The Life and Times of the Plume

Look what RW surprised me with yesterday! A beautiful pair of chickies (I’m only allowed two, within the confines of the city of Pocatello). The little yellow fluffer is a buff orpington. The wild looking chickie pie with the chipmunk cheeks is an ameraucana. The crazy looking, mustard yellow chickie is a vintage toy Q sent me for Easter. Ain’t it sweet? It’s not as high maintenance as the living breathing sort of baby chicken. Andddddddd.

It did not utilize my hand as one would a Vietnam latrine which was kind of nice (hot water soapy soapy).

I’m showing you lots and heaps and mondolicious amounts of photos of these sweet babies because soon, very soon, they will enter into their awkward adolescent stage of feather growing and then when I show photos of them you’ll groan and say:

GOOD LORD! WHEN WILL JILLIAN QUIT SHOWING US PHOTOS OF HER UGLY HENS. THEY ARE LIKE HORRENDOUS SCABS ON THE SURFACE OF THE TECTONIC PLATES OF PLANET EARTH. SIGH. GROAN. GNASHING OF TEETHIES. OUR EYES ARE BLEEDING.

Some of you are less melodramatic and you’ll just say:

THOSE ARE CHICKENS THAT ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE.

And then you’ll move on to internet shopping or you’ll feed your children chicken tenders whilst in a state of ugly chicken photo revenge. And then you’ll feel guilty for feeling so vengeful and actually acting on those emotions and you’ll eat chocolate.

It’s best I show you images of them when they are cute and sweet.

Oui oui? Oui oui.

They are tiny enough that they fit, rather perfectly and fluffaliciously in one hand. And they like to be snuggled. In fact, that’s the best thing about having only two chickies. You can handle them profusely and make friends with them very well and then they’ll turn out to be the friendliest chickens ever and you can teach them to fetch newspapers and the like. You can maybe even walk them on leashes, down the street. Or pop them in the panniers on your bicycle and pedal about town (because people already think you’re a bit of a kook and adding a chicken to the mix won’t really change their current opinion of you).

I confess. I am dreadfully fond of the amercauna chick. She reminds me of an actual game chick. RW and I used to hatch our own quail and pheasant with the help of an incubator and their initial markings and downy chick fluff looked similar to this little baby’s plumage. Plus. Just LOOK at those ridiculous cheeks! So goochie-goo!

Little baby buff orpington is darling and looks just like a classic Easter chick. I hope she lays chocolate eggs. Dark chocolate eggs. Preferably 70% cocoa.

I still haven’t decided on names for the girls. Perhaps you could help me with that? Do you have any name suggestions? I’ve collected the following names in my possibility pool, thus far:

Loretta, Belinda, Amelia, Esmerelda, Lucy, Beatrice, Gertrude, Ramona, Hafwen, Burda, Hermione

I’ve been calling them both Cutiebutt. They’re getting confused. The sooner we name them, the better.

We’ve introduced them both to the dogs! I’d like to be able to let them range in the yard for part of the day when they are mature ladies who sit on the grass with their legs crossed while they take their tea. So the dogs need to be friends to the chickens and I believe in working on pet relations right off the bat since I think a pet owner can teach existing pets to live peacefully with anything as long as the introduced pet is as young as possible during initial contact. It’s going to be interesting teaching Farley to coexist with chickens as he is a highly trained, strongly instinctual and wonderfully masterful bird hunting dog.

FARLEY. CHICKENS ARE FRIENDS NOT FOOD.

Penelope is quite interested in her new feathery friends and runs away smartly each time she gets pecked in the nose.

Just to prove and demonstrate the control we have over Farley as his masters I’ve included these snapshots of him actually face to face with one of the chicks. It’s quite rare to see a bird dog in a situation like this. In the above photo, a chick is actually sitting on his paw. My camera didn’t capture how Farley was quaking and shivering but trust me, it took an amazing amount of self control on his part to listen to my voice and not snap this baby up in his mouth.

The fact of the matter is that we really trust him under the control of our commands. And he trusts us and obeys us quite unconditionally. For this reason I know that we will have a bird dog existing with mature hens in our yard some day very soon but I’ll be very cautious, regardless, when I’m mixing canine with poultry on our property.

I love these new chickies so much. I told RW that I’d like to sleep with them. Right here. In the bird nest atop my head. He said I’d probably squish them while in twitchy REM state. He’s probably right. For now, they are located in a brooding box with a heat lamp in my studio. I get to listen to them peep and whistle while I work. And from time to time, I stroll over and pet them and hold them between soldering and sawing. It’s quite delightful and it seems perfectly springy.

1. Do you ever look down at the boxes of raspberries at the grocery store and feel the wild and crazy urge to open up five of them, snatch them by the fist full and greedily shove them in your mouth? Raspberries are the only food I cannot savor. I find I am downright rash and voracious when consuming them. I can’t control myself. I’m like a wolf on a bison carcass.

2. Don’t you feel like springtime is lifting you up and out of the boggy winter blues you were experiencing in February? I feel edified. I feel blooming. I’ve been feeling so wintery boggy and grubby in my heart and soul that I feel undone or like I need to be undone and crumbly and dilapidated so that I can feel the satisfaction of being put back together again, pushed into uprightness and the solidness of being glad minded once more. With the arrival of spring, I can’t help but feel bright and shiny. Constantly. It’s so good and holy to have a glad heart.

Perhaps it’s the joy of the Lord

strengthening me from the marrow of my bones all the way out to the surface of my skin.

Or maybe it’s my Aveda face wash.

Either way. I’m glad it’s spring. I’ve got tulips in my heart and daffodils in my soul.

3. I had a letter arrive from one of my best Saskatoon friends yesterday. It made me so glad. Letters from Canada make me feel connected to home. It’s like there’s a pinch of Canadian air wrapped around the hand writing of a dear friend. I could almost feel the wind coming off the Saskatchewan River and tousling my hair about my face. I could almost smell the wet, black earth of the wheat fields — could see the furrows rising up and dropping down like vast swatches of wide wale corduroy. Most of all, I’m certain that when I looked up from reading, I could see the living skies in three dimension, sinking low to anoint my temples and widen my gaze. I’m a bit homesick these days. Homesick for the Great Northern Plains and my sisters.

4. I’m quite excited and SOMEWHAT nervous about this but I would like to share with you the fact that I have secured for myself an antelope tag in Wyoming for 2010 and I will be, if I am brave enough in the moment to pull the trigger and involve myself further with my food and subsistence living, taking my own antelope this year. Every time I think about it I feel like I’m sitting on the edge of my seat. It’s so crazy. But it feels so right and responsible. If you haven’t read the personal essay I wrote on the topic of hunting, you should! You may read it HERE.

5. I’m so glad to be home. I missed you.

xxxx

The Noisy Plume

Offerings

Baby Announcement:

My Favorite Wild Thing

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