part of their state, so they don't scoff at floors that may not be perfectly level and original built-in cupboards whose latches may stick now and again. They ooohed and aaahed at this home's stained glass windows and the colorful glass transoms over the doors. And we all looked out at the views from the porches and just sighed with content. Amber waves of grain. While they were here, the light breeze danced through the pastures of hay and it was a sight to behold.

They should have arrived by now in New Orleans, then they will drive to Atlanta after that, followed by North Carolina... on their way back to Pennsylvania. I told my husband that we could plan that kind of a trip as well..... fly to the east coast, rent a car, and visit family and friends up there, staying just one day for each visit, then get back on the road again and make our way to the next destination. A long trip, filled with short visits. "Enough time to catch up, but not time enough to get on anyone's nerves," said the H's.

So now the cottage is empty once again, and so is the barn. The beds are made up and ready for the next round of guests, which should be Christmas week when Miss C and her parents come up for the holiday. Between now and then, we're hoping friends from Clear Lake will take the drive up and spend the day, or the night.... whatever works best for them. At this time of the year, I would have been deep into planning our big Christmas Open House..... but not this year. I suggested to my husband that we have a small dinner party with some of our neighbors here... he's thinking about it.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Inbetween guests...

Our friends from downtown Houston and upstate NY have come and gone.... they got here on Monday afternoon (within three minutes of one another) and left on Wednesday morning. By now, they're at their respective families' dinner table, all turkey-ed out, since we had our Thanksgiving dinner with them on Tuesday afternoon.

For the past couple of days, we felt like we were running a Bed & Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner.... and it made us realize that we wouldn't want to run a B&B, unless I had help with the cleaning and the laundry. Lots of sheets and towels went into the washing machine on Wednesday afternoon when everyone had left. I didn't want to just let it all wait.... that's not my style anyway.... so I just got it all done, and now both guest houses are ready for more company. The six of us had such a great time..... every minute was filled with talking and laughing and just good fun.

Tomorrow afternoon, my old boss and his wife will be here, so the Cottage is all set for them. We're not having turkey left-overs, since they had their turkey dinner today up in Dallas, and we've been eating turkey and the trimmings since Tuesday. Enough. I've already put together an eggplant parmesan casserole, and I'll make spaghetti with mussels and clams for tomorrow night's dinner. We still have more than half a pecan pie left from Tuesday's dinner, so that will be dessert. Doesn't exactly go with an Italian dinner, but I doubt very much that anyone will care.

Tuesday's dinner was very informal, even though I tried to make it as nice as the holiday dinners were in Clear Lake. I had the table set with place cards and the best tablecloth, pretty napkins and stemware. I didn't use the Christmas dishes, since I was trying to make the table look very Thanksgiving-ish, plus the rest of the house was all Christmas-ed up. We didn't have separate courses, since I set up everything on the long counter in the kitchen-- buffet style...... everyone just brought their plates in and helped themselves to the food. Everyone was wearing jeans........ we all used to get dressed up back in Clear Lake. Out here in the hills, that just didn't seem to matter much.

Plus, I quickly realized that the focus of this dinner wasn't the food at all-- it was the people. We were all so busy catching up with everyone and everything (particularly with R and C, who had moved to upstate NY a while back) that I could have carved up a goat and put it on the table and maybe no one would have noticed that it wasn't turkey. That's not to say that we all didn't enjoy the foods, but I think this time, we just enjoyed the company even more.

It was great to see everyone.... the two guest houses worked out perfectly because everyone had lots of privacy when they wanted it, and lots of room to avoid getting in anyone else's way. R made her special zucchini pie for Thanksgiving dinner, and with the size of the kitchen here, we both had enough room to work, with plenty of counter-space to spare.

Our outside cat wasn't feeling well at the beginning of the week.... but he seems to be better now. K gave him some Pepto Bismol while I held him-- we figured Gatsby must have eaten a lizard or a frog outside that didn't agree with his Friskies-fed tummy. Gatsby is back to sitting by the front door, looking in the glass, and wanting so much to be part of the inside cat family. When he wasn't feeling well, I did let him come into the kitchen so he could eat-- and he was eating precious little when his stomach was so upset.

The chickens let us know that they didn't like brussels sprouts...... they would take a piece of the tiny cabbages and then drop them on the ground. The chickens also didn't like the lack of attention while we had company here. When I closed the screen door to keep out the too-cool breeze, Dolly and Henny Penny and Jaye-Bird just flew up on the porch railing, which made them high enough to see though the glass part of the kitchen door. I just cannot believe how smart and how personable these birds have been. The Guinea hens, on the other hand-- they continue to be noisy at times, and not smart at all. Except when they're up on the porch and I don't want them to be, the two Guinea hens are the first to run down the porch steps.

It's been a quiet day here....... we're resting up between guests, and just picking at left-overs when we're hungry. Another Thanksgiving come and nearly gone..... and next week, we'll be putting decorations on the big (real) Christmas tree. This year has just flown by, and I've lost count as to how many days left before Christmas.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

An early Thanksgiving...

We spent today in the kitchen.... the cranberry sauce is made, as is the oyster dressing, mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes. The dressing and the sweet potatoes are half-baked, and will finish baking on Tuesday morning, the day we're celebrating Thanksgiving this year. The mashed potatoes will be re-heated in the oven and they will come out soft and incredibly fluffy. The turkey has been defrosting in the fridge for two days now, and tomorrow I will set it up in the baking pan and get it ready for the oven on Tuesday morning.

Our friends C and R from upstate NY will be here tomorrow afternoon, as well as our friends K and B from downtown Houston. The six of us will have an early Thanksgiving because C and R are going to Austin for the "real" Thanksgiving day, then they're flying back to the probably snow-covered mountains of northern NY. It will be nice to have the six of us sitting around the dining room table again. We will have a spaghetti dinner tomorrow night, then our Thanksgiving dinner on Tuesday afternoon.

These pre-Thanksgiving preparations were long-ago practiced by my Aunt Dolly and my grandmother, who got as much cooking done as they could before the holiday instead of trying to do everything on the day of the holiday. My grandparents' home had two full kitchens in it, but still, with more than twenty-five family members there, trying to cook everything on either Thanksgiving morning or Christmas morning would have been a trial. So the pots and pans came out days before the rest of the family started driving to that wonderful old house, and when my grandmother and my Aunt Dolly sat down to have their holiday dinners, they weren't exhausted from all the last-minute preparations.

Back in the day, my grandparents' holiday dinner would be a full day's marathon of a meal. From early afternoon till nearly 9:00 at night, there was a different food course on the dining room table, as well as the "children's table" in the kitchen. They started off with an Italian feast..... either ravioli or lasagna, followed by the meatballs, beef, and sausage cooked in the sauce, followed by Italian bread and salad, then fruit and nuts. Then all of my aunts went into the kitchen and put away left-overs and washed the dishes. My uncles would either take a walk with Major, my grandfather's German Shepard, or they would play cards in the dining room. Sometimes, one of the uncles would ask my grandmother if she wanted any help, and she'd always say the same thing-- "You can help by staying out of my kitchen." (Spoken in Italian, of course.) The kids would go out into the yard to run and play, or on the glassed-in front porch to play quietly-- so we could listen to the uncles playing cards.

Then came the "American" part of the meal..... the turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, green vegetables, cranberry sauce, applesauce. When that was eaten, once again all my aunts went into the kitchen to store away left-overs and wash the dishes. Again, my uncles would be playing cards in the dining room or walking Major around the block. The kids would be in the porch playing games: Monopoly. Pick-up Sticks. Jacks. Paper dolls. Cards.

A couple of hours later, out would come the desserts... Italian pastries, cookies and pies. The pastries from the neighborhood Italian bakery, the cookies and pies from my grandmother's kitchen. Coffee for the adults, milk for the kids. My grandmother didn't believe in soda. "Too many bubbles. Not good for your stomach," she would tell us, half the words in English, half in Italian.

By nine or ten o'clock at night, the aunts and uncles and cousins would start saying good-night. My Aunt Dolly would be wrapping up left-overs for everyone, and we would all be telling her that we couldn't eat another bite for at least two days. Maybe three. "Just take it and eat it whenever you want," my Aunt would tell us.

Back in the day. But not these days. Strangers are living in the family home now, and have been for two years. My grandfather built that house with his own hands in 1922. He vowed no one but la familia would ever live it in, for as long as it stood on its foundation. When he said that, he had no idea how the neighborhood would change and evolve.... had no inkling that his eldest daughter, my Aunt Dolly, would not be safe living there alone in her late 90s.

I think that's why I write here. In these words, in this blog, there is a definite time-warp. As I look at the screen and watch the letters pop up, there is no distance between now and then. The family is still in that big old house in Queens. My grandparents are still alive, my grandmother is telling Grandpa that "men don't grow up, they just get old." My aunts are still in the kitchen, my uncles are still playing cards. No matter what time or what day you go there, my Aunt Dolly has just cleaned the floors, so wipe your feet! Me and my cousins are playing Monopoly on the front porch. My dad is there, standing against the warm radiator in the kitchen, singing Italian songs and sounding (and looking) like Dean Martin. My mother is there, sitting by the kitchen window near Grandpa, and she is young and laughing, helping Grandpa with his game of Solitaire. My sister is there and telling my Aunt Jaye that her lipstick is too dark so she won't kiss her goodnight.

In my mind's eye, everyone is still there, happy and healthy, smiling, laughing and celebrating in that big old wonderful house. I see them as always happy, always together, always family.

In my mind's eye. It's a good place to be. Happy Thanksgiving.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Preserved in oils.

On his way home from the office last night, my husband stopped by to see our friend J. He was on a mission... to deliver our Christmas gift to J and to pick up her Christmas gift to us. J had intended to drive up here to visit us and stay the night, but the summer was long and much too hot, and when the weather finally turned itself down to bake instead of broil, her back started to bother her. So much for a two-hour drive.... it just didn't happen, and she wanted us to have this gift.

I had wrapped up J's gift the week before in my pre-Thanksgiving gift-wrapping frenzy, which usually takes place one or two weeks before turkey day. The pillow I quilted for J had her favorite blue colors, plus a touch of golden yellow that I thought would look very pretty on one of her treasured living room chairs. If I do say so myself, I was proud of that buttery-soft pillow and my only regret was not being able to watch J take it out of the tissue paper.

My work on that pillow was a smidge in the universe when I unwrapped J's gift to us.

Back in May, after we closed on this hundred-year-old house, J drove up with me to see the property and to write down the directions as I drove. That way, she would be prepared to make the drive herself and not have to worry about getting lost and possibly ending up in Johnny Depp's driveway instead of ours. ("Well, Captain Jack Sparrow! I do declare....")

J had brought her camera that day and she took photographs of the house and the pastures. She fell in love with this big old house, just the way I did. She especially loved the squeak of the screen door on the kitchen, as did we. J noticed that the house had such a good "feeling" to it and it already felt like home even though it was empty and unfurnished that day. Sometime during then and now, J used those photographs to create an oil painting of our home, and that's what I found when I unwrapped her Christmas gift to us last night.

There was our house, the fountain, the fences, the front pasture filled with bluebonnets, the huge pecan trees to the right, the smaller trees to the left, the porch columns, the upstairs balconies. Our house, our home, in oils on canvas. I had to hold the painting away from me because I didn't want the tears welling up in my eyes to fall onto this one-of-a-kind original artwork.

My husband and I were both speechless.... we kept looking at the painting, and the more we looked, the more we could see. Of course I had to call up J right away to thank her, and to tell her we were just overwhelmed with her thoughtful gift.

J suggested that I move the painting from room to room before I set to hanging it up. She said to watch the sky in the painting because in different lighting, the sky will take on different hues and will seem to be changing. And she was right. The painting was in the dining room yesterday and the sky was bright, as if it were noon-time on the canvas. This morning, I put the painting in my dressing room and the sky was a bit more blue, more intense, sort of a tea-time sky.

Right now as I type, the painting is on my desk right in front of me. The sky looks like the sun is about to set and even the grass in the field looks darker, richer. J said to take my time, not to be in a hurry to hang the painting on a nail. "The painting will tell you where it wants to be," she said.

I am sure it will. I intend to keep moving it around till after the holidays, and when the Christmas decorations come down, this painting will go up.

"There's always room for one more Santa."

--And that's exactly what V said today as I unwrapped the holiday gift she gave me, which was a beautifully dressed vintage-looking Santa. He stands about twenty inches high, and his porcelain face has such a happy expression (as all Santas should). When I unwrapped this latest addition to my Santa parade, V and I both said There's always room for one more Santa!

Both V and I have been collecting Santas for years. We don't buy dozens at a time, usually just one spectacular one each Christmas. There was a holiday program on the HGTV channel last year, and one woman had her entire house filled with Santas big and small, old and new, made out of everything from paper to cement... so many that it was a year-round display in her home. Maybe that's how it started for her-- someone told her "There's always room....."

I gave V a Santa last year for Christmas, and I would have looked for another one this year, but I found a framed African American artwork in one of the antique shops a few weeks back that I knew V would just love..... so that was her Christmas gift from me. The painting was a New Orleans-style funeral procession, complete with a jazz band leading the mourners to the burial site. Regardless of the funeral-occasion, it is a serenely joyful painting, and I knew that V didn't have that in her artwork collection.

The four of us had a nice lunch and a great afternoon today. It was nice to see V and S again, and we got caught up on what we all did during the summer (they traveled; we moved and unpacked). They were surprised that our guest cottage was so big, and now they're determined to come up again after the holidays so they can stay for a weekend. V is anxious to get to the antique and resale shops up here, so maybe we'll get to do that the next time they visit.

By the time they left this afternoon, V was wishing that Thanksgiving would "just come and just go" so she could start decorating her house for Christmas. Her two sons come home every Thanksgiving and when they leave, out come the Christmas decorations and all of her Radko ornaments. V is like us-- Christmas-crazy. But that's a good kind of crazy.

Speaking of crazy.... one of our Guinea hens is spending tonight on the roof of our house. When I went out to lock up the coop tonight, the four chickens and just one Guinea hen were all cuddled up on the roosting bar inside the coop. As I started looking underneath the nesting boxes and in the baskets on the floor of the coop, I heard the click-clicking of bird feet up on the roof of the coop. Sure enough, there was Dottie...... up on the roof, looking down at me.

When that silly hen saw me, she flew to the roof of the guest cottage. I left the gate of the coop open a bit and went back inside, hoping she would fly down and join the others. I gave her half an hour to make up her mind, and when I went back outside it was already dark. I checked the coop first.... the chickens were resting on the bar, Jeanie (the other Guinea hen) was sleeping next to Jaye-Bird, but Dottie wasn't in there.

I had a big flashlight with me and I pointed it at the roof-line of the garage, the cottage, even the barn. No Dottie in sight. Then I went towards the house and I heard her soft cooing. I looked up and there she was, on the highest point of the roof on the house. She was all settled down and looked like she was sleeping, so I just went back and locked the coop gate and let her be. No way to get her down anyway. The Guinea hens are not like the chickens, who will come to me when I call them. These silly birds have minds of their own. Most often, they follow the chickens, but there are times when the two Guinea hens are off on their own, as close together as if they're attached with a string.

But not tonight. Dottie is up on the roof. Jeanie is in the coop. Our neighbor D had told us that the Guinea hens prefer to be outside in the trees or up on the roof, but this is the first time that one of them hasn't been safe inside the coop after dark. "You're on your own, you silly bird." That's what I said to Dottie before I came back into the house tonight.

When I told my husband that she didn't get back into the coop with the others, he went outside with the flashlight and a piece of bread. He was holding the bread up so she could see it, hoping her appetite would persuade her to fly down. Not a chance. I didn't think it would work. Birds don't fly around after dark..... they find their sleeping spot and that's that till the sun comes up.

Guinea hens...... silly birds. Or, as the neighbor down the road says about them-- "They're about as smart as a pile of rocks." I have to agree. But I hope we don't find a pile of feathers in the morning. I'm guessing Dottie will be fine, as long as hawks don't look for food after dark (I don't think they do) and as long as an owl doesn't swoop down for a midnight snack.

As my dear friend Frankie would have said-- "Let's not put that thought out into the universe, child."

Friday, November 20, 2009

Company's coming...

... tomorrow, and then again on Monday, and then again on Friday. It's been a busy week so far, and next week will be even busier.

Two of our friends from our old neighborhood, V & S, will be here for lunch tomorrow. V has kept in touch since we left, and has tried to get up here time and time again, but either her sons came to visit or she had an out-of-town conference to go to. (One was really out-of-town... she went to VietNam over the summer, to study their academic procedures... she was very impressed).

V called last week to say hello, then called back this week to see if we would be home tomorrow so they could drive up here. If not this weekend, then V said she wouldn't be able to visit till after the holidays. And V truly wanted to see the house all decked-out for Christmas. V loves Christmas as much as we do, and her collection of Radko ornaments is beyond belief-- all bought at half-price sales after the holidays.

A couple of years ago, V & S invited us to a Christmas party at their house and after we (six couples) had eaten dinner, V asked me if "all the ladies" could walk down to my house to see the decorations. And that's what we did, on that unusually-cold-for-south-Texas night... walked to my house to oooh and aaah over my decorations after we had done the same at V's.

I have a hundred things to do before our out-of-town friends get here on Monday, and more things to do before the second set of out-of-town friends get here on Friday.... but I couldn't tell V that I was busy. To quote my former Library Director/boss (who's coming to visit with his wife a week from today): "There's never enough time to do anything, but somehow we find the time to get everything done."

So that's what I did today-- got everything done today that was on my to-do list for today and tomorrow. And when I was finished with that, I baked cornbread, put together a chicken salad, got everything ready for an ice cream/coconut/Biscotti dessert, and set the dining room table to within an inch of its Thanksgiving-ish best.

I had already found a gift weeks ago for V in one of the shops so that was all wrapped up and ready, in hopes that she would get here before Christmas. So we'll have a Thanksgiving lunch tomorrow, then a Christmas-y dessert when we open presents.

The downstairs doors are closed now, so the cats can't get into the living room and the dining room. As I type, I can hear Mickey Kitty meowing by the kitchen stairway...... "Is it Christmas already?"

Not yet, but it will be....... in 35 days.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Gatsby and the chickens.

Our neighbors told us that I wouldn't have to worry about our outside cat bothering the chickens because cats instinctively know that a full-grown chicken can take out a cat's eye with one swipe of its foot.

Gatsby was here first, having found us in late July. The chickens came later on, in mid-September. So far, even though I think Gatsby gets jealous of the time I spend with the chickens, everyone seems to be not only getting along, but "playing nicely" as well.

When Gatsby eats his dry cat food up on the side porch, the chickens sometimes gather round him and stand there watching him eat. When Gatsby is done and starts to lick his paws and clean his face, the chickens descend on his bowl and actually peck at (and eat) the bits of kibble left in the cat food dish. Gatsby doesn't seem to mind this... he will stop his paw-licking and face-cleaning to watch the chickens peck the Purina One into teeny pieces before they can actually eat it. (Chickens do not have teeth, according to my creature-knowledgeable friend V).

Every afternoon when I give the chickens their treat of corn, Gatsby is right there in the grass with them, gobbling up the corn kernels. The chickens don't seem to mind Gatsby right in the middle of them all, which is where he usually positions himself, and there they all will stay until every last kernel of corn is gone... Gatsby, four chickens, and two Guinea hens. And when the corn is gone, it's always Gatsby and Dolly who walk up to me and look me right in the eyes, as if to say "That's all? There's more corn in that can, you know!"

I've been trying to give them just half a can of corn per day. I had been buying the WalMart brand of corn, which was 62 cents per can. For the past few weeks, Green Giant canned corn is 50 cents per can, so I stocked up on those. My husband pointed out that for the two eggs that we get every day from the chickens, it's costing us the chicken-feed, a slice of WalMart white bread, plus half the can of fifty-cent corn. "So much for free eggs," he says. Of course he's right..... but finding a fresh warm egg in the nesting box is a lot more fun than buying a dozen eggs at WalMart that were "fresh" about three weeks ago.

So far, only Dolly and Henny Penny continue to lay eggs on a regular basis. Jaye-Bird is now big enough to be giving us eggs, but she hasn't started yet. I don't know what it will take to get her to understand that the chicken feed and the canned corn aren't given to her just because she happens to be a pretty chicken.

And I've just about given up on the Guinea hens laying eggs. All they do is walk around the yard eating bugs, then they'll fly up on the garage or the house and squawk a bit until they're ready to get down. It amazes me how well they fly...... they look sort of off-kilter and bottom-heavy, but they're fairly graceful in the air. And poor Audrey-Bird....... she's definitely an older hen and we're not expecting eggs from her at all. We also have to make sure she gets her fair share of the bread and the corn we give them because the Guinea hens are so much quicker than she is and they will snap up any food bit that Audrey is trying to get.

We had been thinking of buying two miniature horses from the nuns at the convent on the road going to Navasota. We thought about it..... and went to see the horses, which of course are just as cute as cute can be. But on a day not too long ago here, when our dog was constantly underfoot in the kitchen, and the two inside cats were fighting over who was going to sit in the chair by the front door when the sunlight was pouring through the glass and warming up that seat cushion, and Gatsby was meowing by the back door for his lunch, and the chickens all came marching up on the porch because I had forgotten it was canned-corn time.... I told my husband that I didn't think I really wanted two miniature horses out in the pasture behind the barn.

"And what changed your mind?" he wanted to know. I told him the last thing I needed that day was something else that needed to be fed, be brushed, be walked, be brought in out of the rain, be taken in or out of the barn if the weather got too hot or too cold. "The inn is full," is what I finally told him.

My husband laughed. And so did I. We started saying "the inn is full" years ago, when we just had two cats, both of which stayed outside.

Biscotti

Break out the cookbooks and the baking pans...... that's what I did this week. I've started to shell some of the pecans and I figured there must be something worthwhile I can do with them instead of just filling up a Santa cookie jar with pecan halves.

There's a cute little bookshelf at the end of the island in our kitchen, and of course I filled it up with cookbooks that I've collected. Years ago, I had dozens of cookbooks and I used them all on a regular basis. But when I stopped doing all of that mega-cooking and baking, I weeded out the collection and just kept the basic volumes and the vintage cookbooks. In this pared-down collection, I had a little book called simply "Biscotti."

I bought that particular book because it reminded me of my Aunt Dolly, who made biscotti every week. With some of these Italian biscuits, she would twice-bake them to get them crisp; with others, she would just bake them once and the result was a softer cookie. Grandpa and Uncle Mino liked the crisp ones so they could be dunked into tea or coffee. Grandma and Daddy liked the softer biscotti because they said dunking was too messy and neither one wanted crumbs in their coffee.

So as I paged through the Biscotti cookbook, I was looking for a recipe with pecans that didn't look too difficult, or didn't have a list of 37 ingredients. What I found was a recipe for almond biscotti with lemon zest. Well, I don't like almonds (not my favorite nut) and my husband doesn't like lemon (not his favorite flavor, except for Lemon Bars). But me being me, who is known for tweaking every recipe in sight, I figured that I could substitute pecans for almonds, and orange zest for lemon zest.

And that's exactly what I did..... and I baked a batch of biscotti that would make Aunt Dolly proud. I did twice-bake them, because we do like them crisp, but when I make them again (with this never-ending supply of pecans) I think I'll eliminate the second baking for half the batch and see how they taste as a softer cookie. (I don't like crumbs in my tea either.)

I also have a Christmas cookie cookbook, and there are scads of cookie recipes that call for every kind of nut under the sun. With all the pecans we have, every cookie I make will be studded with pecans, not almonds and hazelnuts and cashews. Now that's an idea-- I wonder if we can grow cashews in Texas? (As if we don't have enough pecans....)

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Shelling nuts.... and turtles in shells.

The more pecans we pick, the more pecans that fall. I don't know how many pecans we have gathered now..... at least two thousand would be my best guess. I have given some away, to friends who don't have Texas pecan trees in their yards, and our friends who are coming to Thanksgiving dinner in a couple of weeks will be leaving with a cute little shopping bag of pecans. In the shells-- I couldn't possibly shell all those nuts before turkey-day.

I have been shelling some nuts, though.... and filling up a small Santa cookie jar with pecan halves. Between now and the holidays, I intend to do some baking with those pecans and I don't want to be stopping in the middle of a recipe to crack shells. My husband is looking on the Internet for a pecan-shelling place in the area...... you take them all the pecans and you get back the shelled nuts. For a price, I'm sure.... but there's no way we could do all of these ourselves. (Now I understand why the seller of this house had the freezer filled with Zip-Loc bags of pecan halves.)

There is a huge tree out by our pond. I thought it was a Live Oak. Silly me.... it's a pecan tree. My husband was out under it this morning, picking up the fallen pecans. He came back with a nearly-filled bucket. As if we didn't have enough pecans from the trees around the house?

As for the turtles...... the other day as I was driving down our hill, I noticed some turtles out on the rocks in our pond. My first thought was how did they get in there? They must have crossed over the hills from the ponds on the other properties, but that's a good long walk for a parade of turtles. The property next to ours has a pond, and maybe the turtles decided to relocate, but that's still a good long walk. And how long did that take, at a turtle's pace?

The turtles were a good size, about the size of a dinner plate, and there were eight or ten of them-- hard to count because they were bunched up together and sitting in the sun. The grass is high down there, as it grows into cut-able hay, so I wasn't going to be walking through knee-high "amber waves of grain" to do a turtle count.

Speaking of doing a count.... as of today, we've had 71 eggs from our chickens. Actually, all those eggs have come from Dolly (one egg every day) and from Henny Penny (one egg every other day, but once a week she will lay two days in a row). Jaye-Bird is certainly big enough to lay eggs now, but so far she doesn't seem to be interested. She spends her days searching for bugs, looking for Edie (still), and preening her pretty black and white feathers. Audrey is an older hen, and we think she's past her egg-laying days. No fault of Mr. Watson at his farm-- we picked out these hens one by one and he told us he couldn't guarantee who would be laying eggs for us. The two Guinea hens have only given us one egg so far-- and that one was broken in the coop because whichever hen (either Dottie or Jeanie) laid the egg, she was up on the roosting bar at the time and of course the egg fell to the floor and broke in half.

Dolly continues to be the most friendly hen. She will walk up the porch stairs at least three times a day and look into the screen door of the kitchen. If I'm in there, she will just stand there and watch me, with her head tilted to the side and her wide-open golden eyes following me around the kitchen. If I'm not in her line of sight, she will cluck and carry on till I hear her, and usually I go up to the kitchen door and tell her to go out in the yard and look for bugs. At that point, she just stares at me, as if to say Do you realize that you're talking to a chicken?

I have seen hawks flying over our property from time to time, and I would guess that the hens do also. They're smart enough to do their bug-hunts underneath the shrubbery around the house, and when they do go from the porch to the coop, they're usually running with their wings outstretched for balance. The faster they run, the safer they are from chicken-searching hawks. It would be horrible to see one of our hens get carried away by a hawk. As it was, with poor Edie-Bird drowning in the fountain out front, that was bad enough. And to this day, none of the hens have been near the fountain since. And every evening when the chickens fly up on their roosting bar, I see Jaye-Bird looking into the wooden bread box for Edie. Maybe she thinks Edie-Bird will suddenly reappear one night and they can once again cuddle up together in that box. Every morning, the bread box is perfectly clean, just the way it was the day before. Without Edie next to her, Jaye isn't interested in sleeping in that cozy wooden box.

"Another day on the ranch." Which is the phrase-of-the-day around here. The pasture grasses are growing high. I'm guessing the guy with the hay-cutter-thing will be here before the holidays to cut down and bale up the hay. He doesn't charge us for that, but he gets to keep the hay bales. I think there were six bales last time.... huge round ones that weigh one ton each. Who would have thought that grass could be that heavy?

And the eggs that I find in the nesting boxes in the morning.... they are still little miracles in my hand, and they still make me smile. And so does Dolly... she's my little red hen who likes to be petted on her back between her wings, who likes to be picked up, and who will follow me from one end of the property to the other as long as I'm holding fresh corn for her.

The weather for the past few weeks has been beautiful... sunny and warm without being too hot. You can wear jeans and not feel like the sun is cooking your legs as you walk. I don't know how anyone wears jeans here from May through September...... the thought of wearing denim when the temperature is 98 degrees and above just doesn't make sense to me. But mostly everyone does, and no one seems to mind. Maybe that's how I'll know that I've lost all the city-girl in me... it will be 106 degrees in the shade and I'll be wearing jeans and boots and walking through tall grass and not even looking to see if snakes and scorpions are in my way.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

1100 miles/19 hours

Tomorrow was supposed to be the day when my cousins from Chicago were going to drive from Illinois to Texas. That was before both my husband and my cousin's husband looked at MapQuest and said "Are you girls out of your minds?"

It seems that from there to here would take 19 hours of driving, for over 1,100 miles. My cousin R thought they could leave early tomorrow morning and be here before dinner-time. When she told me that on the phone a couple of weeks ago, it seemed like a good plan to me and I said Sure! Come on down!

Being that they had just a long weekend for this trip, R's husband thought it was too much driving (especially with their two young children in the car) and my husband said they should just wait till they could stay more than just a weekend here, if they were going to spend that much time driving from there to here.

Oh well. I'm sure her kids were disappointed. So were we all. The kids have been on the phone with me, telling me they were going to come and see us, and they were all excited. And so was I-- their Christmas gifts are already wrapped up for them...... I thought we could all have an early Christmas together before they set out for home. It would have been nice to see the expressions on the kids' faces when they opened up their gifts.

Again-- oh well. The gifts are wrapped and ready. I will just put them into a packing box after Thanksgiving and ship them up to Chicago. I'm sure the kids will call me after they open everything up, as they did for their birthdays.

So now we have just two weekends with friends coming this month...... our friends who moved to upstate NY, along with K and B so we can all have Thanksgiving together like we used to..... and then Mr. & Mrs. H, stopping here after their Thanksgiving in Dallas, en route to their home in Pennsylvania.

After Thanksgiving, we'll be getting the big tree for the living room..... and out will come all the blown-glass ornaments. We'll have to be extra careful with those..... if they drop on the wood floors, they'll smash into bits. I certainly don't miss that wall-to-wall carpeting that we had in the other house. Not because the carpeting wasn't nice, but just because it was a pain to keep clean with a dog and three cats. (Not to mention 35 friends at the Charades parties and 50 friends and neighbors at the Christmas party.) But that carpeting was an ornament-saver, if nothing else.

Christmas party....... I suggested to my husband that we (translation: I) plan a Christmas party this year. It won't be as large as the parties in the other house, but it will at least be a party. We truly missed not hosting a Halloween party this year... so I don't want us to have that same regret when Christmas comes and goes.

"When Christmas comes and goes....." -- It's not even Thanksgiving yet. Slow down.

Can you hear me now?

The little television set that's been sitting in the corner of the kitchen counter is now really an honest-to-goodness television set. It's plugged in, hooked up to the cable box, and when you push the "on" button on the remote, it really comes on.

Six months ago, when the set in the TV room was hooked up by the cable company, the guy who came out here told me he couldn't connect the small set in the kitchen because they weren't allowed to work in kitchens and bathrooms. Something about tiling and wiring and appliances. So the set just sat there, and I truly missed being able to turn on the morning news while I fixed breakfast, and I missed watching Oprah while I got dinner ready.

I had called in a handyman to look at some jobs around the house that needed to be done, and when I asked him about hooking up the TV in the kitchen, he stood there and rattled off a couple of names of guys he knew who would crawl underneath the house with the cable wire. That was the last we've heard from that particular handyman.

And the TV just sat there. A couple of weeks ago, my husband carried the little television into the TV room and sat it next to the big TV. Then he got busy with the wires, the remotes, the cable instruction booklet, and he made some calls to the cable company. They talked about connections, cable wiring, dual-remotes-- and "proof of concept." (Translation: my husband didn't want to start drilling a hole in the kitchen until he was certain that the small TV would truly work once he had the cable wiring connected to it.)

Yesterday was the day. Out came the drill. Out came the 100-ft. of cable wire. And out came the little doors leading to the crawl space underneath this old pier-and-beam house. You're going under there? In the dark? With the dirt and the spiders and the scorpions?

I told my husband we could put the little TV somewhere else, and the cable company would send a guy out here to connect it. "But you said you wanted this TV in the corner of the kitchen counter," he said. So what if I did? I can change my mind. Who needs to listen to the news first thing in the morning anyway?

My husband took it as a challenge. He was determined to hook up that little TV and not have to pay someone $100 to crawl underneath the house with the cable wire. So into the little trap-door he went... and then I had to put the door back so neither Gatsby nor the chickens would follow him in. As it was, the cat and chickens heard him talking to me from underneath the house and they were all standing as close to the trap-door as they could get. Can you just imagine how long it would have taken my husband to get them out of there if they had indeed followed him underneath the house?

So while my husband was down there crawling in the dirt, I was up on the porch, talking to him and tapping my foot on the wooden boards so he would know which direction he needed to be going in. (Can you hear me now? You're right near the breakfast room door.)

As he crawled from one end of the house to the other (and wouldn't you know that the original cable hook-up is all the way at the other end of the house from where the kitchen TV would be set up) I listened to his progress by focusing on the grunts and groans coming from underneath the boards of the porch. At one point, I asked my husband if he wanted me to start singing "Under The Boardwalk...." (Then we got to talking that no one in the south would understand that song.)

After an hour or so, and after having to crawl through not only the trap-door underneath the kitchen-part of the house, but also having to crawl through an even smaller opening underneath the TV room, my husband came out covered in dirt from head to toe, but with a smile on his face. In his best Jim Carrey imitation, my husband said "Cable guy!"

As happy as I was to finally have the kitchen TV working again, I wouldn't let my husband go into the house for a shower until he changed clothes first-- in the garage. Then I shook out the under-the-house clothes, then stepped all over them to make sure any spiders or scorpions that may have hitched a ride were smashed before the clothes were put into the washing machine. (Believe it or not, there wasn't a spider or a scorpion -- not even an ant -- on those clothes.)

Saturday, November 07, 2009

48 days till Christmas.

With that in mind, I started wrapping up Christmas presents today. I can't remember the last time I did Christmas shopping in December, unless I was buying something for the following year's holiday. I look for things all year long, and when I find perfect gifts, I buy them right then and put them away in my "Christmas closet" and mark them with the person's name. I've told my husband that if I get hit by the proverbial truck before the holiday, he has to make sure all the gifts get to the right people or I will haunt him for eternity.

Every year, my husband looks at me while I'm wrapping up Christmas gifts right after Halloween is over, and he shakes his head and asks "Which Christmas are you up to now? 2018?" I let him laugh. And I'm the one enjoying my home and all the decorations while the stores are crowded with last-minute shoppers who don't have a clue what to buy for whom and if they know what they want, they can't find it because it's already been sold. Jingle bells. 48 more days.

We're having still more friends visiting this month, right after Thanksgiving Day. My old library boss from NY and his wife.... they will be in Dallas for Thanksgiving, and will drive here the day after to see us on their way back east. We haven't seen them since they drove through Clear Lake about half a dozen years ago, but we've kept in touch. They're excited about seeing this big old house... they can appreciate it because they also have a big old farmhouse, in Pennsylvania.

The guest cottage will have a lot of use this month, after a long hot summer of not having any visitors. I'm hoping the weather stays just as it is..... warm sunny days in the mid-80s, then cooler nights when all you need is a sweater or light jacket. I'm also hoping that we don't get too many cold snaps....... not just for the visitors, but for the chickens. They're very content and comfortable in the coop, and I'm sure they wouldn't want to be freezing their pretty feathers off.

I haven't told my old boss that we have chickens..... I'm guessing that the look on his face will be priceless when he sees them. His wife is a lot of fun.... she was the saving grace for me when I wrote the staff newsletter at the library years ago. The Library Board members had no sense of humor whatsoever, but when the Director's wife laughed so hard that she cried at what I'd written in the monthly newsletter, they softened up. Somewhat. Once the Director retired, however, he and his wife moved from NY to PA... and there went a bit of the heart and soul of that library. Not long after, I put the monthly newsletter to rest. And wouldn't you know.... the Board members wanted me to continue with it. I told them its time was done, and that was just that.

I laughed with the Director's wife on the phone.... I've been calling B by her first name ever since her husband retired from the library. But with Mr. H-- I just couldn't ever get used to calling him by his first name, as both he and his wife suggested. Mr. H he was..... and Mr. H he will forever be. I've already made Thanksgiving-ish place cards for when they come here this month. I was tempted to write "Mr. H" on his, but I wrote his first name instead because I know they'll want to take them home. Although, he might like to see Mr. H on his.... so I just may change it.

Place cards...... I've got three trays of place cards for the month now.... all different, for each of the dinner parties/guests we'll be having. And everyone will be going home with a cute little gift bag filled with fresh-picked pecans. I think we've picked over 3000 pecans by now, with still more on the trees. I'm surprised that we don't have hundreds of squirrels on our property. Or maybe we do....... and they've eaten so many pecans that they just can't climb down out of the trees anymore.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Picky, picky....

So there I was late this morning, wearing rubber boots and standing at the edge of the front pasture. I had a scissors in my right hand, a bucket in my left hand, and I was about to cut some of the tall green grass which, if left alone, would grow still taller and eventually turn into dried brown hay. You've heard of "amber waves of grain?" That's what our pastures look like now: green grass stalks growing towards the sky with amber-brown tops that dance in the breeze. Breath-taking, to say the least.

But there I was this morning, cutting enough of those amber waves to fill up the bucket. I was doing that because my red hen, Dolly, had been clucking and cooing and oohing her way around the chicken coop, flying up into the nesting boxes, inspecting each one of them, and deciding that the hay and grass in the boxes had been in there a bit too long for her liking. So into the shrubs she went, on the side of the garage again, to lay her egg. All the while she was hiding back there, I could hear her oohing and cooing, and if she could have said tsk, tsk, she would have added that in as well.

I filled up the bucket with the cut grass-- I had asked my husband to buy a small bale of hay at the feed store, but then we changed our mind. How can we justify paying for hay when we've got 23 acres filled with it. (Or 20 acres, at least, if you subtract the mowed lawns around the house and the cottage.) By the time Miss Dolly had left her egg behind the shrubs, I had cleaned out the old hay from the nesting boxes and added the fresh-cut green grass. In a few days time, it will have dried into light brown hay, and I hope my pickiest of chickens will approve.

I cannot get over how each of my three hens have lived up to their names. Dolly being the picky one, whose nest has to be just so before she gets into it. And Jaye, who preens her feathers in the morning and in the late afternoon and would probably love to have a mirror in the coop. Jaye is getting big enough now to start laying eggs, and she has poked her little head into one of the nesting boxes already, as if to see if the accommodations suit her. Or maybe she's looking in there and thinking You want me to lay an egg? And ruin these perfectly coiffed feathers? And poor Edie..... who had to be first on line at that fountain, and one mis-step there sent her into the well and she couldn't fly out. Just like my Aunt Edie, that chicken always had to be first on line. Lesson learned here-- being first isn't always a good thing.

We are thinking of ways to chicken-proof that fountain. I would hate to find another bird floating on top of that water. My idea is to fill the well with cinder blocks or large rocks, and have them come to just below the surface of the water. This way, if one of the chickens do fall in again, she'll land on the rocks and just two inches-worth of her legs will be in the water. Or we could put some sort of netting all around the water well of the fountain, to prevent the chickens from falling into the water at all. My husband doesn't want the fountain to look "schlocky" he said. Well, drowned chickens floating in the fountain is about as schlocky as it can get, so we've got to do something.


Early this morning, there was a beautiful deer in the far pasture.... a buck, with a decent-sized rack of horns. One of our neighbors let me know... he happened to be driving down the road and saw the buck and thought we'd like to see him. I wish I had been able to get a closer look-- the binoculars would have helped but I didn't think to get them before going out to see. The neighbor said there was a doe and two babies out there earlier this morning, and he said they've been there many times before.

Well, we're certainly up early enough to see them, but I just don't think to look at that side of the property in the morning-- that's when I'm feeding the cats and cleaning litter boxes, and changing the paper in the chicken coop. (The hens are enjoying Christmas wrapping paper now-- thinner than the wallpaper, but it works just as well as long as I don't use it on breezy days. I'm saving the wallpaper for the days when the breeze kicks up.)

I will have to remember to look for the deer when I'm out there in the mornings now. There is certainly enough tall grass for them to munch on.... and when the buck was finished with his breakfast this morning, he just jumped right over the fence, crossed the road, jumped over the fence on the other side and walked into the woods. I also had a lesson on deer-jargon this morning........ the doe is the female (which I knew), the buck is the male (which I didn't know), only the bucks have horns (I knew that), and the babies are fawns and not all are named Bambi (I sort of figured that).

One thing is certain-- I'm glad that none of our neighbors were driving down the hill this morning while I was out in the pasture filling up the bucket with scissors-cut grass for the nesting boxes. Had one of them stopped to ask what I was doing, I was going to tell them that I was cutting down the hay fields, one bucketful at a time.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

First in line.

That's was our nick-name for our chicken named Edie-- "first in line." And she always was, whenever we went out there with bread or corn or lettuce for the hens...... Edie would push her way to the front, as if waiting on line to be fed was beneath her. And the funny part about that is that my Aunt Edie wouldn't ever wait on line in a restaurant, or at a buffet..... I can remember her saying "I'm not in the Army-- why should I have to wait on line?"

So our little jet-black chicken with green iridescence in her tail feathers, was most likely first on line the other day at the fountain in the front courtyard-- and when the little frog that lives in the fountain stuck its head out of the water, there was Edie-- first on line and she probably tried to get hold of the frog and fell right into the fountain. The end result of that was tragic. I wish we had been home at the time.... we probably would have heard her, or heard the commotion from the other hens.... and maybe Edie could have been saved in time. We like to think so, anyway.

We're still saying "poor Edie" around here whenever we see the chickens. Especially me-- I gave the six hens a whole can of corn this morning, just because I felt so badly about Edie. I noticed that none of the hens have slept in the bread box in the coop-- that was Edie's favorite place to be. I wonder how long it will take for one of the other hens to claim that little spot.

Speaking of little spots-- the hens found a quiet corner underneath the shrubs in the back courtyard... and this morning, I found three eggs there-- two brown and one green/blue. Either the hens were upset on Tuesday morning because the lawn-guy was here and making noises around their coop, or they were upset about Edie drowning in the fountain. For whatever reason, they decided to lay their eggs on the ground near the garage, in a hen-made cave protected and surrounded by the bushes. The only reason I happened to notice those eggs is because I was out in the yard this morning and calling out to Dolly (the red hen) and she was back in that spot and cackling at me every time I called her name. She is just the sweetest hen.

When Dolly came out of there, I saw the three eggs..... she must have laid one there yesterday, and then Henny Penny must have put her egg in the same spot (chicken see, chicken do?) and then Dolly's egg today was still warm when I picked up all three of the eggs. This afternoon, Henny Penny laid her egg in one of the nesting boxes, so I hope they will all do the same from now on. Either that, or I'll be walking around all the flowerbeds every day, searching for eggs.

I've spent the last few days decorating the house for Christmas........ and everything is really done now. I thought it was all done yesterday, then I remembered the plastic bins-- when I was packing up before we moved, I put some larger holiday items in those plastic storage bins just because I had them and it seemed easier than boxes for some of the Christmas and Thanksgiving things.

The dining room table looks like Thanksgiving.... the rest of the house looks like Christmas. And I have to say that all of our decorations (mostly 1940s and 1950s-style) look like they've always been in this house, or were just meant to be in this big old house. Every room has its own little tree...... there are Santas and angels and reindeer everywhere you look..... and we've decided to put the "big tree" to the left of the fireplace, which is where we used to put it in the old house. But that's our project for right after Thanksgiving. Until then, we'll enjoy all the table-top trees that are up and glistening and Christmas-ready right now.

Our friends C and R will be coming down here for Thanksgiving week, spending a couple of days with us before they visit their family up in Austin. It will be great to see them again, and hear of all their upstate-NY adventures since they moved there. Was it over a year ago now? Two years? The time goes so quickly these days.... as it always has..... except now I'm just noticing it more.

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

And then there were six...

We had five chickens and two Guinea hens this afternoon when we left to take a drive..... a total of seven birds who followed us around the yard and made us smile. When we came home, we were missing one-- Edie, the black Australorp with the green iridescence in her feathers. I looked all around the backyard for her, then went into the kitchen to get a can of corn-- all the chickens love that as an afternoon treat. I thought that would surely lure her out of hiding, since Edie-Bird was always first in line for special treats.

The chickens and the Guinea hens were munching away on the corn, and still no sign of Edie. I guessed she was hiding underneath the bushes in front of the house, which some of the birds have done from time to time. As soon as I walked down the front steps to look for her, though, I knew she wasn't hiding........ poor Edie was floating in the base of the fountain in front of the house.

I couldn't even look...... I came back into the house and called for my husband to come get her out of the water. She was long gone..... her eyes were glazed over... nothing to be done for her, poor thing.

The fountain has three tiers, plus a tin tub which is three feet underneath the stone courtyard. The chickens have been drinking out of the fountain before, but I guess this time, Edie must have tried to perch on the thin ridge of that underground tub and she must have fallen in head first. Once their feathers get soaked like that, there's no way for the chickens to fly. Plus there's nothing inside the base of that fountain for a foot-hold.... she must have just sank to the bottom, then floated on top of the water after her last breath.

Had we been home, we might have heard her squawking and cackling and splashing, and we could have saved her. I don't know what's worse-- to have found her floating in the water like that (and I hope the end was very quick) or to have found her missing and know that a hawk must have swooped down and taken her away.

My husband asked me if I wanted to go back to Watson's farm and pick out another black chicken (Edie Two?) but I said no. It would be hard to introduce just one chicken to the other six.... the birds in our coop are all used to one another now, and they wouldn't take so quickly to a stranger. (To which my husband said we could make them little name tags to make it easier....)

Seven it was. Six it is now. Another day on the ranch, and that's just the way it goes.

And where were we this afternoon? We went to the St. Clare Monastery/Convent.... to see the miniature horses that are raised there by the Sisters of St. Clare. Cute doesn't do these little horses justice. And the cuter they are, the more expensive they are to buy.

We have thought of buying one. And of course I asked my favorite question when it comes to animals: "If we get just one, will it be lonely?" The answer to that, with these horses who are less than 38 inches tall-- is yes. They recommend you get two-- either two males, two females, or one of each-- and have the male gelded (fixed) unless you want to be raising your own little miniature horses (which we don't).

The males sell for $500..... the females can go as high as $2500-- depending if they're from a line that has won ribbons at the horse shows. And the more desirable the color, the cuter the face-- the more the price goes up. We asked about upkeep-- not much at all. Since they don't grow as big as a "regular" horse, they don't need shoes. They don't eat as much either-- they graze in the pastures (we have no shortage of those) and then their diet is supplemented by a bag of feed-- and a fifty-pound bag will last a month for two miniatures.

You have to brush them every week..... every day if you'd like to, and they appreciate the attention. You don't have to provide them with cover, but we do have a barn with easy access for them, and they could come and go as they pleased. In the Spring-time, the babies are born, and you have more of a selection as to color and sex at that time... so we're thinking.

If we did get two, we'd go back in the Spring..... and have a look at the babies. They told us we could put a deposit on the ones we wanted, and they would hold them there for us till they were weaned from the mother. (They called the babies "weanlings.") So we're thinking. Do we want two more mouths to feed? Do I want two more pets to take care of... because, me being me, any creature on this property becomes part of our family and not just livestock.

And so.... we will think..... we have till Spring to decide. These miniature horses can live 30 to 35 years. My husband says they could out-live us. Not hardly. My Aunt Dolly is already 96 and going strong towards 100..... and if anyone can make it, she certainly can. And that's what I'm aiming for as well.

Speaking of my aunts...... I named my three chickens after three of my aunts..... Dolly, Jaye, Edie. And, just like my Aunt Edie, my Edie-Bird chicken was the first one to pass away. My Aunt Edie, however, did not fall into a fountain and drown on a pretty summery day in November.