Bare Butt Buffy

Being a chicken whisperer's daughter has taught me a few things.

Such as, chickens are not bright.

Chickens are messy.

Chickens are scary at night.

And chicken terminology is a language all its own.

I believe it all goes back to what people have heard through generations.

For instance, my grandparents have 'leggern' chickens. If you try to look up a picture of a leggern you will not easily find a chicken. But if you put in 'leghorn', then you will find a lovable Looney Tunes character along with other pictures of lean white chickens. But on the same hand, if I ask Grandma about a 'leghorn' she would quite possibly give me the stink eye.

However, I did find a website that spelled the term 'leghorn' but also offered the pronunciation as 'leggern'.

So I know that it is commonly called such and it's not just a family quirk.
(i.e. wasps = 'whaustes')

Sorry, I'm rambling.

Another example of chicken terminology is if you have a hen that wants to 'set' (maybe it's supposed to be 'sit'--which is to mean that she wants to sit on eggs and hatch them) but you don't want her to, you have to 'break her up' or she needs to be 'broke up'.

Some say to 'break a hen up' you can dunk her in water.

Yeah, ya see, I don't think I would be doing that to Momma's chickens because I think the hen would win.
Ever gotten flogged by a chicken? Me either, but I'm scared I might one day.

Well, Momma has a chicken that would not 'break up'.
Now Momma didn't try to dunk her in a bucket of water (I think she was a little nervous about that), but she would run her out of the chicken house.
When she did, the hen would get so mad she would fluff out and pick fights with the other hens.

Poor hen, she didn't know that sitting on those eggs wouldn't do her any good.
Momma got rid of the rooster.
One of the reasons he had to go was that he made this particular hen a little crazy.
She was real skiddish and would run around like the sky was falling.
So Momma named her Henny Penny.
Well, she didn't think the sky was going to get her much after the rooster was..um..disposed of but she had lost most of her feathers off her back side.
So she got the name Bare Butt Buffy.
(She is a Buff Orpington chicken)

Now, she has almost all her feathers, so she is simply called Buffy.

Almost all the chickens have names such as Bertha, Momma Hen, Ethel, and even one is named Miranda Lambert  (A story for another time) Correction: Her name is Taylor Swift.

Still rambling, I promise this story is going some where.
Well, sort of.
Bless your heart for reading this far.

So, since Buffy was determined to sit and refused to be broke up, Momma called a few other chicken owners around here to see if they had any eggs they wanted to hatch.
She collected an assortment of 20 eggs.

Alright, so she had the eggs and the sitting hen but she couldn't just put them out in the hen house because then the fresh eggs might get mixed up with the others.

If you have ever tried to catch a brooding hen you know it can be a loosing battle.
There's a trick.
Chickens can't see at night.
Once they roost and it's dark, you can pretty much do anything you want with them because they can't see and don't put up a fight.

There are some things you just never picture yourself doing.
One is sneaking into a hen house full of hens in the middle of the night with a tiny flashlight to pick up hens and put vasoline and sulfur on their backs so they would quit pecking each other.
Momma and Daddy have done just that.

Well, we used the same technique to get Buffy out of the hen house and into the old rabbit pen so she could sit on the eggs.

 

Oh and by the way, the eggs are several different types so that should be interesting.

Momma had to suit up.
She was afraid of getting flogged.
I don't blame her and would never tease her for that.
Her fear is justified.

Now, for the scary part. Like I said, it was well past dark and we had to sneak into the hen house with a tiny flash light.
The chickens' eyes are so creepy. Then the flash on the camera spooked them.
And they make a deep gurgling sound and puff up.
It really makes you think twice about just reaching in and grabbing one.

Bare Butt Buffy was not in the mood to be messed with...

So she messed on Momma.
Like I said, chickens are messy.
And scary at night.

Oh and as you can see, she isn't bare butted any more...however, I will still call her that.

In the end, she was safely put in her temporary home as a soon to be surrogate mother.

So, if you are thinking of raising chickens but this doesn't sound like some thing you would want to do on a Tuesday night, then you should probably rethink your plans.

The Chicken Whisperer's Apprentice

Momma (AKA The Chicken Whisperer) has gone on a trip.

I enthusiastically agreed to take on her farm chores in her absence.

This evening when I got home I let Beaux out and we walked over to Momma's to get to work.

I decided I would start in the garden.

I grabbed a bucket and went to picking.

I didn't see any tomatoes ripe for picking, and thought to myself, this is going to be a breeze.

Speaking of, there was no breeze of any kind. It has been unseasonably hot and dreadfully dry lately.

Alright, no tomatoes, on to squash. At first I didn't see many of those either. They were hiding. After a few minutes I got over my fear of sticking my hand under a huge leaf and grabbing a snake instead of vegetable. On to green beans. There is entirely too much work involved to get only a handful of beans. I have decided that if we ever have a garden, it will only be in large produce. It makes you feel more accomplished.  Cucumbers and pimentos, I picked. The jalapenos stayed on the plant. I just thought it was a bad idea to start picking them since I was having to wipe the sweat from my face down every few minutes.

Garden: check.

Now chickens.

I chopped up a giant cucumber I found hidden underneath some very large leaves that was a little past its expiration date.

(Beaux spotted me picking it up and then would not leave my side because he wanted me to throw it.)

I finished washing the rest of the harvest and headed to the chicken yard.

Momma's chickens are loving chickens.

Well, they love getting fed the 'good stuff'.

They recognize the container and run to the gate.

I sprinkled handfuls of cucumber all around and they were so excited and seemed to enjoy it so much, I went back inside and cut up another one.

Then I gathered the eggs. The hen house was a little darker than I would have preferred. The fear of grabbing a snake came back with full force.

Next I had to get them clean water.

I don't understand chickens.

One water bowl was completely turned over, the others were full of dirt where they had scratched around it and now only had mud in the pans.

They should really work on their critical thinking skills.

I got the water hose stretched to the pen and went to dumping and refilling the containers.

You would have thought it was Christmas. They went to scratching and pecking in the mud.

These hens can kick up some mud...in my face.

I wrangled the water hose around to spray out the bowls and spray the mud off me and caught an awful smell. I thought, 'Whoa, these chickens stink.'

Then looked down and realized, it wasn't the chickens, it was me.

Apparently, Molly had eaten something that didn't agree with her and I had drug the water hose through the ripe-smelling poop and now it was all over me.

The hens appalled me in their lack of compassion.

In the mean time, Beaux decided that his duty was to keep the chickens from getting too close to the edge of the pen. So in the midst of being covered in mud, sweat, and poop, I was having to dodge jumping chickens that had been spooked by Beaux.

Next I needed to empty and refill the food trays. A couple of the hens had taken the liberty of pooping in those, too.

By the time I filled the food trays it was definitely well on its way to being dark. The hens were ready to roost. There have been some problems between some of the big chickens and the young chickens when it comes time to roost.  Momma told me about her trying to herd the little ones into the chicken house and push them up to the roost with a stick while nudging the bigger chickens when they wanted to cause trouble. She assured me that she would not expect me to stand in the chicken house poking chickens at dusk.

I had all plans of not poking chickens.

However, one of the big barred rocks changed those plans. The little ones would try to get up to the roost and she would start making a low gurgle sound and then peck at them to knock them off.

I wasn't having any of that.

So I found the big stick and tried to coax the little ones and poke her when she started to get unruly.

Chickens can't see well when it gets dark, but they get nervous.

One of the little ones ended up hopping onto the end of the stick and would not let go. Poor thing was hanging on for her life. I tried to gently shake her off, but she had a death grip on that stick. So I thought I would just carefully try to put her up on the roost and then she would let go and be where I wanted her to be. She wasn't having any of it! So there I am, in the dark surrounded by nervous and irritated hens, soaked with sweat, covered in mud and poop, with a chicken clinched onto the end of a stick. I couldn't very well start violently shaking the stick like I was putting out a burning marshmallow, but I was not sleeping in that hen house. All of a sudden I got so tickled that I burst out laughing. Well, luckily I startled the hen and she hopped off the stick.

I told the chickens good night and assured myself that I had not missed my calling in being a farmer.

A Mother

So, while my computer was out of commission I missed a few big days I wanted to post about.

First of which was Momma's birthday and another was Mother's Day.

In our family we have come to understand that you can celebrate any occasion any time you want.

For instance, since Daddy works offshore we have had to celebrate Christmas in November, birthdays when the person of honor is actually 1 year and 12 days older, or Easter before Good Friday.

I'm sure Momma will not be offended in the delay of the posting of the post in her honor.

Still this post is difficult to write.

I have so much to say about my Momma, but I am sometimes without words.

This is my favorite picture of Momma

I thought about writing a short biography or a ballot for her.

However, I believe a list would only be fitting for such a fantastic list maker.

Here are 50 things I love about my Momma, in no particular order, of course.

1. Her list making abilities
2. Her satisfaction in completing all the things on a list
3. The motivation a list gives her to accomplish those things on that list so she can cross them off
4. Her zebra striped rubber boots
5. The fact that she owns zebra striped rubber boots
6. The fact that she bought zebra striped rubber boots specifically for walking in chicken hocky
7. Her desire for happiness in the simplicity of life
8. Her love of God
9. Her love for her family
10. Her love of corny jokes
11. Her ability to be completely honest without hurting my feelings
12. The fact that she doesn't always offer her opinion unless asked
13. Her immaculate housekeeping skills
14. The touch of OCD
15. Her ability to joke and correct some of her OCD tendencies
16. Sensibility
17. Her lack of desire for frivilous things
18. For being uninterested in 'drama'
19. Her ability to recognize and avoid 'drama'
20. The ironic and comical situations she gets into
21. Her ability to laugh at those ironic and comical situations
22. Her eye color
23. The tiny wrinkles she is developing on her hands
24. Her appreciation for those wrinkles
25. The comedy she finds in getting older
26. Her appreciation for hard work
27. Her desire to help others in need
28. Her never failing love for her family and children
29. That she is still in love with her high school sweet-heart
30. The fact that her and her high school sweet-heart have been married for over 30 years
31. The fact that we can talk and kid about burial plots and life insurance because she has taught me not to fear death because it is not final for those who love the Lord
32. Her desire for her funeral to be a celebration because her burial plot will not be her final resting place
33. The fact that she wants to be burried facing West because she knows that her God can raise her no matter what direction she is facing
34. Her love of acceleration
35. Her hope that in Heaven she will get a chance to drive something similar to a race car
36. Her cooking
37. The smell of her house
38. Her notes of encouragement
39. Her difficulty in remembering how to copy and paste
40. How she watches The Waltons everyday
41. The fun she has with the wii
42. If the computer doesn't do what she wants and won't turn off, she unplugs it and gets satisfaction
43. The enjoyment she finds in mowing the yard
44. The satisfaction she gets from leaving straight lines when she mows the yard
45. Her generosity to work for me for 3 weeks without pay and would bring me breakfast and insist she pay for lunch too.
46. Her appreciation for family heritage
47. Her desire to learn
48. Her desire to self-educate herself about current events, such as researching the water ways and the reason for possible flooding in areas around the Mississippi River
49. Her guidance
50. Her wisdom

I love her more and more all the time and hope that I can be as wonderful of a mother some day as she has been to me.

Spring Chickens

There are some new additions to Momma's farm.

I had to take this picture quick while the paper towels were still white.

Little chicks are messy.

But oh so cute.

Beaux loves the chicks. He wants them so bad.

(Beaux update: he is beginning to love his country life. He can hunt mice, visit Momma and Daddy, Poochy (his hero) is always around, and he can bark as loud as he wants)

Making Texas Memories: Snow and the Pioneer Woman

December of 2009 it snowed in Pasadena, TX.

It snowed in Pasadena, TX the same weekend Momma came out to visit.

It snowed in Pasadena, TX the same weekend Momma came out to visit and meet The Pioneer Woman!

I ordered the cookbook for Momma as a Christmas present, then I found out she was coming to Houston.

I got tickets a few weeks ahead of time, and boy was I glad I did!

If not, we would have been behind all these lovely ladies.

These boots were made for walking...in chicken hockey?

One of the top priorities for Momma on The Crew's visit was to find boots.

Not just any boots.

Rubber boots.

Rubber boots with zebra print.

Rubber boots with zebra print to wear on muddy days to the chicken pen.

Because you know how judgemental those hens can be.  If she doesn't look good, she will be the talk of the hen-house.

We searched high and low, near and far for such boots.

Finally, at our last stop, our quest was over.

There they were. Perfect. And perfectly priced.

We searched madly for a size 9. There were none.

We asked a sales-lady to get the last pair off the top shelf.

Size 7.

In manic desperation we sorted through the ones we had already deemed too small or too large. Just as we had given up hope, the first pair we had looked at had transformed into the perfect size.

It was just like Cinderella.

And because I was shopping with my Momma, of course I got to pick a pair too.

This is not the only time Momma and I have been on a quest for boots. Oh, no.

Several years ago I was determined to find Momma a pair of go-go boots.  We found many boots that were were stylish enough.  That was not the problem. 

The problem was the loss of vascular circulation.

These boots were like putting on control top panty hose that were 2 sizes too small. Made of leather.

At that point in my life, young and naive as I was, I was certain that somewhere in this giant supply-and-demand world we could find boots that would fit the legs wearing them.

Poor Momma.

She had zipper indentions on the side of her legs for weeks.

Every store.

Every boot.

Momma was surrounded in a sea of boxes and tissue paper.

Do you know what does not help squeezing a calf into a boot?

Sweat.

Do you know what does not help squeezing a calf out of a boot?

Sweat.

There we were, in the middle of a department store, our size 2 sales-lady gone to find us another pair of boots and we are stuck.

Not figuratively.

As Momma's pinkie toe is turning blue, we can't get her loose from the non-zippered boot I made her try.

It was stretchy. It was logical at the time.

Now it was comical.

Two women playing tug of war with a foot. I was holding her foot while Momma held on the the bench lest she was to go flying across the floor.

After a few minutes of hysterical laughter and a few seconds of panic *SLURP*

Her foot was free of the leather death-grip. 

Her toes lost their cyanosis and regained their pink appearance.

Eventually she did find a pair but I think it was only to satisfy me and to save her abused legs.

 

A Weekend with the Crew

Last Friday, Momma, Lucy, and Ethel came out for a visit.

 If you don't know, southern people plan their adventures around when and where they are going to eat. Our itinerary had been in the works for weeks now. We knew that they wouldn't be leaving until after noon so they would eat a late lunch. Cracker Barrel. Every proper adventure or task involves Cracker Barrel.

 

By the time they made it in, Mr. Z had 'the shakes' from near starvation. We met them at their hotel and played the part of their bellhops. 

Their hotel room was almost the size of our apartment... we are thinking of seeing if they offer a monthly rate.

We got them settled in, they touched up their lipstick, and we went to Panera.

I found out that they had gone to a garage sale before they departed on their adventure. A young woman that goes to our church who was getting rid of some clothes she didn't need any more because she has worked hard and lost about 70 pounds. This particular young woman is known for her love of shopping and sense of style. And guess what size she is not anymore? MINE! I tell ya, they hit the jackpot! These clothes were in as-good-as-new condition and just in time for jacket weather.

Saturday morning we scheduled IHOP for breakfast and a trip to The Guild.

In the words of Ethel, "they got all kinds of junk in that place".

Lanterns. How I love them.

If only The Little House had a solid ceiling... Maybe it's best it doesn't because otherwise each room would have a chandelier. And that wouldn't really be functional since the ceilings are about 2 feet high.

 This place has just about anything you could want.

And some things you might not...

We ended up leaving with a quilt rack.

It had to ride in Momma's armpit.

After The Guild, we dropped Mr. Z off and shopped until we dropped.

Ethel said we had to get her out of those stores before her pocket book really got into a bind. Then asked where to next?

Momma grabbed some Spanx and got in line.

Massage chairs...

While we got our shop on, Mr. Z worked on cooking us up some of his heart warming tortilla soup.

After a long day of shopping and walking we settled in with some hot tortilla soup for the soul and some homemade cheesecake. Then we curled up on the couch and watched Toy Story 3.
A wild Saturday night! I told you, with these women, you have to be careful! No wonder I had to check their blood pressure periodically.

Sunday morning we loaded up and headed to church.

We started attending Houston First Baptist Church a few months ago. Of course we attend the traditional service with the senior crowd. That's just where we feel more comfortable. The choir and full orchestra is incredible. That many voices singing in unison is so powerful.

That will definitely go on the list of things I will miss.

Five Guys was next on the itinerary.

With shopping bags and full stomachs, we had to send them on their way.

On their way back back to a world where they don't have a huge hotel suite that rivals the size our apartment. A place void of Mr. Z's soul healing tortilla soup (except the little bit we let them take home with them). Back where there aren't skyscrapers speckling the horizon. To a place where you are always guaranteed a parking spot at your home. 

To that home not too far ahead in our future.

Chicken Whisperer

Momma: AKA Chicken Whisperer

I am her protege.