Coop Life

Chicken Betty White has me concerned. She went broody a month ago and was behaving like a real git, she's past it now but still isn't laying and two days ago she stayed out all night. The ladies are on an honor system to put themselves in at dusk before I come and lock up the coop. We have an interloping Bantam rooster in the pen currently and I think he is trying to coerce Betty to join his flock of one. Why shouldn't she? She is an outsider here, plain looking to the point of scraggly and because she is a slightly hysterical hen she has a hard time just chilling and hanging with the other hen ladies. She refuses the Brahma roosters advances, running away shrieking into the underbrush anytime he gets near her. The compact Bantam rooster is different in his approach, he hangs back and has a plastic sounding crow. He's fancy but not too intimidating and he finds his way into the pen every morning so when the hens tumble out of the coop he is the first thing they see. Betty may be smitten but I am not sure what future she can have with him. His owners will eventually trap him and return him to his miniature flock saving him from a sure death if he continues to live outdoors. Betty is a wreck. Hopefully she will start laying again and her life will sort itself out with the return to the daily routine and comfort of egg laying. Perhaps in time she will begin to own her spot in the flock and get more comfortable in her own chicken skin and with the meager contribution she makes to coop society.

Splitting in Two

Not so much blogging going on as I am at a crossroads. Now that I have a Facebook page for my company I feel I need to blog in a more focused way. There was a time when I was willing to mush it all together, the professional and personal, but I have had a rethink in the process of redesigning my website. I am thinking a lot more about writing these days than I am actually writing and it's because the content of what I want to write doesn't really fit on a blog about design so sometime soon these blogs will split in two and you, my dear followers (hold up your hands) can decide where you want to read.

I'm floating on the surface of things and I long to go deeper and further with my exploration. So stay tuned, things are going to change.

And then it rained

It is raining today after countless dry weeks. I put on jeans for the first time since June and I felt okay about it. The air is a bit cooler now and soon all the brown dry grass will infect the trees and the leaves will begin their long transition as fall advances. I stayed in bed for a long time this morning finishing a book, Plainsong By Kent Haruf is a wonderful methodical story about 7 characters in a small town in the high plains of Colorado. Laying in bed with the windows open listening to the rain as I turned the final pages I felt no urgency to rise. The rain started at 6am in a loud burst and then stopped and I felt a twinge of disappointment. We need the rain. The road is dusty and the 200 now logged acres at the curve in my road looks like a hardened blood caked scar. I know with just a bit of rain the open area will green back up and treelings who hardly know they are alive will spring up and get their chance to be trees. At noon we fried eggs and made toast with the doors open letting the new dampness into the house. I made pickled eggs, a small goal I have been waiting to achieve. I like eggs but I also harbor some suspicion about them, I leave them in the nest too long and I worry I will crack open a half formed chick, a pre-historic horror. Of the 12 eggs I hard-boiled 3 of them were a little suspicious and went into the compost, at least 2 had the yolks too close to the shell wall and I deemed them poor candidates for the pickling jar. The rain started again in earnest a half hour after it's first burst and continues on. I went out in my thin cotton shirt and flip flops and cleaned the chicken house while the eggs boiled. Chicken Betty White is broody and hysterical and while she was off the nest I stole all but four of her eggs. I will go back and mark them with a pencil and then try and encourage her along. In my office now writing this and listening to sad songs and feeling perfectly melancholy, perfectly happy to have this rainy day that is busy doing it's own thing with no expectation of me.

Email from my brother

I was flying by Johns Peak today in the Unik River region of north west BC, talking with the pilot Chris Hamilton a kiwi guy. He mentioned he had flown around the peak the other day and said he saw what he thought to be a bowling ball.

I put that ball on top of that peak with a helicopter in 1989. One of the boys bought it in a second hand store as a gift for our breakfast cook at the time Julie Hillier. It was purple metallic with Julie inlaid into it. I'm sure she loved it dearly but left it in camp when she went home and it was kicking around my office. I thought I would do some thing cool with it just to keep the archeologists' guessing that there was intelligent life in the region.

It was a little faded but miraculously has survived 21 years atop that mountain at 7000 ft. For future reference put the finger holes down to prevent splitting from the freeze thaw cycles.

-Ian

Packing and Un-Packing

I am packing up to go home today. I will unpack when I get home and on Wednesday I will pack up again. I am getting really good at this after 8 years of this cross border affair known as my life. I seem to be always either coming or going and in the summer it compounds because in addition to the usual back and forths there are little trips here and there which of course involve packing. I am quite good at it I find and the order of it pleases me and gives me a small sense of control over things. Underpants, scarves, jeans, dresses. I have become a more efficient dresser as a result. Everything goes with everything. I can turn 5 items of clothing into 10 outfits. I am like a living magazine layout for a fun summer getaway. Ha.