Escape Story #567

Strike a pose, there's nothing to it: Vogue!

Morning around here is a terrible time to be regular.  But I don't get to schedule the call of nature, I just have to answer it. And that is what I was doing yesterday, mid-get-to-school rush, when Blue answered the door.  I didn't know she was answering the door because I was in the bathroom, focusing on gettin' regular.  And from that throne I heard the common call of the Common Pony-tailed American Child, "Mom!  Mo-om!"  To which I responded as all moms sometimes do, at top volume, "I can't help you right now, honey.  I've got a log hanging from my ass.  It's just going to have to wait a minute."  To which she finally informs me, "Well, there's this man at the door and he's wondering if we're missing our cows."  And our dignity.

When I finally met the chuckling man at the door, I was still in slippers and pajamas, because I am not a morning person by nature.  I thought it would make me a virtuous woman if I forced myself to be up and about in the morning.  After babies didn't turn me in to one of these bright and happy sunrise people, I turned to more hard-core hobbies whose crying you can't fix by rolling over and shoving a breast at it: cows and chickens.  (Full Disclosure:  I don't actually know how they would respond to that.)  But instead of turning me into a better person, I've just invented clever and humane ways to not have to deal with them until after the kids have launched, my tea is fully sipped and I've read the obits, the comics, the dog ads (I have no idea why I read those.  I think I just like the pictures and imagining breeders and what they are eating for breakfast and what they are wearing: sweats and wife-beaters?) and completed the sudoku in pen (to add some challenge to the paper's idea of a puzzle).  And then I pull on the cover-alls over my pajamas and head out for the "morning" chores.  So that is why I met the man dressed like that.

Houdini-in-training

Yes, those were my cows.  Although I spent the past sunny Sunday morning doing fence repair, not all was repaired apparently, and some time during the night, the cows broke the electric wire and scooted under a fence. I am not that bad at fence repair.  Cows are just that good at exploiting any weakness in your containment field.  And this man, also a husband of bovines, knew all about that, and he was very understanding.  Following their tracks, we can see that they ventured into the garden and trampled all my newly planted peas and kale seeds, sinking deep into the fluffy loam I'd labored over for knee-bruising, shoulder-aching, wrist-swelling hours on Saturday.  They danced around the garage a few times, and then took off down the road. The "neighbor" (he's a little far away to really be a neighbor) was awakened this morning by early commuters wondering if those were his cows in the road. He had once checked in on a sick cow of mine and so he recognized the fugitives, and took them in anyway, to keep the safe until we could come up with a plan.

What attracted them to his farm was the only fully functional bull for many miles around.  He'd spent much of that morning already, while I was crapping and making lunches and setting timers on children to brush their teeth, trying to separate my obstinate cows from his young bull.

We agreed to meet up again at 10:30 while he went to breakfast and I repaired my fence and drove to town for some cow-provisions.

As my body was busy prepping the farm and running errands, my mind remembered, in sympathy with the cows, the time I snuck out in the middle of the night with my friend.  She lived in town, so after sneaking out there was actually some place to go. We chose the wild and crazy park, obviously, and sat on the swings in the middle of the night in November and looked at the stars and giggled about our bad-ass selves.  Then these guys showed up. Big guys, chatting us up. And so we decided we would rather be home again, because these guys were neither cute nor interesting nor really in our age zone.  Just as we were leaving, the men following a creepy twenty feet behind us, the entire park filled with light from all sides.  I thought I may have died, that's how bright the lights were. Bull horns instructed us to stay where we were, which was not what I expected in heaven. German Shepherds descended, also from all sides, into the park which was just a sunken triangle of grass and a few toys.  The large pack of nazi-dogs strained at their leather harnesses, followed by an even bigger pack of cops.  I might have been relieved, a little, since those boys were so strange.  We were interrogated under flashlight, names, numbers, parents were called (mine were on vacation and this was not the first phone call they had received about their children and they were already starting on their way home to try to salvage what they could after the house fell victim to a teen kegger.  They did not think any of this was as hilarious as their children did.)

Already a political being, I thought, My god, is this how we spend our tax dollars?  Chasing down kids on swings who didn't read  the "Park closes at dusk" sign? Seemed a little over-kill and for we two girls, it was.  But for the boys who'd joined us, it wasn't.  Arrests were made of the Most Wanted Men and we were let free after assuring the cops we had no idea who they were.  I think we should have received community service awards and rewards instead of community service because we were the jail-bait that lured those men into the awaiting hand-cuffs of the po-po.  Without oblivious us, those men might still be on the lam, menacing society.  And that is my memory about sneaking out in the middle of the night.

Later, on his 4-wheeler, the neighbor herded our cows to the edge of his field.  I opened the gate and we marched them down the road.  Of course, at this moment, the arborists arrived to slaughter my neighbor's willows, all big trucks, cherry pickers and chippers and beeping backing up in the middle of the road.  And so the cows bolted and ran and leaped over fences.  And so did I.  And then suddenly (and tragically for the typical and satisfying Greek trajectory of "the story,") the whole episode ended quite quickly and safely with cows back home, pacing around rehashing their totally awesome adventure while Jim and I chatted about the pleasantries of farming, ie: how many coyotes he shot (ack!) and dead calves and vultures and mice.  And I tried to offer to return the favor some day without sounding like a hooker for cow-herding help.

One Black Sex Link Ninja Chick

That's a sex link, alright

The chicks are here, the replacements.  It sounds like I've captured and caged spring in our sun room.  The little clouds are already starting on their true feathers at only 8 days.  We like to pick them up, hold them, little new moments.  I like the feel of their warm branchy feet, and little bit solid, a little bit dreamy, tickley.  The large box is covered by a wire screen to keep out cats and kittens (it's a baby-happy farm right now) and it leaves a plaid branding our our foreheads as we lean in to watch.  They sprawl under the heat lamp, new wings unfolded, flapped open like laundry going on the line. The way they sleep is like babies, with this dead limpness you want to jolt awake to make sure it's not permanent. They scratch up the shavings directly into the watering dish. But otherwise, they are incomprehensibly suited for the life of a chicken.  How do they know moments after emerging to scratch beneath them for food, to sip water by cupping it in their beaks, turning their heads up, and pouring it down their gullets like communion. Exactly what and how to do it, that's what they're born with.  I'm used to human babies who still can't seem to dress themselves lo these 10 and 7 years later.  Hell, 36 years later I'm still puzzling out what it means to be human and how to do this.

Just this morning, for a slap-stick example, I trekked from house to barn without my cover-alls because they were cold and inconveniently shoved into the bottom of the entry closet and anyway I never get all that dirty.  And as any observant human versed in the irony of fate, today was the day where the March mud was too thick for the crap load and the wheelbarrow and I were obligated to wrestle and I was dressed, not as a seasoned wrestler, but as idiot in fresh jeans.  And that's how I am, ill-suited for almost every task of modern life, like I'm the one that was born yesterday.

Is it really possible to come into this world like that, completely prepared for it?  That's why I stare at the baby chicks.  My kids are maybe thinking they're cute, but I'm trying to suss out the magic of being perfectly suited to the life before you.

We picked up a rainbow of chicks. The store policy, untransgressible as always, is a minimum purchase of six chicks.  So we came home with six - several more than I wanted.  We can see the housing crash coming from here.  We are going to have to figure out how to house 8 chickens (including the two that survived our first batch).  It's a riddle alright.

humanling mastering the fine art of existence

I was describing to someone the illness that swept through our old flock, the Christmas Crisis, and I was telling her how there was nothing to be done but replace them in spring.  She somehow thought that meant I hadn't done anything and she mistakenly contrasted herself with me saying, "If my chickens got sick, I would definitely take care of them.  I love my chickens." Ah, naive and inexperienced newbie, never a death to darken her one-year-old coop doors yet.  I've learned to let people stay that way, in their bliss.  The bubble will be popped naturally enough.

It's not that you don't want to do anything, it's that with chickens there's not much to be done.  I no longer felt like telling her how I cradled them, hand mixed antibiotics, pried open their lock-jawed beaks and dripped it in on Christmas Eve. I no longer felt like cataloging the process of the discovery: NO vets in the area know anything about chickens.  When I meet these sorts of quick, erroneous assumptions, I admit I'm confused about how to deal with them.  I don't owe anyone anything, any explanation, any excuse, anything.  And that's all explanations sound like to someone who's made up their mind about you: lame excuses.  And yet, sometimes it might make sense to defend oneself and reputation, but it's just chickens...

In other arenas, I'm learning to bite back and bite quickly.  I present more Valley Girl than Smarty Pants.  This is really a problem, believe me. And so when patronizing arises in circumstances where I need to be respected and heard, it seems to be working well for me to address the problem immediately, mid-sentence, and them move on to my larger point.  But with chickens, who the hell cares?  I guess that's just what she meant... they're not worth biting back about.

So we've got Leghorn ("Ah say, ah say, ah say whatcha lookin' at, son!") Luna, Rhode Island Red Poppy, Rhode Island Red Glory, Wyandotte Sri Racha, Black Sex Link Ninja, and Black Australorp Zoe. And in a few months, they'll meet Barred Rock Dragon and White Rock Priscilla. That's eight chickens and seven varieties. As they say: We don't just tolerate diversity, we celebrate it! And until disease, coyote or owl strike, this is our rainbow of egg-makers, a pot of golden yolks at the end.

To Catch a Family Cow

Yesterday, I went out to milk and Hendrika had crapped all over the stanchion (farm vocab moment: "stanchion" is the 2x4 structure Huck built to hold Hendrika somewhat still while I milk her; it is a common farming device and not a method of torture.)  I have always suspected her of having a passive-aggressive personality disorder because she usually craps right where I sit on my bucket to milk her.  But yesterday was rather astonishing.  She crapped at least six inches higher that her dairy-air.  We cannot imagine, nor should we try, how she got that pile of crap all the way up there on the top rung of her stanchion, right where my FACE goes as I sit down to milk. You could see her smirking as I exuded profane shock at her accomplishment.

I recently spent two days in the snow-blowing cold fixing fences. I did this for two reasons.  1) I LOVE fixing fences.  There is something about fiddling around with a pliers and some fence parts that makes me feel unbelievably alive.  I am not actually lying or being sarcastic. This is perhaps the #1 reason I have cows.  When I don't love it: full installation and full removal... those jobs are just too big and long to love.  Reason 2)  Hendrika was getting out.  Twice.  Two days in a row.  While Huck was out of town, obviously.

Once I caught her and penned her again (tip of experience: catching a cow is a slow, patient process.  Do NOT rush.  Do NOT scream.  Do NOT loose any amount of patience.  Lure into barn with grain, but do NOT get between the cow and the grain.), I instituted an all-cow lock-down and cased the premises.  Where she got out was obvious as it was covered in cow hair, long and thick (NOTA BENE: Hendrika has very very hairy teets in the winter and I have almost lost fingers while hand-milking because it tangles around and tightens as I pull down).  Where she got out was a mere 6" gap under the hog wire. Hendrika is hugely pregnant, so pregnant I get kicked in the head by an unborn calf every time I milk. And she limbo-ed her massive bulk underneath that fence.  If my cows are going to commit these incredible, acrobatic and controtic feats, I think I should get to see these miracles, front row. But I never do.

The good thing about her getting out is that I got some spring-hope.  As she munched the old tufts of grass down, you could see the green at the bottom, juicy and ready to bolt.

So I spent two frozen days walking the line, getting that electric fence working a little better.  It's got a lot of room for improvement, so it's kind of easy job to fix it.  Anything helps.

I remembered to unplug it this time.  It was so cold, the wire snapped a few places just when I touched it.  Any breech of electric current anywhere and the whole thing goes down.  Once the cows realize it's dead, they have at it, unleashing all of their aggression on the wires and creating even more areas to fix.  I have no idea how long that fence was dead, but those cows had made a mess of it.  I let Beignet join me cuz he's a fun, cute little doomed guy.  But he was really crazy, charging me and kicking at me and just plain nuts. I kept shaking my pliers at him, wondering if I could aim into an effective area of his skull if need be. I think he was "protecting" his herd, or something instinctual like that.  "YO! Beignet! Check it out, you ain't got balls!  Stop acting like a bull when you're just a steer."  I had to lock him up too.  I didn't feel safe turning my back on him. 

When I was sure I had everything fixed (har har), I went back to the box for my moment of brilliant success.  I plugged the fence in and here comes Beignet, he's going to try it out and I wasn't going to stop him, he'd ticked me off by then.  He rolls out his long long tongue and starts licking the fence.  And just to get back at me for the way I teased him, just to show me what a moron I am when it comes to fence repair, he rolls his tongue around the wire, like it tastes good, like I coated it with molasses just for him.

Son of Gun!  What's one got to do to get a decent charge around here!  And that's when I notice the yellow box that's supposed to be the off/on switch, but one time I turned it "off" but it stayed on and that is why, to this day, I twitch every time I reach out to touch the wire, even if I know intellectually that it's dead.  Thinking it didn't work and that no one had used it ever, I never checked the switch.  That's the thing with electronics, my friend reminded me, they need to be plugged in and turned on to work.  So I switched in on, right there!

Poor Beignet.  He was clear across the field in a split second.

Guest Column Alert PLUS Bonus Recipe, no charge

Cute Coyote

For those of you not on Facebook and thus so easily directed to my guest column, here is the link to the latest: Depth Perception.

And also, yesterday I traversed several steep emotional shifts.  High: watching the new Muppets Movie with my kids.  Obviously (to everyone else in the retro discount Garland Theater), I loved that Movie so very very much I had to capitalize it.  I discovered at the check out at Value Village that everything was 50% off: score-o-rama.  Blue picked up some snazzy red tennis and I got some vintage-y coats.  Then ALL of my DREAMS came true as I washed a pile of dishes while my children whined at me.  And then I watched my brother make the news.  Also: the cat barfed in three rooms AND Huck's out of town which means that I can clean it up and thereby barf in three rooms myself. Me and the kitty: Barf Buddies FOREVER!  And this morning I overslept, thereby making Coyote one full hour late for school and he was such a good sport about it.

Black-bottom cupcakes also make good kitty cushions

AND I made the world's best Gluten Free Dessert.  Without using FREAK ingredients.
I know people don't come here for recipes, and goodness knows I support that decision but Blackbottom cupcakes were my favorite as a kid and here's my recipe.  I Frankensteined it together with absurdly awesome results, better than the originals if I do say so myself:

Sarajoy's No-Freak-Ingredients Gluten-Free Black-Bottom Cup-Cakes
1 8oz package of cream cheese purchased on-sale, plus a coupon for $1.00, softened
1 good egg, chickenshit washed off
1/3 cup white sugar from a #12 bag that takes up half the pantry
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, minus five for tasting...or ten or so, that part is flexible

4 ozs ancient semisweet chocolate found in back of pantry
1/2 c butter (or a full cube, your choice) on sale, with coupon, frozen for 2 months
1/2 c cocoa powder
3 beaten eggs, or two egg yolks from a prior eggwhite recipe and two fresh eggs from the barn, chicken shit washed off, preferably
1tsp vanilla extract from a one gallon container you've been using for 10 years, from Mexico

Directions: preheat oven to 300 or 350 or somewhere in between, my oven doesn't "do temperatures" and so I am perhaps erroneously assuming that's the range it stayed in.

Butter a dozen cupcake things.  yes, only a dozen. 

Beat cream cheese, 1 egg and sugar.  Add chocolate chips, tasting regularly to make sure it's right, set bowl  within snitching distance.

Melt chocolate and butter on low.  Meanwhile, beat together eggs, cocoa powder (covering kitchen with brown chocolate dust), sugar and vanilla.  Beat in melted chocolate butter mixture.  Fill cupcake holes evenly with chocolate mixture. Top with cream cheese mixture, leaving enough in both bowls to make licking them out worthwhile.  Pop in oven for about 27 minutes.  I started checking for doneness at 20 minutes.  Cool for ten minutes AT LEAST before dumping out.  Wash face and destroy evidence.