Who Moved My Slippers?

I work from home, which means a lot of things. First, I don't do work in my underwear. Some people have actually told me that they would work in their pajamas, which would make for a very cold day for me. My office is in the basement, which means cold temps. I never work without my big blue down vest, otherwise I get so cold that it's distracting. Well, I guess I never go anywhere without my big blue down vest. I've been harassed in public about wearing my down vest on a moderately warm day. I say a) I can where whatever the f I want, that's none of your monkey business, but 2) who cares! It's so comfortable! The arm holes and length and neck fit me perfectly. Why would I even want to take it off? I should wash it though. I think I got chicken blood on it a few weeks ago.

I'm not sure that that was even a tangent, as the blue down vest is a critical element to my work productivity and overall happiness.

But back to work at home. Again, no work in underwear, although I would really like to meet the person who would spend their entire work life in their underwear. Seriously, I'd prefer to be dressed. Slippers are the limit of my wardrobe adventures here in the dungeon. Working at home means that I am the cook, housecleaner, chicken tender (not the fried kind), trash taker outer, laundry doer, and many other things. Steve does a lot of this too, so I'm not the only person in the household who does chores, but by default, I do these tasks. Which is fine - I'd rather stay at home and be able to do that, then work in Denver and spend 1.5 hours commuting and have to take care of chores after a long day at work. Instead of hanging out by the water cooler, I spend five minutes putting underwear in ther dryer. It's a matter of priorities.

The only thing I miss is human interaction. I am lucky to have worked with most my colleagues in person before, so I feel like I am an extension of a real office, but it would be nice to have some friends around once in a while, if anything to bitch about the Raiders or talk about where we're going to get lunch. That brings up another point thought - a good one - I get 24/7 access to a working oven. I can warm up lunches like it's my job - unfortunately, it's not - and I even get a steady stream of refrigerated items at my fingertips, to accommodate my latest cravings. Other people say that they would not be able to work, because they would always think about food. I always think about food, but I've stopped worrying about it. I know myself well enough to know that if I want to eat something, I will eat it, so I might as well get it over with. No use in arguing with myself about it.

All in all, I am blessed to work from home, but talking to chickens for interaction might appear odd to some.

Houdini Hens

Last word on chickens for the day.

When it's sunny or warm out during the day, I let the chickens out into their run under the deck. It's fenced off with chicken wire and gives them space to run and peck around in the dirt. When I'm working, I can get up, walk down the hall, and check them out by looking through the window. I just got up to make sure they were ok, and I only saw one chicken in the run. I was hoping to see three. Not one. (Pearl was relegated to the tractor because she was being pecked at.) The other two were nowhere in sight. This had happened to me before, during the summer, when the wind had blown open the door to their tractor and stayed open most of the night. I walked into the shower one morning, opened the window to check on them in the backyard, and saw that the door was open, with no chickens in sight. I could only imagine where the chickens were and was certain they were gone forever. At that time, I didn't know that chickens rarely roam too far from their home. I rushed out of the shower, threw on some clothes, and raced down to the backyard. The chickens were all there, in the covered part of the tractor, staring aimlessly at the open door. I was both amused that they didn't even think to leave, and relieved that they hadn't flown the coop. Pun! Anyway, so I run outside today, again, and Murtha (Houdini #1) is just eating grass in the backyard. She escaped, but probably figured that in this case, the chance of eating grass in the backyard is the same as the chance of venturing out and becoming roadkill. I leave her there in search of Sid (Houdini #2). No where in the backyard. Not in their house. Crap! I realized that I had left the fence door that leads to the front yard from the backyard wide open and reluctantly walked to the front yard, in search of my feathered friend. Our front yard is about 20 feet across, and separates our house from a pretty busy road. I walk out and of course she's there, just staring at the road and eating grass. I'm sure people walking along the sidewalk saw a random chicken. I had to chase after her in the front yard, and ended up pinning her up against the wall - the only way I could grab her.

Anyway - Houdini #2 is in the house, about to lay an egg (she was doing her butt sit ups right before she disappeared, so I figured it was time), Pearl is in quarantine due to the peck, and Houdini #1 and Tayler are chilling in the run. I secured the run a bit better than last time. And I'm behind on my work.

Chicken 911

Chickens are pretty amazing. They don't have much going on - lay egg, eat food, drink water, poop, sleep for 12 hours a night, peck irreverently, act like you're important, hop, wake up neighbors. Surprisingly, though, they have two-bit memories and are sometimes inherently cannibalistic, without ever remembering that they are. My opinion is that this is mostly due to temptation and opportunity, rather than lack of food or desire to actually eat their kin. It happens irregularly in our little flock. A hen might be shooting for a piece of corn on the ground, but mistakenly pecks on another hen’s talon, draws blood, and Eureka! Blood! Where the hell did that come from! Yesss!! I love it! Must peck more after my celebratory hop! Then, of course, the hen that's getting pecked might not know what's going on, she might think it’s another hen’s talon, and she starts picking at herself. Basically, chickens are attracted to blood, regardless of where it's coming from. It's like Hannibal Lecter meets Patty Hearst.

The girls could very much eat each other alive, with no real perception of what they're doing. It makes me sad, but they’re farm animals after all. They’re not too worried about it. For all they care, blood is better than the expensive feed we throw their way. Farm fresh refreshments. Regardless of what those bird brains want, Steve and I don't like it. We've researched this and it's perfectly normal for hens to pick at each other sometimes, so we're not worried about having unstable or idiot chickens. Our saving grace is that, again, they're dim (albeit lovable). They don't remember much beyond what they just put in their mouth. So we try to prevent the hens from picking at each other further by removing the evidence. We take the hurt hen aside, clean out her wound with iodine, apply neosporin with a swab, and bandage it up with sticky, self-adhesive athletic wrap. The wrap works best as it's breathable, looks like chicken skin, and sticks well so the hens can't pick it off. Plus, it covers up the blood and the hens don't remember that they've ever tasted blood in the first place.

Only Murtha and Sid really start the picking, usually Pearl and Tayler. It started with Tayler, but she started sticking up for herself, so they moved on to Pearl. Pearl is the kindest, and somewhat of a nurturer, so it might be that she puts up with it as long as the others are happy. She was wounded again this morning. I spent 30 minutes cleaning her wounds and bandaging both of her feet. It's difficult to hold a chicken under your arm and clean, treat and bandage her. Not impossible though. The trickiest part is bandaging her talons while allowing enough space between the "toes" for them to spread apart and provide balance. I'm convinced that they have few, if any, feeling or nerves down there, so she stays relatively calm while I hold her and clean her wound. M. Poncelet, Chicken Talon Wrapper. It's all good now.

I took some pictures of the hens, and their bachelorette pad. Steve spent many a weekend and weeknight perfecting the pad as to provide for maximum space, warmth, dryness, dry food, water, a nest and perches (for sleeping). I think they're happy there. They even have a window. Some people spend 40 hours a week with no window. They also have an outside run (about 48 square feet under the deck) where they run around, get all sorts of sunlight and fresh air, and eat dirt. (And a chicken tractor, a moveable house on the grass – mostly for summer.) I love those little hens! They're just so funny. Despite the gore.

Chickens are more than feathers and breasts

Our chickens make me laugh. When I open up their chicken coop, 2 or 3 of them usually fly out as soon as possible. As if they know the sound I make when I open the front door, crunch snow or grass on my way over to their coop, open the backyard door, brush up against their house, and unhatch the three latches on their door. I open the door, and within a millisecond, they poke their little beaks out into the air, like a cat slipping its paw out into the cold, to see if it's warm enough to venture outside. Unless there's snow, they usually hop right now and get to work on the dirt. Pearl takes a bit longer. She's a lost soul. Am I coming? Am I going? Do I need to lay an egg? Should I stay here?

After the initial hop out of the house, some of them get a running start and try to fly away. They usually jump up as high as they can, fly for about 7-15 feet, then slope down to a grinding halt. They look up, see if anyone was watching them try to fly and subsequently not, then they act as if nothing happens, secretly hoping that next time will go better. I sometimes like to imagine that they're trying to impress me. These chickens are the closest thing to children, at least in my reality. I need to coax them, talk to them, scold them when they are cannibalistic, and give them a lot of love. They are very sensitive, and love to be held.

Anyway, they all have different personalities, which are interchangeable among them in fact. Each of their movements makes me happy (except for the pecking and reckless jumping the ship when it's 0 degrees out). They hop around and are playful, burrow in the dirt in their run, peck at each other, run away from each other, spend time alone, follow me around in the yard, run back and forth in the yard, spread their wings, fluff up their feathers, make themselves little nests in the dirt, sometimes randomly lay eggs outside of their real nest on the ground, eat grass, bugs, dirt and leaves, and just generally have a great time being young, healthy and full of eggs.