Banner Weekend

It's been a busy weekend for all of us. Aoibheall's parents were in town to help celebrate her birthday, we worked a booth at the Boulder Creek Art & Wine Festival, and the cats and dogs have gotten to work on the vermin.

The festival was fun; smiling and being nice to people was great. The best part for me was that since I was volunteering it was easy to laugh off any stress - what were they gonna do, dock my pay?

We went for a lovely walk in the open space preserve off Skyline on Sunday. It was a bit chilly, but what a great time. We saw lots of poison oak, a really big lizard, a bird head, flowers...it was great. At the nature information station there was a big placard showing all the different animals one might see in the area. One of these was the deer mouse. Looking closely at that picture and description, I decided that those creatures the cats have been catching weren't juvenile wood rats, they were adult deer mice.

We all came back home to wash up and then take Aoibheall out to a fabulous dinner at La Bruschetta in Felton. Seriously: I think that's the best dinner to be had in this valley.

On Monday we saw Son of Rambow. That was hilarious, and very well-made. Even the Badb thought it was great.

So, critters:

• We caught a rat in the trap. It was too late for coursing so we kept it in the garage overnight. The next morning, before breakfast, it was dead. No coursing for the doggies. Score 1 for the humans, I guess.
• That same night, though, Fox had caught and partially eviscerated a deer mouse, leaving the corpse and entrails at the bottom of the stairs. Score one for the cats.
• On Monday I saw two deer mice lurking behind the compost bin. I brought the dogs over; Esme didn't seem interested at all, but Dagmar was chasing around, trying to get behind the bin. I shoved at the bin and moved it away from the house a little, but I think I caved in some tunnels. One of the mice was stuck inside the bin, so I put Dagmar in and she had a bit more enthusiasm for the cage match. Score one for Dagmar Verminbane.
• Monday night as I was putting away the chickens, I saw there was a mouse in the trap. Deer mice are big enough to trip the lever on the rat trap! Quickly I fetched down Peaches and the dogs and we set the mouse loose in the driveway. Dagmar ran it to ground and then Esme darted in and snatched the mouse away from her. Esme gets the kill, Dagmar on the assist.
• This morning Fox had a mouse cornered in the living room. She and Oswald had fun chasing it around and then down the stairs. I let the dogs back in from their wake-up potty break and they went to town. The situation was complicated by so many agents, but the Badb came in to tell me during my shower that Dagmar the Rat Killer had triumphed.

Score:
Vermin: 7
Dogs: 8
Cats: 4
Humans: 2

Fecund Eptitude

Be careful what you wish for, and all that.

A couple days ago Aoibheall woke up and found half a rat on the rug in front of the bathroom. Fox has discovered that rats are made out of meat. She left the head, shoulders, three feet and the tail; I assume that was because those are the bony bits, but maybe she wasn't all that hungry or maybe she just wanted to leave us something so we could be proud of her. From what was left, I'd guess the rat was maybe three inches long.

Saturday morning, there was a little mole in our closet (no doubt courtesy of Fox). I set the dogs loose and they caught it and took it outside. They didn't eat it, but did kill it. Esme spent a lot of time licking it. Gross.

The black and white rat escapee caught herself in the trap Saturday evening. It was too late to hold another rat derby, so we decided to hold it after Mother's Day brunch. Unfortunately, the Badb has not yet had field hockey in P.E. (I think they wait until fifth grade for that) and so the rat got by her and escaped into the blackberry bramble.

This morning there was another wood rat in the trap. A bit smaller than the last one, but still a sizable four to five inches, not counting the tail. This evening Peaches, the Badb and I took the dogs out on the driveway in front of the garage for another installment of rat chasing school. This time, Esme actually had the rat in her mouth, but put it down. Dagmar was completely amped, but not quite quick enough in following. After the rat escaped into the wood pile, she kept nosing around and acting very excited. She wanted that rat.

Later this evening, Aoibheall and I were sitting at the table doing some paperwork and we heard Fox scrambling around behind the TV. Last night, it had been Oswald getting himself stuck back there, so I didn't pay much attention. But then Dagmar started whining and I noticed Fox just sitting in front of the old toy chest, keeping an eye on it. I let the dogs out of their crates. Esme went straight for the plush bed with a chew toy, but Dagmar started sniffing around the chest, getting very excited all over again.

I pulled the chest away from the wall (hardwood floors and felt feet on all the furniture certainly makes this sort of excitement easier to manage) and a little rat went scurrying along the baseboard, diving to sanctuary under the short bookcase by the Nuu-Nuu.

I moved some more stuff, pulled the bookcase out from the wall, and eventually coerced the rat out from under with a stick. Dagmar, Oswald, and Fox were all very interested in the proceedings. When the rat went running, Dagmar was after it in hot pursuit. She caught it and gave it the patented terrier rat shake. Score for Dagmar! Esme then darted in and swiped the rat, prancing around the room while holding the carcass by the head. I gave both dogs lots of treats. It took a lot of treats to be a fair trade for the rat.

Oswald was put out by all this. He'd started swearing at the others in the midst of the flushing of the game and run off outside. Just as I finished putting things back where they belonged, including dogs back in crates, I noticed him crouched under the table playing with something. "What's he got?" I asked.

"A bug," said Aoibheall.

Well, almost. It was a bat. So then we had to try to get the bat out of the house, since he let the bat go (we wanted him to, after all) and it started flying around in circles. Aoibheall opened the sliding glass door but the bat seemed oblivious. She opened the front door and the bat just flew past it, circling around and around the ceiling fan (which was off), but being joined by a moth from outside which was almost as big as the bat. I got a broom and tried to urge the bat to fly toward the open doors, but I can't take any credit for the bat's eventual escape. I think it was just luck. Aoibheall: "Bats are really inefficient."

I smacked the moth with the broom.

Vermin: 7
Dogs: 5
Cats: 3 (Oswald *would* have done the bat if we'd let him)

The House of Inept Animals

Dagmar and Esme have killed moles. They've not managed to demonstrate digging for anything except cat poop, though, and they've not caught any rats.

We went to the store and bought a pair of live rats. We wanted to go coursing with our dogs. We set up on the driveway, in front of the closed garage door. Three of us standing around with brooms and poles to poke the freed rat back into the middle, and the two dogs sitting there looking expectant.

The first rat got away anyhow, making a quick break for the hillside and getting clean away into the shrubbery.

The second rat didn't get away. But the dogs didn't kill it, either. They'd go after it when it ran, pick it up in soft mouths as if carrying a puppy, and bring it back to the center. They just wouldn't bite it. Eventually I took pity on the rat and gave it grace with a hatchet. The whole scene reminded me of Rollerball and I felt horrible for a week.

Last weekend some of Aoibheall's family came out and, as I was cleaning up in the office preparatory to setting up beds for people, I found a stiff, cold, dead rat. Adult, with a pretty clear bite mark near its shoulders. So, one of the cats has upgraded from juvenile rats to adults. That's good news, eh?

Last night I saw the escaped rat (white with a dark gray blaze on its head and shoulders) dash out from underneath the coop when I went down to put the chickens away. So, the escapee is getting on with the locals. Maybe soon we'll start seeing tamer wood rats? I set the trap under the coop.

Tonight there was a rat in the trap. Regular adult female wood rat, not the escapee. I got the cage ready, figuring we'd stage some kind of training session with the dogs tomorrow. The rat got away as I was trying to transfer it into the cage. Garr!

Vermin: 5
Dogs: 3
Cats: 1
Humans: 1

The vermin are still winning. I'm embarrassed.

Summer in Spring

We got sick last week. Two weeks ago we scrambled the house around, moving everyone's beds so that now we have an office for Aoibheall to work in. The Badb had what seemed like a head cold, so she had light duty. The rest of us shifted heavy beds and furniture. By Monday, all the furniture was where it was supposed to be although the books are not all back on shelves. But I had the cold.

It turned out the cold wasn't just a cold. Apparently there's a nasty stomach flu going around up here. I got it. All week, I felt miserable. Tired, woozy, and my sinuses were everflowing. By the weekend, I was mostly recovered, but Aoibheall had picked it up. She was lagging by a couple of days, and spent all Saturday incapacitated. Our original plan had been for my parents and nephew to come up and visit that weekend and maybe get their help in redecorating the girls' bedroom. Instead, we urged them not to visit and share our cold.

On Thursday morning, Aoibheall said to me that she thought the young chickens were big enough to move out to the big chicken house. They're only a month and a half old, but they are fully fledged. I figured that was fair, so when I got home from work I started moving them out of the garage. They've been in the big house since then, and they're getting used to it. This evening, they even meekly walked back into the house from the yard when I brandished the New Blue Broom of Justice (the pipsqueaks had no respect at all when they were living in the garage).

Yesterday, we were all recovered. This was a good thing, as we'd scheduled a visit to the Exploratorium. Badb had said that what she wanted for her birthday party was to go to the Tactile Dome with a couple of friends, but scheduling had been tough. Yesterday was when our schedule and her friends' had opened up.

One friend was going to meet up with us at the Exploratorium and we picked up the other first thing in the morning. We then drove down into Santa Cruz because Aoibheall and I are taking Tai chi on Saturdays. The class meets in a park with some pretty cool play structures (including some awesome looking slides). The girls played in the park while we learned how to stand and twist. That accomplished, we all piled into the car and started driving north.

We picked up some fruit and lunch stuff at a Whole Foods on the way. We made it to the Exploratorium in plenty of time - we had half an hour to wander around before our 1:45 appointment in the Tactile Dome. We ended up with four adults, one teenager, and four little kids. Unlike last summer when we went to the Exploratorium for Camp Guel Guaynat, we felt little pressure to keep track of everyone. Our ratios were better and everyone had a wonderful time. At closing time we all went out to get a lovely dinner at Pluto's. Everyone was well-fed, although we were all pretty tired from a long day of doing things.

The weather was fabulous. It was warm and sunny, even in San Francisco. We are so suggestible. We came home and made mojitos and watched SpongeBob Squarepants episodes with the kids. (The choice of video was influenced by the zither music from The Third Man - almost at the end of watching that movie, Aoibheall said, "I know why we know that music - it's the same as the background music for SpongeBob!")

The weather was warm and clear again today. I'm back to my spring haircut (I'm sure my Uncle Chuck approves) and Aoibheall cleaned it up this morning. Then we had a big breakfast and got ready to tackle all our piled up chores. The girls needed haircuts and we had the grocery shopping to do. While I was doing the groceries, the girls were getting haircuts and Aoibheall walked through the Cost Plus next to the SuperCuts. We decided that with the beautiful weather we were going to have dinner outside. Well, to do that right we needed a few things. Our patio furniture is plastic and is on the verge of collapse. Cost Plus had some swell chairs and some enamelware that we decided would be perfect for outdoors. We had sangria, limeade, and tostadas out on the deck.

When I took out the compost after dinner, I saw that we'd trapped a rat. Hurrah! Another opportunity for Dagmar and Esme to show their valor! Aoibheall and I set up on the deck with brooms and we brought out the dogs. Dagmar was intensely interested in the rat, who set to squealing as soon as the dogs appeared. Esme decided that she, too, was intensely interested but wanted to be interested from about 15 feet away. Deep defense, I guess. Aoibheall used her broom to open the trap and the rat came scurrying out. It dashed across the deck with Dagmar in pursuit, but our doggie is still not the killer we've been hoping for. The rat got away and fled up the hillside.

Vermin: 3
Dogs: 3

Oh, and speaking of vermin, Oswald has been getting better at hunting. Unfortunately, he's upgraded from moths to bats. I appreciate his enterprise and want to encourage his Hemingway spirit, but I do wish he'd pick on critters that I'd be happier without. We've got plenty of bugs; I like the bats. If only he'd cooperate with the dogs and do something about these rats.

Winter in Spring

The peeps are now in their second big week. On Saturday, they were allowed outside for the first time. Babd and I went into town and bought a new Blue Broom of Justice, as the old one just isn't doing the job anymore. Mostly because it's now the Blue Stick of Pathos, having lost all its bristles.

Our friend came out to see the historic event as the peeps were rounded up and turned loose in the only really nice grassy patch anywhere near our house.



The first day, they all stuck together and peeped piteously, obviously feeling insecure about the whole thing. It didn't help that a Steller's Jay sat in a tree not far away, shrieking at the poor things the whole time. Jealous, I'm sure.

The chicks have been growing at a phenomenal rate, and are now at the stage where they're no longer little feathery balls, but have grown both legs and necks. They're still working on their coordination, so you'll see them often stretching their legs, then standing up and stretching up their little necks, then squnching down again as though being that tall were a very scary prospect. Somehow, although this is now our fourth batch of chicks, I just don't remember any of our other chicks growing at quite this phenomenal rate.



They've got their flight feathers and the more adventurous among them are flying, rather than walking, around their little enclosure. They've graduated up from the 2 tiny, 8-hole feeders we were using to the giant trough feeder, and from the little 1-quart waterer to the 1-gallon waterer.

The downside of this sort of exponential growth is problems like spraddle. Spraddle is a condition where the bird's legs are abnormally developed and won't support her. Because she can't walk, she can't eat or drink and can become very weak. Birds are cruel, and if one of our hens is just lying there, the other ones will peck at her. The one we had before was one of our meat chickens, and for a week before we finally killed her, she was in a box in the garage, separated from the other birds so that she could reach the food and water.

The causes of spraddle vary. In pet birds, it's often caused by dietary problems like a lack of calcium or too much phosphorus. It's harder to pin down in a large flock where only one bird displays the symptoms, although growing too fast can also cause it, as the bones of the legs aren't strong enough to support the quickly-increasing weight of the bird.

Last night, as I was cleaning the baby coop, I found one of our Buff Orpingtons lying in the shavings, not moving. I thought she might just be sleepy and reluctant. If you poke a chick with your hands, they'll wake up just fine and move themselves along, but this one wasn't going anywhere. The Pirate and I looked at her and the way she wasn't moving and said to each other "Does that look like spraddle to you?" Yeah. It did.

We picked her up and put her in a box with shavings and food and water, but she wasn't eating. She was so weak and pathetic that every time we reached into the box, she would nudge her way into our hands, plainly wanting to be held and comforted. She was cold, she was tired, and we felt warm.

We took her upstairs and I ended up giving her water through a syringe and food through a baby spoon (having to first reduce her regular feed to a fine powder and mix it with water). She perked up a little, and we woke up in the night to look at her, but by morning she was even weaker and plainly giving up the struggle. By the time I was dressed this morning, she had laid down under the food dish and wasn't moving.



The problem is that even if we could cure her (and the cure for spraddle requires a month of round-the-clock treatment and monitoring), she would never be as large or strong as the other hens, and could likely be killed anyway. The Pirate and I agreed that the right thing to do was cull her from the flock now, rather than letting her suffer for who knows how long.

She died quietly and peacefully, but the Pirate and Babd and I all cried over it at home, and I cried most of the way to work. It was raining as I left this morning, so the sky was crying too, and I felt cold and sad.

Being steward of other living things is really, really hard sometimes.

Parenthood

The thing about birth is that you just never know when it's going to happen. A good friend of mine went to bed on a Friday night thinking "Tomorrow, we'll get that car seat, and we'll be all set for the new baby" only to be woken by his wife at 3:45 in the morning to tell him that they had to go to the hospital NOW!

Similarly, with stacks of Girl Scout cookies still cluttering our garage, the Pirate, the older kid and I were hanging out Saturday night watching a movie when the phone rang. I answered it and a thickly accented voice asked me if I was expecting some baby chickens.

At this point, nature was working against me. My hearing is terrible, and the phone compresses everything into a monaural garble, and when the speaker has an accent on top of that, it's a miracle any words make it into the brain at all. To top it all off, this brain was not expecting those particular words for another 2-3 DAYS at least!

" This is United Airlines Freight. Are you expecting baby chickens?"

"What?"

"Baby chickens. I have a shipment of baby chickens from Iowa. Is this the right number?"

[At this point, the light comes on in my head. She's saying "baby chickens." Yes, I'm expecting them.] "Yes. I'm expecting them."

"They're here at the terminal, but your post office won't come to collect them until Monday. You need to get them from here."

"Where are you?"

"At San Jose airport." [Duh. She SAID she was with United Airlines Freight. They're not exactly at the mall, are they?]

I told her I'd be there to pick them up and jumped into the car while the kid and the Pirate got the enclosure together. I'm sure this woman thought that I was the biggest idiot on the planet, as not once was I able to respond to things she said the first time she said them. Bless her for not just yelling at me and throwing the box at me.

On the way home, I put my hand in the box and sang coutry music to them, because that seems like the kind of thing you should do for your livestock.




And here are the very chicks themselves. When we unpacked the box, there was one dead araucana chick. I felt bad, but it had died earlier in the day. Everything we've read says that 20% mortality for chicks is to be expected, and to be honest, this is the first chick we've lost like this, so I think we're actually ahead of the game.

We got araucanas, barred rocks, black giants, black australorps and buff orpingtons. We ordered five of each, plus one "free rare chick," all female. What I'm confused about is that we lost one araucana, and we have an additional barred rock listed on the packing sheet as our free chick, but what we have are six fluffy yellow puffballs and NO extra fluffy black puffballs (the barred rocks start out black and white).

I predict two roosters.

Training Vermin

The more charitable of our readers will probably say that Fox has decided to train up these dogs. The more cynical would say that it's just That Time of Year, when strapping young Vermin set off into the wet, green woods to seek their fortune and find, instead, a moderately disgusting housecat.

Tonight, Fox set a mole loose in our bedroom. I saw her sitting in front of my dresser and I figured she was still hunting last night's mouse when, Oh! I spied a mole.

I went and fetched Dagmar.

Fox kept track of the mole, more or less, and I served as beater, driving the mole toward open space or at least out of whatever remote cranny it dove into. (Have you counted the remote crannies in your bedroom, lately?) A few minutes into the pursuit I heard, from the other side of the wooden screen toward which I'd been chivvying the mole, the tell-tale sound of dog tags shaking vigorously and the thwap-thwap-thwap of Dagmar's ears (and probably the mole) slapping around.

Despite big praise and treats and the opportunity to brag to Esme, Dagmar did not want to drop the mole. Eventually I forced it out of her mouth and gave her more treats.

So, versus small critters the size of a film canister, Dagmar is death on four legs. I've reset the rat trap; I'm very curious about how the next big critter will fare.

Vermin: 2
Dogs: 3