Mother Hen

Hi! Thanks for stopping by Homestead Lane.

This past weekend Homestead Lane welcomed seven baby chicks! Having never been the owner of anything more than fish, a hamster that I froze to death accidentally on my cold back porch as a youngster, and a beagle, I was a bit nervous about owning and raising farm animals. However, I took one look at Sweet Sylvia and realized that after four years of raising the queen of drama, I could probably handle some chicks. These chicks wouldn't keep me up all night, or scream "NO! I DON'T WANT TO!" or ask why a million times, or throw themselves down in the middle of the grocery store because they couldn't get a toy. Yeah, I think I can handle some chicks.

So, we got two Productions Reds,

two Welsummers,

two Gold Sexlinks,

and one beautiful Cuckoo Maran - who was immediately named Henrietta Finley (see the inspiration for my forthcoming novel here.)

Sweet Sylvia named one Crystal, I'm guessing after one her beloved pony toys. Another was named Ariel, and one of the Production Reds - the ones who will lay the most - was named Chicken McNugget. The rest have yet to show is their chickenalities, so their names will be forthcoming.

In advance of getting these chickens I have been pouring over BackyardChickens.com soaking in all the information I can about raising chickens, because, of course like any expecting mother I'm nervous as hell about these fragile little peeps being under my care and supervision. Mostly, everything seemed easy. The brooder (the little tub with a heat lamp where the chicks live for the first 5 weeks) has to be the right temperature. Keep their water and feed always full. Change their box every day or two. Work to imprint the chickens, which is how they connect a sound to the first big thing they see and that's who they think is the mother hen. Oh! I'd be Mother Hen! I loved the sound of that. So very sweet. They'd follow me around while I gave them treats. How cute. Yes, that I could do. Oh, and make sure their vents are open to avoid pasty butt. Uhm, what?! Pasty butt?

Yes. Pasty butt. The situation where the chicks pooper get plugged up with their poop, which then blocks their poop from coming out, which could kill them. Oh dear god! I didn't want my little chicks to die of a clogged pooper. BackyardChickens suggested checking them every few hours the first two weeks, including overnight. Our chicks came to us a few days old, so I was going to have to give them attention like newborns?! No. Sorry chicks, but no. Mama already played that game with a newborn, re-played that game at one year old, played it again recently at four years old, and am just to a point where overnight sleep is somewhat normal. I'm NOT getting up every few hours to check your little chicken butt.

However, this morning after Silas and Sylvia said good morning to our little flock Silas informed me that Henrietta had a clogged vent. Ha! Ha! was of course my first response. I knew he was joking because when I first informed him about checking our chicks vents he laughed and said, "have fun!" To which I responded, "I will do anything for our sweet baby chicks including checking their vents." Thinking, like any parent-to-be, that my chicken would never have that. He looked at me with all seriousness this morning and assured me he was not joking. There was a pasty butt situation.

Oh Henrietta! Mama's coming! I donned surgical gloves, got a warm, wet rag, a warm water bath  in a bowl, vegetable oil and sat next to our little chicken brooder and informed Henrietta that there would be a small procedure this morning. I used my Mother Hen voice and discussed with Henrietta that she was going to be our most beautiful hen and we needed her but to be free and clear at all times. I held her in my hands, dipped her little backside in the warm bath water and proceeded to free the clumped-up shit from her little chicken fluff. She was not a fan of her chicken enema. I couldn't blame her. Not a great way to start your day. And, furthermore, I couldn't believe I was sitting with a week old chicken trying to pry her poop from her feathers, soothing her with my newfound Mama Hen voice. But here we were, bonding. Mother and chicken.

You'll be happy to know we solved the pasty butt problem, wiped her vent with vegetable oil, as suggested, and Henrietta is as good as new. I sat with my chick, dipped her in a warm bath, dissolved poop from her little chicken butt, and then whipped her down with vegetable oil. Who am I?! Oh, yes, Mother Hen.

To my surprise when I put Henrietta back in the brooder all the other chicks started pecking at her butt, curious what her exotic vegetable oil scent was all about. She stood with her beak in a corner while the others pecked at her like a kid on the playground getting picked on. "You get away from my Henrietta! Any of you couldn't have had pasty butt. How would you feel? Any don't think you're escaping this! You're all getting checked!" And just like a Mother Hen I picked up each chick and checked their vents for pasty butt. And just like little kids, they all ran and hid from their examination.

So I've become a mother again. Accidentally, without giving it much thought, I went and had seven new little babies. Sigh. You can find my new baby registry at your local Town & Country supply store. I think I'm going to like this second mother hood though. Proud moments like when we move them to their coop, their first free range hunt and peck adventure, when they lay their first eggs. And headaches like unidentifiable sickness, lost chickens, and cross-my-fingers that it doesn't happen, but hopefully not losing one to a predator. I shall cast that last one from my mind. We've protected their coop like Fort Knox, fortifying it with everything but an ADT alarm system. But that's another story for another time. I have to go feed my little flock a treat now. They had a tough morning.

Work In Progress.

Hi there. Thanks for stopping by Homestead Lane.

Spring has absolutely arrived, and I am head over heels in love with it. The air smells SO GOOD outside. I think once I wrote about how the color green smells. To me, green smells like spring - fresh, wet, dewy, sweet, floral, grassy. This heavenly perfume has encompassed the whole island, and I want to bathe in it every morning and dab it behind my ears to wear all day long. The birds are singing the happiest songs entitled "I Love Homestead Lane in the Springtime." And we are outside working all day long, which brings me to my post today.

There are projects galore around Homestead Lane. Got a few hours? Want a working vacation? Just want to get some dirt under your fingernails? Come on over! We'd love for you to help. Currently, just outside projects include, building a chicken coop, raised beds for a garden, a fence for the garden, transplanting fruit trees and blueberry bushes, and I haven't even gotten started on the shade garden I'd like to plant, a walkway from the drive to the front porch, and a palate deck around our outdoor tub. We're Busy! (see this video: Busy. )

In my past life, i.e. the life I lived in a city, on dry land, my projects list was much less demanding and on a quite smaller scale. Plant tulip bulbs. Weed and replant the two foot by two foot flower box in front of my house. Plant a windowsill herb garden. In my current life I'm building a muthereffing chicken coop. It's hard work and I love it. And I'm learning so much about myself. An astrologer once told me that my whole job in this life was to work on myself. She neglected to mention, however, that working about myself meant working with a shovel, a hammer, nails, wood. But that's just it, right? Working on ourselves requires tools, much learning, time and getting dirty.

In the past few weeks that our outside work has ramped up intensely thanks to the springtime weather I've learned that I'm totally clumsy. Oh no wait. I already knew that. Well, being around sharp tools has reminded me of my clumsiness. No breaks yet. Just cuts and scrapes and bruises. Battle scars that I wear with pride.

I've learned that I LOVE digging. Like really putting my foot on a shovel, pushing it in to the earth, digging. There is something so incredibly satisfying about it. Silas has done this for years because A - He's male. He inherently likes digging, and B. He's lived on Homestead Lane on and off for almost 10 years. To him, digging a hole is just something that has to be done to get to another step in a project. Last weekend when we started our chicken coop we decided step one was digging a ditch around the perimeter of the planned coop area to lay down some protective wire or rock to keep burrowing predators out. After he stated that digging the ditch "Is a back-breaking job that's kind of mind-numbing and takes a while," I anxiously volunteered. I dug a  seven foot by five foot ditch under the warm sunshine and loved every minute of it. And I should state, our land is chocked full of rocks and roots. So every few inches I'd have to hack away at a roots, show it who is boss, or wedge a mid-sized boulder out of the dirt before going any deeper. I just kept smiling and happily heaving dirt from the earth into a pile asking myself, "why do I love this? It's a job prisoners do as punishment." This past weekend I got after it again and dug four huge holes that would become the foundation for our coop. Roots. Rocks. Loved it. Got dirt in my hair. Wiped it on my face. Loved it. Then, In a moment of total clarity, the sun shone through the clouds, the heavens sang, a fountain of water shot up behind me and I smiled and realized, "I love Josh." Oh no wait. That's a scene from Clueless.  I realized I love hard work, because I've never really worked hard. Sure, writing a novel is hard work. Raising a child is hard work. Creating an advertising campaign is hard work. But manual labor, working outside, shoveling, that's hard work of a much different kind, and I haven't really ever done it. I don't know that I actually knew I could do it. In my previous life I might have thought of doing a large scale backyard project, like "oooh, I'd love to have a butterfly garden!" But then I would have researched it, realized I'd have to map out a planting plan, buy a bunch of different plants, prepare a space for it, rake, dig, fertilize, plant, etc., and then just crossed it off my list because it was too hard, involved too much time and effort and patience (which you all know I don't have), and the aspirational thought would have stayed that - a thought.  In this life, if I want to be an active part of it, I really have no choice. Well, I do. I could not partake in the life that's happening around me because it's hard, or I could. And I chose, could. And that means I've learned that I actually can do it. I can shovel deep holes. I can do hard work! Who knew?!

I've learned that I could use some work in the coachability department. I don't take coaching very well, which may explain why I never really played sports. When someone tries to show me how to do something that I already feel I am excelling at, I roll my eyes and let them know that yeah yeah, I've got it, thank you, and you can take your "help" and shove it. Well this ridiculous, childish behavior that I actually thought I'd left behind reared it's ugly head just yesterday when I was hammering down the subfloor of our chicken coop. (Yes, I did just use the word "subfloor"!!) I volunteered to do this job because again, it sounded as fun as shoveling dirt, and because I wanted to be a part of building our coop. Silas, the most patient man on planet Earth, showed me how he wanted it done - he being the experienced carpenter and all - and I got to work. He left me to do my thing, assuming that I could handle hammering a nail into a board, and continued sawing more boards. I haven't quite worked my way up to electric saws yet. (See: clumsiness ) I did it just like he showed me. Dulled the end of the nail so it wouldn't split the board. Tapped it in the wood a few times to set it, then gave it heavy, muscled hits with the hammer. I would hit it correctly a few times straight up and down, then without fail, hit it so that it went crooked. I'd straighten it out again with a  few taps, hit it a few more times, then crooked. Repeat. I tried sitting at different angles while hammering. Still the same problem. Hammer. Hammer. Crooked. So I choked up on the handle. Ah ha! There. A strong hit to the nail, and with only ten or twelve whacks, it was in. I heard Silas approaching and couldn't wait for him to see how good I was at hammering. Here I was, his gal, his urban lady turned farm girl, happily hammering away in work pants. He would think it was so cute. He presented me with a different hammer. A Stiletto Titanium Hammer. The Ferrari of hammers, he informed me. It was much lighter than the hammer I had been using. I choked up on the handle and gave it a couple of whacks, careful to show him that I was doing exactly what he'd shown me. Wack. Wack. Sideways. Ugh! And this is where the coachable moment happens:

"Why do keep hitting it sideways?"
"Lower your grip a little."
Quickly cutting him off. "Yeah, I tried that, but it didn't work and slowed me down. This seems to be my grip. Do you want me to do it slow or fast?"
"Well, I guess I'd like you to do it right."
Um, excuuuse me? I was doing it right! I was doing it MY way. That is the right way. 
"So, try using your wrist instead of hammering with your whole arm. It helps you control the movement better."

Oh sure, right. And he knows because he's, like, built whole houses and a huge workshop and a bathroom addition, and is a carpenter and totally works with wood and hammers and nails, and shit, He's right, of course. Doing it his way I easily hammer in the nail with nine thumps and none of them go sideways. It's much easier and feels better too. I smile sweetly at him. He is wearing his most patient smile with just a hint of "I told ya so," though he's so sweet he'd never verbally say it.

"Thanks for teaching me how to hammer." Totally ready to eat a handful of nails and hammer the stubbornness right out of myself.

Homestead Lane will learn me. It will. I'm working harder, working stronger, living better, living fuller, and am happier than I've ever been. And I think those things make me open to learning. My stubborn, know-it-all, prideful ways are just generations of DNA. That can be rewritten.

Much like Homestead Lane, I'm a work-in-progress.