Archive for August, 2011
Goodnight Irene; Aloha, Maui!
Smoothest Hawaii trip ever for the CE and me - until we arrived and learned that Hurricane Irene would be knocking on East Coasters’ doors over the weekend. Taylor, who hasn’t had a vacation in a long, long time, was scheduled to fly out of Dulles Saturday afternoon to join us. According to the news reports, that would be just about the time WDC would be getting a big dose of Irene.
The stately entrance to the Four Seasons Maui at Wailea
Some airlines began canceling their Saturday flights as early as Thursday afternoon, so we unpacked our bags and went to work on a re-route that would get Taylor here ahead of the storm. He was all set on a flight out of Dulles to LA after work on Friday.
Until it was delayed.
And delayed.
You know how that goes. On the plane. Off the plane. Waiting in Sticky-Vinyl-Airport-Gate-Chair Limbo.
Luckily, a different plane arrived at a different gate and our Maui-bound passenger was back in business. After all, he’d dealt with an earthquake earlier in the week – no need to top it off with a hurricane.
After spending what was left of that night in LA,Taylor arrived at the airport to board his Maui flight – which was…you guessed it…delayed. Instead of sipping Mai-Tais by the pool, the CE and I were madly refreshing the United Airlines flight status screen on our phones every five minutes.
All’s well that ends well, however. Taylor eventually arrived, as did his friend, Easton. Irene, as it turns out, was the no-show, as our East coast informants thought it much ado about nothing. We may be having more wind on south Maui than anyone in NYC. It’s breezy here. No, we are not complaining. The vacation is on!
Surf's up!
Twins separated at birth?
Beach at Wailea, Maui
no juice.
I can have orange, grapefruit guava or papaya but I had no computer juice this morning with which to post an aloha from Maui for all you (meaning Katherine) faithful Polloplayer readers. Something wrong with my aging laptop, it seems. Hang in there…more to come
Life's most definitely a beach!
Evie and Viv in Chickenland
Once upon a time, two beautiful princesses, their mother, the Queen of Let’s-Move-Across-the-Country and their little dog, Buster, traveled from far, far away in Orange County by way of Connecticut to visit the magical Chicken Kingdom.
Viv brought her appropriately-titled bedtime story: "Chickens to the Rescue"
Buster arrives in royal style
They were a bit surprised when they were shown to their chambers and found that they were staying in the rooms formerly occupied by the Princes of Poultry.
“Hey Viv, I got the hand grenade room!”
Taylor's door still bears the traces of teen angst
We did try to girlify things up a bit for them.
I'll bet Taylor never expected to find Pink-alicious propped up on his pillows!
Chloe gave the princesses a royal welcome.
"My, what big EVERYTHING you have!"
The girls were a bit shy around the chickens at first.
"Are you sure they don't bite?"
But it didn’t take long for them to get comfortable.
Handing out the "chicken candy"
Evie learns about lap chickens
And all this time, Luna thought she was the only princess in the chickenyard!
TIna, Soho and Buster
And by the time the sun went down on the magical chicken kingdom last night, Princess Evie had become the Chicken Whisperer. We were all surprised when she hoisted Hope into her arms, and even more surprised when Hope let herself be held without flapping or complaining.
"Let's be friends"
A big helping of Hope.
Just another day in the Kingdom of Chickens…
Betting on Casino
Here’s a photo of Casino, the Hula Hen who is contending with the same “plumbing” issues as Autumn.
Casino
Casino has clearly already hit the jackpot in that she has Emily as a guardian angel to watch over her. We’ll hope to hear more happy updates.
Meanwhile, I did find another thread at BYC detailing a possibly successful hysterectomy for a hen with internal laying/egg yolk peritonitis. The qualifier is that the hen did later die, but the owner thought it was due to unrelated causes.
Anyone interested can read more at: http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=22773
Autumn seems a bit perkier today, maybe because she had a “celebrity” visitor yesterday:
Victoria took time out from classes at USC to give Autumn a cuddle.
Probably best not to tell Autumn that Ashleigh made Chicken Picatta for dinner…
The Plot Chickens
I suppose it is some sort of poetic justice that after spending most of my life consuming chickens, it appears I am currently consumed by them.
Yes, there have been a few gentle reminders that normal people do not befriend chickens in the first place, let alone go to elaborate lengths to keep a two-year-old chicken clucking when the vast majority of her compatriots are known to be barbequed, roasted or Kentucky-fried around six weeks of age.
Autumn doing her Groucho Marx imitation at six weeks of age
However, the 50,000+ folks on Backyardchickens.com (not to mention urbanchickens.org, chickencrossing.org, www.homesteadingtoday.com, the poultrykeeper.com.uk and a host of other online resources) cannot be entirely wrong, can they? If they are, it appears the lunatics are running the asylum at this point (and not just in Washington, D.C.!) because people love their chickens, and not just on a plate.
Autumn is still with us, but she is subdued. I think her body is getting tired of the trauma. She lingers in the coop in the morning until I carry her out, but she’s still feisty enough to cut the little ones off at the pass to grab a mealworm. So we’ll see…
Autumn in the coop this morning
The bad news is that I found a very long, informative and distressing thread on Backyardchickens.com which I will warn you, is not for the faint of heart or the casual reader (meaning anyone who is not obsessed with chickens). The tip-off is in the title: “Drained a chicken’s abdomen…Rest in Peace, Olivia, 11-5-10″. The thread, which can be found here: http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=362422&p=1 chronicles the loss of at least three of the poster’s beloved hens to internal laying and egg yolk peritonitis.
Olivia and Ivy, the hens discussed in the BYC thread. Such pretty girls!
The thread extends for twelve pages and includes posts from other beleagured flock keepers whose hens are perishing from the same cause. The one thing these birds all seem to have in common, besides being beloved, well-cared-for pets, is that they came from hatchery stock. Whether breeding practices that favor heavy laying over longevity are to blame for all this sadness, I don’t know.
In the meantime, there is, perhaps, a glimmer of hope. Another post on BYC mentions that “spaying chickens” is a common practice. When I queried the poster about it, referencing our vet’s pronouncement that hens cannot survive a hysterectomy, the reply was “your vet is full of it”. Sounds like someone is going to have egg on their face here, but I’m not sure who.
(image from oddpodzphotostream at flickr)
So, while the rest of you are going about your normal lives, I’ve been trying to get hold of papers with titles like “Increased mortality in layer flocks due to egg peritonitis” and asking questions about chicken hysterectomies. Where that will lead, other than to the CE calling in the authorities with straitjackets, I’m not sure, but I’ll keep you all posted here, so to speak.
And lest you think there were no signs of this chicken madness along the way, here’s a photo that Tina referenced in her comment about being “in touch with her inner chicken” back in 4th grade. Ah, yes, you see, we’re all bird brains from wayyy back…
Yes, that's Tina in the chicken wig
Trouble in (Chicken) Paradise
Once the sun finally came out yesterday (typical SoCal summer – bone-chilling cold until around 4 pm) , it was an almost idyllic day in the Chicken Kingdom.
Just who is guarding whom here?
The little ones, like every other animal that resides here, have honed a remarkable sense of entitlement for being just two months old. Like everyone else, they want their time in the sun.
Tulip, looking ever more like a crow...
Coco, working on her tan
So what (other than this sodden, soggy weather) could be wrong with our picture?
Autumn declined to come out of the coop Wednesday morning, which might be perfectly understandable given the drizzle and fog – if she weren’t a chicken. Autumn loves her morning walkabouts, so when she sat quietly on her roost with her eyes closed, I knew something was wrong. Again.
Back to the vet. Same old same old. Internal laying/egg yolk peritonitis. They drained the fluid from her abdomen and removed an internally -laid egg, gave her another shot of Lupron – I think this is fourth – and sent her home with antibiotics.
Dear, sweet Autumn
The sobering reality is that Autumn may be on borrowed time. If we weren’t throwing fiscal caution to the wind and watching her “like a hawk”, (that phrase has significantly more meaning now that the neighborhood hawk has his eye on the girls) sweet Autumn would no longer be with us.
Autumn and the CE enjoying a rare moment of sunshine
Reproductive system of a hen (image from poultrykeeper.com)
A helpful web site, http://littlehenrescue.co.uk/after.aspx, explains that, as shown in the diagram above, the oviduct is not actually attached to a hen’s ovary. This can lead to problems. The oviduct can malfunction, or the eggs can be improperly formed and then travel back into the oviduct where they can break . The latter is probably what happened to Autumn when she began laying very strangely-formed eggs back in May:
This bizarre-shaped "egg" may have been the first sign something was wrong.
The symptoms, as concisely listed on the littlehenrescue site, are as follows:
Dirty around vent
Swollen under vent and/or between legs
Sometimes redness on swollen areas
Odd stance (penguin look)
Sometimes waddling or wobbly
Apologies to all you non-chicken-keepers for the turgid and gory details, but since there is not an overabundance of helpful information about the subject available to backyard flock owners, I’m hoping the details might help someone else .
Why, oh why, must chickens be so fragile?
At least Luna looks healthy!
Pippa out and about
Chick confab: on a mission to eat every fuchsia blossom!
Mommy Dearest: Hope now competes with the young'uns for treats
"I say ditch the chickens and get a flock of Cotons"
“Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains
unawakened.” – Anatole France
Why Katherine is Always First to Comment
Some of you have wondered: who is Katherine and how does she manage to be the Queen of Comments on this lowly chicken blog. This explains it all:
Katherine, just a few years back, with her first chick. Look at that smile!
P.S. Comments are good! More of you should try it!
Chickens Not-So-Little
News flash from the coop: Hope is OVER IT – motherhood is apparently not all it’s cracked up to be once they become teenagers. (Oh, reeeaaaalllyyy? What a surprise!) She makes a beeline out of the coop in the morning and can’t get far enough away from the little ones, who peep and carry on relentlessly until she returns.
"Mom Mom Mom"
Just a few weeks ago, if I gave Hope a treat, she would drop it for the chicks to get. Now, she barely tolerates them - if they get too close or compete with her for food, she will peck them!
New favorite activity: decimating the potted plants in the Chicken Kingdom
Lucy is still the most skittish, even though Speckled Sussex are supposed to be friendly and docile. No one told her!
Nine out of ten photos somehow end up being of either Pippa or Luna. Even as gawky adolescents (the chicks are eight weeks old now), they are so fun to look at.
Pippa and those feathered feet!
Little Luna
Lucy and Coco looking BIG!
The most entertaining part of the day is (if, like me, you have no life and spend your time staring at chickens) watching them settle into the coop at night. Tulip has convinced us that she is half Black Copper Marans and half vulture. Look where she sleeps:
Tulip and Autumn
Hmmm...extremely vulture-like
The rest of them are still trying to cuddle up and sleep under Hope at night. This is not going well for Hope:
"What the heck?"
She pecks at them but to no avail. This is how it ended up last night :
"Sigh. Remind me why I wanted kids?"
Another sign that Hope is ready to wrap up motherhood is that she has started laying again; we’ve gotten three eggs in the last four days.
Hope is back in business!
I’m intrigued by Hope’s parenting philosophy: love them while they’re adorable little fluff-balls and ditch them when they become annoying adolescents. Who said chickens are dumb?
"But we're so cute - how can she not love us anymore?"
…And they’re off!
We gathered Wednesday night for two big good-byes: Victoria leaves tonight to start a Masters program at USC. And Daniel and his long-time friend, Hannah (they met when they were 3!) left Thursday morning on a two-week trip across the US to Boston. They made it to Arizona by Thursday evening, and to Alamosa, Colorado Friday night. I didn’t hear from them last night so they may have been without phone service (or, as I lay awake for hours worrying last night, either lying near-death in a culvert or being held hostage by marauding drug lords, take your pick…)
They’ve started a hilariously well-written (no, I’m not biased because I’m his mother) trip blog at
We feted them all with (what else?) a spaghetti dinner al fresco Wednesday evening. Which means that French chef Ashleigh made an Italian dinner for our German/Irish/Scandinavian family and hers (French/Irish as far as I know) with guests Hannah and her brother John (French/English?) Alexandra (Scandinavian/French) stopped by to bid the travelers farewell. Gotta love what passes for the melting pot around here.
Alexandra and the Tart (100% Coton for her- one of the few purebreds in the group)
Granny made a batch of her famous sweet rolls for the road. Yum!
Alexandra and Ashleigh; stirring the pot
You can't leave until Dizzy gives his permission
spaghetti!
The cook gets a hug from her mom, Marie-Christine
Michael savors a bite
At table.
Victoria heads off to grad school at USC next week. Please don't tell the Tart she's leaving!
Ashleigh picked apricots off of our tree for the clafouti. Divine!
Did I mention it gets cold here? John warms up in Daniel's old swim parka
Re-run: spaghetti for a breakfast send-off, another family tradition
"Thanks, Dad, for EVERYTHING!"
John and Hannah
It's never easy to say goodbye to Chloe
Safe travels to all of you! We love you and will miss you! xoxoxo
Hot Time: Summer in the City
We’re back on the Left Coast after our yet again not-long-enough stay in NYC. The highlight of every trip, of course, is seeing all the kids and grandkids. Seeing them in 100-plus-degree heat is something else entirely…something for me to think about the next time I whine and carry on about the bone-chilling temps here in So Cal.
Daniel, cool as ever despite the NYC heat
Angie brought the boys all the way in from the Hamptons so we could see them for an evening, and of course I forgot my camera but did get a few phone snaps. They’re both so big! And Thomas is now a six-year-old!
Jamesy and Grandpa
Happy birthday, Thomas!
Tina brought her girls in from Connecticut for one last city visit before they make their big cross-country move to re-locate down the coast from us in CA. Their timing was impeccable: someone thoughtfully set up a twenty-foot Smurf across the street from our apartment that day expressly for the girls’ entertainment.
Evie enjoys her day in the city
Smurfs!
A NYC tradition: swimming with Grandpa
Viv bundles up after her swim
A late-afternoon cloudburst cooled things off a bit
Princess Tina and her girls enjoying apres-swim cotton candy at Landmarc
Speaking of impeccable timing, the CE took the train down to WDC to visit Taylor during the weekend that temps there reached 116 degrees. Proof, perhaps, that our nation’s capital has devolved into an anteroom of Hell. Our guys wisely took shelter in air-conditioned museums and restaurants.
If this pic looks familiar, scroll back to the San Diego post of cousin Nick photographing his beloved steak. It must be genetic!
At the National Gallery of Art
While Taylor and the CE cooked in WDC, I took Daniel and some of his friends to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 on the IMAX screen in New York City. We all loved it! Great movie!
Daniel and his friends Cristina, Mary and Peter stopped by our apartment to say hi
The temperatures cooled a bit toward the end of our stay (into the high 90′s) and we ventured downtown a few times, once to visit the High Line, which has been significantly extended since our last jaunt there. We got a kick out of the birdhouses they’ve installed, which look remarkably like scaled-down versions of human city living.
High-rent birdhouses on the High Line (image from moderndestiny.com)
We were working on calorie containment after our weekend of culinary abandon in Chicago, but we couldn’t resist visiting two of our favorite downtown restaurants, Pastis and Balthazar.
I wanted steak frites at Balthazar but decided the bouillabaisse was a healthier choice...except they serve it in a vat big enough for four!
Our in-the-know friends, Marjorie and Ellery, introduced us to a new favorite in Midtown: Ma Peche, a satellite of famed chef David Chang’s Momofuku dynasty. We had the best spring rolls I’ve ever tasted and enjoyed the chance to drink a sake toast to M&E, who were heading off to Paris later that day. When (if) I grow up, I want their life!
Ma Peche on 56th between 5th and 6th (image from offthepresses.blogspot.com)
We finished off our East Coast visit with two wonderful jolts of culture. It was our last chance to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met, since it closes August 7. The event title is Savage Beauty, but it was more about Savage Crowds. The line to get in was two-and-a-half-hours long, even though they’ve extended museum hours to midnight to accommodate the demand. Luckily, we had decided to purchase a membership to the Met during our last visit, which allowed us to skip the queue.
McQueen was fond of using dyed duck feathers in his pieces (image from style.com)
This was one of my favorites! (image from style.com)
Despite the crush of visitors (the exhibit is projected to rank in the top 20 of the museum’s all-time most popular offerings by the time it closes) and a few decidedly testy Met guards (down, Girl, down!), we were so glad we went. By my lights, McQueen’s talent truly transcended fashion as costume and into the realm of art.
Thanks to a recommendation from Marjorie and Ellery, we spent our last evening in the city with Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis at a performance of Freud’s Last Session. Poignant and thought-provoking: 80 minutes went by much faster than you might expect. Off-Broadway in an airy theatre on W. 64th.
Mark H. Dold, the immensely appealing and captivating actor who plays C.S. Lewis in "Freud's Last Session" (image from contactmusic.com)
The upside of bi-coastal living is having the best of both worlds. The downside is always feeling like you’re missing out on something on the other side. It’s a conundrum, but a lovely one to suffer. One of our most prized experiences in the city is the 9:15 am Worship at Redeemer Presbyterian on the UWS. These last two Sundays we heard about that imperfect, devious and grasping fellow, Jacob, and how he wrestled with God. Ah, don’t we all? I just found that you can download podcasts by Redeemer Presbyterian Pastor Tim Keller on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/timothy-keller-podcast/id352660924
Happy to be back in CA. Can’t wait to return to NYC!
