Boo.

Bad Pun-kins

By the time I arrive at work in the morning, after my brisk 15 minute walk on urban sidewalks, I'm ready to talk, for jokes, for commentary. Except there's no one there but me, for a good long while.

I make coffee.
I review the open orders.
Sometimes I feed the cat.
I empty the "kitchen kiln" of yesterday's cured glass.
I prioritize the day's tasks for the four of us.

Eventually the crew stumbles/drives/bikes in, and by that time I'm REALLY ready for interaction, and STILL I have to wait. For coffee to be sipped, for caffeine to take effect.

First world problem, I know.

But did you hear about the pumpkins who staged an uprising in an attempt to do away with the annual slaughter aka carving of their fellow citizens? It was a pumpkinsurrection.

Did you hear about the pumpkins in the nursing home? The pumpkinvalids?

Or the blanket made from woven pumpkin fibers? The pumpkin-patch-work quilt? (Thanks to E.P. for this one.)

Yeah, I know. Groan.

See what you're missing by not working with me?

Blackened, Sawn

No one blackens anything anymore but I blackened some tilapia for dinner and lamented the passing of food trends. Who cares about food trends? Certainly pas moi.

But that's what you eat after herding chickens all afternoon while constructing a garden gate from salvaged lumber and foraged bamboo.  (Lumber salvaged from my falling-down garage, bamboo foraged half a block away.)

Pleasure in hole-drilling, attaching the sawn (Japanese pull saw) lengths of bamboo to the 1x2 fir planks. All the while the feathered girls making a scratchy mess of my yard: pursuit of bugs. I seem to have forestalled my seasonal melancholy with my acquisition of poultry. And I gotta say, it's a complete surprise.

Cluck cluck.
Eggseggseggs.

What brings me joy?
—Dragging home 30' lengths of bamboo, scritchy-scratchy, all the way up the widewalk.
—Picking up a chicken (such docile creatures!).
—Making a clean cut with the saw.
—Seeing my gate take shape.
—No where to go but where I am.

Dear Reader, where do you find joy in your day?

Bawk. BAWKBAWK.

And so it has come to pass, after many months of nothing but talk and a little bit of construction SPREAD OUT OVER MANY MONTHS, that I am a chicken-mama.

This past week has been spent attending Chicken University, an online self-directed (and self-invented) course consisting of reading countless message boards, blogs, websites and YouTube videos on All Things Chicken, resulting in this:

I think I've done more clucking than the birds.

No names quite yet, but I thought Fallopia would be fitting. And possibly Ovaria. Gotta come up with three names for three chickens. But then again, maybe one name for all three chickens. Or rename them every week/month/equinox. Would the chickens care?

One thing that's become most evident in this new venture is how staid I've become in my routines, and how this small, feathered flock (with surprisingly menacing claws) has upset the chicken cart, as it were.

I've especially enjoyed watching them plucking and fussing at the straw when settling in the nest to lay an egg. Two of them apparently had the egg urge at the same time this morning and climbed all over each other to find the best spot. When I returned, about a half hour later, there was the gift of two eggs.

I'm not holding my breath for a golden egg that I could bring to the King aka Bank of America so I can pay off my mortgage. Or at the least, trade for a few magic beans. (But where would I go, climbing that magic bean stalk?) But who knows. Every new venture opens doors (and in this case, it's a coop door).

Funny — the cats are steering clear. And here I thought they'd be entertained unto infinity. I think it's going to be me who's entertained unto infinity.

Bawk.