Mother Clucker

We have chickens. We have one chicken in particular, Violet, who, as we discovered today, has a skill: escaping.

The chickens are in a pen with six-foot-tall chain-link walls. I was working in the yard earlier today, and out of the corner of my eye I see a flash of white. I take a closer look, and there's Violet on the wrong side of the wall. I catch her, put her back in with the rest of the flock, and go back to my work. A few minutes later, there she is again, outside the pen. I get her back in again, block up a couple of spots where she might be squeezing through, and go back to work. Not two minutes later, I learn her secret -- I happen to look up just as she's going over the wall. With cat-like skills, she's catching quick claw-holds on the chain link to power herself up and over whenever she wants to get out.

The other surprise was when I found out why she's been getting out. She kept going for this one spot tucked behind some boards leaning up against a wall, so I pulled them back and found... eggs! Nine of them! All fresh (passed the float test with nary a bobble)! Apparently she doesn't like laying in the nesting boxes with the other girls, so she's made her own spot.

Normally we'd turn a problem chicken into dinner, but those eggs? They're jumbos, some of them double-yolkers. It means she's one of our best layers.

She lives. She's in detention until we can figure something out, but she lives.

Life with chickens never ceases to be entertaining.

Grrrrrrump

The move is complete. I'm settling in a few blocks from where I grew up, boggling at how many changes have happened in the four years since I last lived here, and trying to decide what to do next.

In looking at my options, I'm feeling more defective and dejected than I usually do. There are jobs I could do if I weren't autistic, if I didn't have a hearing disability, if that car accident a few years ago hadn't damaged my knees. The ones that remain viable despite those handicaps aren't terribly appealing, and the thought of getting back on the treadmill of working to pay bills to work to pay bills fills me with a sort of existential fury at the futility of it all.

Add to that my lack of ambition, or at least ambition in the modern sense, and I'm feeling stuck. I don't want to pursue any particular career, I don't want to go back to school... those options feel pointless in this swirling cloud of nihilism that's been getting thicker and more oppressive the older I get. I want to live a quiet, agrarian life away from other people, away from red tape and bureaucratic bullsh*t... but that option isn't available to me, because there are always taxes and fees and regulations and forms that require funding on a personal level, and those funds have to come from somewhere, which, in my case, means a job. With my resumé, it means a job that barely pays the rent and leaves me too exhausted to do anything else.

It's hard to keep one's chin up when it feels like the entire world, the era and culture in which one lives, is toxic to one's very existence.

The Smallest Beast I've Ever Seen

Yesterday, on my way to Connecticut with a trailer full of stuff, I was passed by a little red Fiat. The license plate said "666." Apparently Lucifer drives a 500 with Vermont plates.

Cookies!

My sister is in Florida visiting our grandmother this weekend. I'm at home frantically packing, hoping I can get everything out by the end fo the month. So I'm more than a little jealous of her, but I figured I'd try to find a silver lining by asking my sister if she could casually find a way to ask Grandma to bake cookies so sis could bring some home for me.

My sister asked me what kind of cookies I wanted, so I told her my top three, figuring she and Grandma would pick whichever one they had on hand or had the ingredients for. The next email said, "so grandma and I are making cookies on Monday, because she doesn't have all of those and wants to be sure you get all that you want."

I... um... okay! I keep forgetting that Grandma's the giving type. Mum definitely isn't, and I didn't see Grandma for many years before last summer, so I'm re-learning how to interact with someone who's more than happy to go out of her way to make someone else happy. It's a nice problem to have.

For The Birds

A flock of birds lights in my front yard, and Maeve takes up defensive position at one of the windows in my office.

"Mer-er-er-er-er!!"
"You tell 'em, kitten."
"Merrrrr-er-er!"
"Are they dastardly birds?"
"MEW!"
"Silly question, since all birds are dastardly, right?"
"Mer-er-er!"
"Pity there's a window between you and them, or you'd show 'em what's what, right, Maeve?"
"Mew."
"You would. I know. Fierce huntress."
*Maeve looks at me like I'm crazy*

If there were any doubts about me being a crazy cat lady, let this put them to rest. I am, clearly, a crazy cat lady. Even my cats think so.

Gadget!

I'm in the process of moving to Connecticut, there being no suitable work that I can find where I live in Vermont, and today's tasks include packing up my bed to go into storage, because I'm borrowing a smaller one to fit into the tiny room I'll be inhabiting for the next six months or so.

My mattress topper needed to be rolled up, so I got the first tuck going and sort of leaned my chest against it while I reached out to keep the corners tidy, and a gleeful voice in the back of my head shouted, "GO GO GADGET BOSOMS!!!"

Keep in mind, I've never actually seen more than a few minutes of anything in the Inspector Gadget franchise, but the "go go gadget [body part]" phrase is such a part of pop culture that it's part of my personal vernacular, too.

I'm glad I'm finding things to giggle about, because, for the most part, this move is saturated with sadness, regret, and a sense of failure. So I'll take my mirth where I can.

Beat It

When you raise, or know people who raise chickens, you sometimes (frequently, even) find yourself in the position of having an abundance of eggs. You may also, if this happens a lot, be sick of quiche, egg salad, and scrambled eggs. This was where I found myself recently, and so I started asking everyone I knew if they had any favorite ways to deal with tons of eggs.

My grandmother, who grew up on a dairy farm in upstate New York and remembers a life without electricity or indoor plumbing, provided the most helpful response for my lifestyle: pound cake. With a recipe taking four or five eggs per loaf pan, it burns through eggs quickly, and it also freezes well. She cuts her cooled cake into individual portions and then freezes them for later use. A little pound cake, some fresh fruit, some whipped cream, and voilà, easy dessert!

To the best of my knowledge, I had never made pound cake before. Maybe once, twenty-five years ago, for 4-H, but not more recently than that. So I didn't really know what to expect, either with the preparation or the result. I picked the older of my go-to cookbooks, a monster of a tome from the 1960s, since pound cake is a fairly old-fashioned thing, and followed the directions, using my stand mixer.

After it was in the oven, I checked my other go-to cookbook, and realized my mistake. The secret to good pound cake is: beat it. Beat it to within an inch of its life. The wet ingredients should have so much air beaten into them that you worry they'll float away, because between two sticks of butter and two cups of flour in that one little loaf, it's going to be a solid brick if you don't.

So my first attempt came out a little... dense. Still quite tasty, but decidedly solid. I vowed to try again, new knowledge in hand, and see if I couldn't do better. My second attempt is currently in the oven, having been beaten like crazy with my hand mixer, and it's already got considerably more loft than its predecessor.

If at first you don't succeed, find more reference material and try, try again!