Cats and chickens

Naturally no story of Henrietta’s return would be completely without getting the other side of the story.

Sanne:  So Thumper and Cherie, how do you like the big birds?

Thumper:  Snort.  (Runs under the bed)

Cherie:  What have you done to us now?  (Huge pansy eyes stare at me reproachfully)

Now I am used to telling my critters what’s up.  When I prepare for vacation I pull out my suitcases and let them sniff around and even lie in them so they are part of the process.  When Uncle Erik comes to live with us I prepare them in advance.  True, when Granny arrived they were no more prepared than I was but they forgave me.  Now they have been humanized and not only share their favours with Granny and I but they even deign to accept Uncle John into the house.  They have told me that Aunt Charlotte is crossing the line when she brings Dexter and they reserve judgment on little grand nephews but over all they have been accepting of most of the things that I do in their house.

Oh yes, any owner of cats knows that I am merely lodging with Them.  Now for my defense, I have been telling them for 6 weeks now that the “big birds” were coming.  I’ve carried them over to the Chicken Palace to sniff around and get an idea that “something was up”.  Okay, so we have backed the Palais Poulet directly up against their Hunting Lodge but, really, logistics must prevail.  They don’t accept that logic.  I explained that the chicken pen was there first, well before the Hunting Lodge was ever thought of.  They will have none of it.  The Henriettas are on their turf, so what am I going to do about it?

Well, darlings, nothing.  Cherie looks at me again with those huge hazel eyes and I see disbelief, reproof, consternation.  Are we going to have a divorce over this? 

Henrietta Comes Home

The chicken palace is now ready for the hens and I am anxiously awaiting their arrival from daycare.  They are now 6 weeks old and ready to come home to Mama.  I am worrying about them being stuffed into card board boxes and being driven 30 miles to their new abode.  Will they suffocate?  Will they fight with each other and peck each other’s eyes out?  Can we get them into the house without their escaping?

Last night I made John double check and screw in more screws along the footboards while I told him fervently that there WERE weasels in the neighbourhood.  It’s my long held belief that weasels can get into the tiniest crack and I still have the scene in my head when I came home to find my poor hens lying helter skelter across the backyard, flat as pancakes.  There’s a legend in these parts about vampire sucking weasels and perhaps I did have a little bit to do with that story.  The truth is quite simple, I had long been familiar with dead chickens as caused by the ravages of neighbouring dogs.  Those scenes involved chickens lying with their feet up in the air, or the butts turned up, necks askew, and feathers flying everywhere.

The summer morning when I returned from work to discover chickens lying like deflated rubber ducks, much as one sees in a cartoon was a shock I shall not soon forget.  There were 3 or 4 of them lying in the grass and there was no sign that a dog had been around.  The rest of the chickens were in the henhouse and looked as though they had experienced a severe shock themselves.  I wish I could say that there were little droplets of blood along their neck but truth must enter in . . . there was nothing to indicate what had caused the poor chicks deaths.

It was a car salesman who came up with the story of the vampire sucking weasel and I just went with it.  What can I say, it was a good story and being a car salesman, he sold me.   J

Hooting Owls and CaaCaaing Crows

Retiring Baby Boomers have taken up bird watching in a big way.  This I have been told.  While usually I like to buck the trend this is one hobby I seem to be developing rapidly and it is with a real thrill that I can tell you I now know that I have a supsucker woodpecker in my yard.  All these years I have been shaking in my boots, afraid that I was going to get punished to the fullest extent of the law because I thought I had a pine tree with that horrid pest, the pine beetle.  I had that tree from a mere little sucker twig and now it waves bravely well above my roof line and I was terrified that I had somehow gotten the disease.  What a relief to discover that the signs on the tree are evidence of a supsucker; while not good it is not going to kill the tree and better yet, it won’t destroy other trees.

The other day I was startled while brushing my teeth in seeing a huge goose in  my mirror.  Looking outdoors i discovered that I currently have a nesting pair in my yard, thanks to my fishpond and Mom putting lots of delectable waste in the compost pile.  They were enjoying the leftover corn on the cob that morning.  Now I just have to worry about them biting my butt when they get territorial.  I can picture Mom and I running towards the house with our hands protecting those ample rear ends.  What a way to get a workout.

I have a wide range of birds around my place, magpies, crows, woodpeckers, sparrows, swallows, brown thrasher, flickers, pheasants, partridge, geese, ducks, owls, hawks, finches of various kinds, yellow headed blackbird, grackles, and the ever present robin.  Last year we were thrilled to see a hummingbird in our bougainvillea vine and I understand from my sister and Mom that it returned this spring.  What I have yet to see is a blue bird.  A winter project for my brother will be to build me some blue bird houses that we can set up along our fence line next spring. 

Appreciating nature by sharing it with birds is priceless.  Waking up to bird song is one of my favorite summer pleasures. 

My cup runneth over.

Tempo

Someone once told me that time is man-made but I think it depends on how you define time. 

My 61^st birthday is rapidly approaching yet I find myself still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I am a sexagenarian!  It sounds so venerable and occasionally I find myself trying to conduct myself as though I am worthy of that dignity.  But my sense of humour, my youthfulness cracks through every time and never more so than when I am that lamentable beast, the C-train.  I am not sure that my colleagues actually get my humour when I tell them that I often feel like a psychopath on that train so if I ever did go berserk I’ve laid the foundation for an insanity plea without much effort.

In truth I already learned in my 50’s that age has no meaning if you don’t give it any.  Entering into my 50’s I felt completely at peace with myself, I was content with who I was, where I was and where I saw myself going.  That is why I feel a little disconcerted about how I feel as a 60 year old.  I suppose in the deep recesses of my mind I must have felt that 60 was old, it even sounds like an old number.  But I echo the words of Lauren Bacall’s character “but inside, I still feel young” and in the end, isn’t that all that matters?

Perhaps, if it wasn’t for the fact that we must interact with others and this is where it gets a little scary.  Because, I must confess to some arrogance, because yes, I feel Entitled.  I feel entitled to respect.  When a person reaches the age of 60 I believe that respect is in order.  I admit it, I feel almost as though it is a God given Right.  Oh dear, is this what growing old means – entitlement?

Lest ye don’t understand, tongue is firmly in cheek. 

Evolution - Weird and Wonderful

Did you know that chicks can survive without a mother hen?  They can pop out of their eggshell and begin to drink and feed within the day.  In four days they begin to sprout their wing feathers which become full wings in less than 2 weeks.  By that time they are also sprouting their tail feathers and feather begin to emerge on their backs.  The miracle of life is truly amazing when watching the rapid growth of a bird.  Pups, kittens, calves and fouls are much slower to get into their growth and their evolution is not as dramatic as that of a chicken to a hen.  Changing from yellow fuzz to feathers is so dramatic, visually altering the appearance of the bird.

The nature of an animal, however, is similar from birth to death.  They grow, they eat, they hunt or peck and basically they act like a chicken, a cat, dog or horse.  Despite our belief in human superiority man also does not alter much from birth to death, from century to century.  Some are workers, some are leaders, some are generous and some are cruel.  Through all our learning, discovery and inventions we humans have still not learned how to change the rise and fall of nations.  We haven’t learned how to get along with differences; we still attack the painted bird.

Why is that?