Sneaking a New Cat into the Kitten Coop

According to the rules of country living, when a farmer is ready to add new hens to a flock, that farmer is supposed to sneak the new chickens into the coop in the middle of the night while the rest of the girls are asleep—or at least groggy—and the next morning, the old chickens won't even realize there are new members in their gang. Though we haven't yet tried this with our girls, the premise sounds pretty simple. A little sneakeroo and you're done.

Adding a new cat the flock...not so simple.

After our beloved, billion-dollar Monty had to be put to sleep in May, we knew we'd eventually be in the market for another kitty. The trick was knowing how and when to introduce one to our snappy, sixteen-year-old crabcake, Zöe. Her anxiety seemed to skyrocket after Monty's passing, so we wanted to make sure we had her calmed down before trying to sneak in a new flock-mate.

Sitting on Mr. W's lap is a good coping mechanism...

A couple weeks ago, I decided it was time. Mr. W complied with my request to begin the shopping process, likely because he just bought a bunch of parts to build a freaking airplane (YES an actual airplane that he plans to fly). You get a plane, I get a kitten.

We agreed that we wanted to try to find a Monty version 2.0, so our goal was to adopt an all-black, male short-hair that was somewhere between 8 and 12 weeks old. Although there appeared to be lots of contenders online, our first stops at a shelter and a cat rescue facility didn't turn up exactly what we were looking for (but there are tons of cute kitties out there and you should totally go adopt one...)

I was pretty depressed to come home empty-handed after hauling off to the humane society with my cat carrier in hand and a fresh bag of kitten food in my pantry. So last Monday, I talked Mr. W into driving to San Luis Obispo with me to check out some more options.

When we got to the front desk of the Animal Services office, the lady asked us what we were looking for. I told her our criteria and she said, "We have THE cutest black and white kitten in room one. He is absolutely adorable." I blew her off, determined to stick to my shopping list.

And then we went to Cat Room One and this little face pranced back and forth in his cage batting his eyelashes at us and being 10x more lovable than any of the other cats in the running.

He wasn't all black. He wasn't short-haired. But he was a boy and he was only 3 months old. With that face and that charm, he would do just fine.

Mr. W took some convincing, but shortly after meeting him, we were packing up Oliver Montrose Maris and taking him back to his forever home.

His favorite spot is on top of the wine fridges. Boy after my own heart.

The introduction process with Zöe has been a very slow, calculated one with lots of back and forth solitary confinement, some supervised visits, and a fair amount of hissing. I'm hoping one day she'll wake up like a clueless chicken and just think Ollie has been here all along.

In the grand tradition of being a panicked pet parent, I've already worried about Oliver not eating enough, accidentally getting stepped on when he camouflages with the black kitchen rug, swallowing a poisonous spider, and strangling himself with his fishing pole toy (he's not allowed to have it in the middle of the night when we're not there to save him). Needless to say, it is better for the entire world that Mr. W and I did not produce any human children together.

We are happy enough with our little furry flock. Especially this guy whose purr motor runs at high speed every day and turns my heart to a puddle of mush.  

Those Good-For-Nothing Chickens: A Love Story

Our girls are a year and a half old now, and sometime in late June they began their very first molting session. (If you want to see some extremely sad looking hens, Google "chicken molting.")

I had read articles online about the amount of feathers chicken owners have in their yards during molt season. One blogger described it as looking like "a group of teenage girls had a pillow fight." Seemed awfully dramatic to me. For some reason, I believed our ladies would only lose a feather here or there, largely retaining their beguiling avian beauty.

And to some degree, they did. All of them lost their tail feathers. Carrie Birdshaw lost some on her head. Charlotte had a bald butt for awhile. And Samantha's chin looked like she had stolen it from elderly man for a couple weeks. Yet, Miranda, our beautiful red (and neurotic) Welsummer stayed perfectly intact for months. Then, almost overnight, she turned into this...

Poor, pathetic little baldypants. It makes me laugh and want to cry a little every time I see her foraging in the backyard like that. Haggard little creature....

In addition to most corners of our yard, the coop and the run looking like this        —>      —>
we have also been egg-deprived for weeks. Carrie Birdshaw has not laid an egg in over 4 months. Charlotte and Miranda  slowed down, but were still giving us at least a few a week— and now both of them have stopped altogether, too. The only girl earning her keep around here is my sweet, sweet Sammy. Nearly every day, we find one of her blue-green eggs in the nesting box. I love that chicken.

Mr. W and I have been joking about how we're going to turn them into soup if they keep up this hiatus. But even if none of them ever go back to laying full time (although I really, really, really hope they do because we miss our farm fresh eggs) we'll continue to treat them just like any other pet. Why? If only because of how incredibly adorable they are when they take dirt baths. I mean, seriously...


I haven't seen the four of them all bathing together like that since they were babies. My heart almost exploded when I walked outside and found them all snuggled together.

And the fact that they look like little heavy-eyed weed addicts just makes it even better. Total stoners. (This was before Miranda started shedding, by the way.) 

I swear they go into a trance when they're "in the tub." Carrie even played dead for a minute.

Antics like these are what will make us keep chickens for the long haul. Eggs or no eggs, they provide great entertainment. And if I ever decide to open a pillow factory, once a year I'm going to be more than set on my supply of feathers...

 

Twenty-Four Months In

Everything's a trade-off. Lovely new bedroom under construction = decimated lawn and yard.

This afternoon I sat on the couch, looking out the window of our living room, watching the stillness of our yard, thinking how peaceful everything seemed. There was no sound except the hum of our wine fridge. With eye closed and ears open, one would never guess that there's still chaos and mess strewn from one edge of the property to another.

I hit my two-year anniversary of living here sometime last week (Mr. W is about 8 months behind me), and I have to say it still feels strange to call this place home. In fact, I still regularly refer to LA as "home." Considering that I lived mostly in the same 25-mile radius for the first 37 years of my life, this home adoption lag seems pretty natural. But I do wonder when the Santa Ynez Valley will really, truly feel like my own. I wonder if I'll ever really, truly feel like we fit in here.

Compared to when we lived LA, it sometimes feels like we're the misfits in town. We're the liberals among the conservatives. The childless among the families. The Prius owners among the SUVs. It's nearly impossible to be a misfit in LA. Especially if you grew up there and still have an army of friends who accepted you years ago for the wackadoodle you are. It's funny how normal it can make a person feel to spend time with pals who carry healing crystals in their pockets and take their dogs to acupuncture. I miss that.

We moved here on a mission to create our dream life—and I think we're trying very hard to do it—but it's equally hard not to miss the old way of living.

That's not to say we don't have plenty of moments and days where I feel like "This is IT! We're finally living the dream!" But those usually end up making me think about when I learned to water-ski. I was so determined behind my brother's boat, hanging onto the tow bar for dear life, fighting to get my balance, finally standing—and just when I'd start to think I had it, I'd inevitably hit a bump and fall back into the water.

The past two years have certainly left me feeling emotionally water-logged.

But I'm not sure that big changes and big challenges ever go any other way. I think trying to raise this house and this life is a lot like trying to raise a kid. Those first couple of years are hell, right? Sleepless, delirious nights, "tools" and mess everywhere, a million decisions that will impact the future.

I'd even compare my lamentations about how hard this process has been to those of a new parent. When I complain, I certainly don't want anyone to respond with, "Well why'd you move there, then?" —just like a new parent wouldn't want me to say "Well why'd you have the baby?"

Deep down both I and the new parents know that ultimately the pains of the first few years—or maybe every year—will pay off when you get to sit back and enjoy the amazing thing you created. I think with each passing year, the moments of proud admiration grow a little longer until finally they far outweigh the moments of struggle and worry and wondering what you were thinking signing up for such a big responsibility.

So, I guess, happy 2nd birthday to our baby. She's a disaster a lot of the time, but I think she's going to turn out to be something really lovely. And the new life and surroundings that came with her are sure to feel homier and homier as time passes. And hopefully when she finally grows up, she'll take very good care of us.

At least she better after the blood, sweat and tears we've invested in her.

Freshly Cut Tiles and a Chicken in the Bathtub

You know the old saying, "If you give a girl a cut tile, she'll lay it in the entry closet. But if you teach a girl to use the tile saw, she'll tile the entire closet on her own?" Yeah, I'd never heard it either.

Until this weekend.

When we moved into our house, the closet in our entryway had what probably was the world's most disgusting, putrid carpet in the history of floorweavings. We should have donated it to science, as I'm pretty sure there was some new strain of Anthrax growing in it. Needless to say, Mr. W ripped it out almost immediately and we just left the exposed concrete in there and piled all of our junk on top of it.

Purdy, right? That brown stuff is carpet glue. A treat to clean.

But since we started working on the backsplash in the kitchen this weekend, and the tile saw was hot, we decided to finally put something more permanent down in the closet. We used leftover tiles from the kitchen floor, AKA the hardest, heaviest tiles ever forged. They took forever to cut because they're so solid, but it was kinda fun to do it.

After I sliced through several (and trimmed some of the marble ones for the backsplash—which were SO much softer and easier to cut) I even got really ballsy and tackled a corner cut where the molding intercepts the floor space. I think I may have a new career.

Here's what the closet floor looks like now:

Better, right? Still needs to be cleaned—but a big improvement.

And in case you were wondering, here's a peek at the new Carrara backsplash tile in the kitchen. (Don't tell Mr. W because he asked me not to share any more kitchen pictures until The Big Reveal when everything is finished. Let's pretend I'm just showing you the chicken apple sausages from Trader Joe's that we ate for dinner last night...)

Amidst all the tiling, we also had some major chicken misadventures this weekend. Saturday while I was clearing a new spot for kale and letting the girls free range, little miss Carrie Birdshaw hopped the fence, cut through a hole in my neighbor's hedge and wandered over to say hello to them. All of the sudden, I turned around and she was gone. As I started frantically calling her name (as if she's going to come when called...) I heard my neighbor's voice say, "Uh Melissa, are you missing a chicken?"

I raced over to their yard and there she was, happy as a clam to be cruising around on a lush green lawn. We exchanged some words and she went directly back into her run where she wrote "I will not wander into the neighbor's yard" 40 times on the blackboard.

While she was out gallivanting all over town, her sister Samantha was coming down with some unknown bird affliction. I noticed her acting spacey in the yard, and later she was sleeping inside the coop and seemed to be keeping to a corner of the run.

As per my natural mode of operating as a chicken mother, I panicked and started furiously consulting chicken blogs.

Then I remembered something a friend had shared with me on Facebook about remedying various hen ailments with "the spa cure." So I headed to Rite Aid and bought some Epsom salts to give my girl a bath.

Unfortunately I was so worked up, I didn't think to take a picture of her in the bathtub. It was pretty darn adorable. She was very relaxed as her little feet and belly had a good soak and I stroked her back and neck. It was so late when we took her out that Mr. W insisted we blow her dry so she wouldn't catch a cold when we put her back in the coop to sleep. Shockingly, she just stood quietly while we literally blew hot air up her butt. I thought for sure the sound of the hairdryer would send her into a frenzy, but I guess the calming, warm breeze overruled it.

How could anyone not love that face?

A little olive oil and some vitamins and oatmeal and she seemed okay enough to reunite with her sisters.

The next morning, she was good as new. Phew.

Now if she'd only get cracking on some egg-laying already.

Guess What? Chicken Butt.

When I got laid off from my first advertising gig, I took a few months off before looking for another job and worked as a nanny for two-month old twins. Their awesome mommy ran a tight ship and we kept a feeding/diaper change journal, in which we wrote down every bottle, every pee, and every poop. I'm sure they'll love reading that when they're eighteen...

Never since then have I been so focused on someone else's bowel habits. Wait, scratch that...I guess I've spent months monitoring the litterbox comings and goings of my geriatric cat. But I had no idea that Mr. W and I would be on chicken butt watch every day this week. The things he neglects to tell me....

One of our new girls had what appeared to be "pasty butt" the day after we got her, so I Googled it and discovered that they can die if their little tooshie holes get plugged and they aren't able to poop.

And thus began a journey I never imagined Mr. W and I to be taking together...one of downy-feather butt cleaning with warm water and q-tips and many long moments of observation to make sure our girls are going as they should be.

If Mr. W had told me I might have to clean little butts, I'm not sure I would have agreed to adopt the chicks. But now that we're here, there's no going back... This may be our closest voyage into parenthood.

Much like with the babies I nannied for and my four nieces when they were infants, I'm totally captivated by the chicks. Everything they do is fascinating and adorable. Mr. W and I have been sitting side-by-side on the guest bed next to their pen watching them for hours since they arrived. They're growing up so fast, it almost makes me misty-eyed.

If you follow me on Facebook, you already know where we netted out with their names, but in case you were wondering, I rallied hard and had to resort to bribery (I can't tell you what...this is a family blog...) to get Mr. W to concede to the names I fell in love with. As far as I'm concerned, there's just nothing else that would have been appropriate to name them. Well, maybe Sandy, Rizzo, Frenchie, and Jan would have been okay, but now that I've met the girls, their coloring is just too perfectly aligned with their namesakes.

Here was my first bargaining chip:

And here are our lovely ladies:

You guys, I am IN LOVE.

 

We're Expecting...Chickens

An ad from Hobby Farms magazine. Yep, Mr. W has a subscription.

If you read here regularly, you already know that we're planning to get some chickens, and that we (and by we, I mostly mean Mr. Wonderful) have been building a chicken/coop greenhouse to hold them in our side yard. Mr. W has been researching chicken rearing for at least a year, and this weekend we took a humongous step toward having them: we ordered four. They should arrive at the end of April.

As soon as Mr. W clicked "submit" on the website, I felt nervous. Like we were pregnant with quadruplets. I even had a dream that night that we had a baby girl. Strangely, we had hired a surrogate to carry her, but then even more strangely, I was breastfeeding her. I know—I should probably call my old shrink. Clearly I need to work through some weird ass Freudian stuff... Anywhoo...

So now Mr. W has to try to get me up to speed on how to take care of our little feathered friends. He was reading in bed over the weekend, and shared these gems with me from one of his chicken books:

Source

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The "Holding a Chicken Backwards" instruction is by far my fave. I'm totally going to have Mr. W take a picture of me carrying one of the girls like that. But first, we have to get through the baby stage.

Apparently the girls will be living indoors with us for about 5 weeks while they grow big enough to survive out in their coop. Of course I asked if they could sleep on our pillows and wake us up each morning with sweet little peeping sounds. Mr. W doesn't seem to think it would work quite like that...

It's a good thing we have so much time before they arrive because the coop still looks like this:

When it's finished, it should look like this:

 

The actual chicken run will be smaller, but the rest of the sketch is pretty accurate. Greenhouse on the south side, chicken coop on the east side, storage on the west side, and a roof garden on top.

In addition to counting down the days until the girls arrive, I'm counting the days until Mr. W is here fulltime. We only have about 3-ish more weeks to go. I cannot wait. I did the math recently and although we're coming up on our 3-year anniversary, we've lived apart for HALF of that time. We have a lot of newlywed shenanigans to catch up on. Let's just say the chickens won't be the only ones doing a lot of pecking around here...