squeezing time.

Here’s how it’s been lately – I’ve had a little angst, but nothing more than usual, I guess…
Okay, maybe a little more. Last night I dreamed that March 4th came to town and did a show – I was having a fun make-out session with one of the band members (no, sorry) when I woke up.
Coincidentally, about the time I was happily rubbing around in my dreams, my real-life loveliness decided to crawl in next to me and rub his skin up against mine.
I can’t remember most of the detail of my dream – I remember that the band was playing in Silver City but it wasn’t the Silver City I’m familiar with, and then there was a flash of dreamboat’s crazy blue eyes and devilish grin and some obviously impending sex and then I seagued straight into waking life and some obviously impending sex, and I still couldn’t figure out if I was angry about it or not.
I’m a little homesick for Portland – various, various aspects of Portland call me back, and then I am reminded that now is not just real life, it’s a practice round, too. I’m picking up all sorts of valuable skills I could go back to Oregon with, and probably find myself some work in some beautiful place. I’m learning a shit ton about how to (and how not to) grow food, xeriscape, companion plant, set up a pond, identify, prune and encourage growth of flowers. I’m discovering the politics of chickens and why grabbing one by the legs, tossing it into a canvas backpack and dumping it back out at the neighbor’s is actually the humane thing to do.
See, I could have just ate her instead, because she tormented my baby Bantee, a gray ball of fuzz with feathers all the way down to her feet.
My gray Bantee, also known as Henrietta (c’mon, every flock has one) has the feathery-ist feet I’ve ever seen on a chicken. . I have, at this point, seen a lot of chickens. But Chicken Little, the infamous little one I once wrote about in far fonder terms , went straight for Henrietta every day, viciously, and then incited the other two grown hens and the rooster to add to it all. They were terrorizing her, drawing blood from this poor chick, and yanking out her fluffy tail feathers. It was the most evil politics of  late elementary school, far beyond not getting picked for kickball. What goes on in the chicken coop can be downright disturbing sometimes.
Deep-seated issues? Oh, no, I’m fine with the fact that I didn’t get picked for kickball. Really. It meant I could go off to a quiet corner and note my observations instead.
Anyway…  the end result was that Chicken Little, one of my original crew, got relocated for the time being. At her new home she’ll be able to range freely again with a bunch of other hens (we can’t let ours do so at the moment so we’ve expanded the pen instead). She won’t, however, have a rooster to service any longer, or a rooster to protect her, either. My little flock of birds will now be able to integrate. I once sequestered the troublesome chicken and everyone else got along fabulously, even dustbathing together, though I’ve thrown a stick in an otherwise smoothly-cycling process: while they were asleep this evening I added two more to it, two little three month old Bantees with fuzzy feet – a rooster for Henrietta and another hen, just so there’s enough for both of the boys. The Bantees will hatch more chicks for us if we ever want them – they’ll sit on everyone else’s eggs and are such caring little birds it is said they could raise a baby kitten.  For us at the moment, however, this would result in some of the ugliest chickens in existence – if you’re feelin’ inclined, google yourself some pics of aricaunas (our Rooster) and Polish hens and try to imagine that result. Mostly I will probably just be happy and content with their tiny, high-iron eggs: for a girl who’s currently rocking a palm-sized bruise on her thigh, high iron anything is a good, good, good thing.
Also disturbing to witness is the deflowering of my teenage hens, of which Henrietta is one. Now that she isn’t scared to come out of the hen house, she’s up for a turn too. Roy is very, very big compared to her. At the moment, the earliest bloomer, of a type I can never remember the name of and simply refer to as “Butterball” instead as they are large and yellow, has taken the brunt of Roy’s newest affections though, thankfully. I unfortunately had to witness it yesterday, as any disturbance in the coop when I am home sends me running to protect the little gray chicken that lets me hold and comfort her every day.
I hope her little tribe works out alright in the bigger pen of things, and I hope Roy doesn’t get all egotistical on that tiny little rooster with fuzzy feet and a crow that sounds like the chicken equivalent to toddler. God, he’s terribly cute.
I got these two new additions from my “neighbors”, a Quaker couple that live about 15 miles further down our two-lane rural highway. They are ranchers who used to own a much larger, very well-known ranch called The Ponderosa (yes). After both of them reached their eighties, it was time to shrink it down a little.
The new ranch is a much smaller 80 acres. The husband, Gene, is now 94. He’s still completely functional and active – drives, ranches, and raises cattle and several different kinds of birds. He is a little hard of hearing at this point but has hearing aids. Elizabeth is now 89. She is also mostly coherent, a master gardener with a little less short term memory now. She also has hearing aids. They are assisted by a Mexican ranch hand in his sixties who speaks Spanish, mostly. He is also hard of hearing. Somehow or another things get done.
They also have a steady influx of friends and neighbors coming through to help, and us, too – we go over once a week or so and work in the garden with Elizabeth, though I always take a detour to Gene’s aviary so I can watch the little Bantees and the peacocks and turkeys as they strut.
Why is this so fascinating to me?
I don’t know, but I could happily help someone else out doing this. I envision myself with a yurt, some neat furnishings and a good wood stove and the Oregon forest, taking care of the chickens and plants, my dog snoring away in her bed at night right next to mine.
I could see this, which is why I can also much more easily see this, what I’m doing right now. I feel isolated but lucky about where I am with the time, opportunity and freedom to learn the things I’m learning, things I could put to use anywhere again, especially in places of beauty and serenity.