While the East Coast deals with Hurricane Irene today, we are enjoying some rather spectacular weather here in Seattle. It's been a bit of a sad day, however, because this morning we lost our first chicken.
Mingo -- or, more properly, Flamingo -- was part of the second pair of chickens we got. (The two original chickens were part of the package deal that came with the coop when we bought it.)
She was always a little bit different than the other chickens, including having some odd feet that didn't have any claws. This made it harder for her to sit on a perch and sleep with the other chickens. She also went through a few weeks of brooding not too long ago.
For those of you like me who had never heard of this term before, brooding is when a hen stays in her nesting box. Sometimes it's because she wants to sit on an egg, but not necessarily. In the case of Mingo, she didn't have an egg, but just spent most of her time in the nesting box. Brooding is normal behavior for a chicken, but in hindsight, maybe there was something else going on.
Anyhow, KLC and I noticed that something wasn't right with Mingo on Friday night when she was sitting on the ground at dusk. (For the non-chicken people out there, they will instinctively go inside as it gets close to being dark.) Yesterday, she was acting very lethargic and barely reacted when we picked her up. We put her in the yard and let her wander as much as she wanted. Sadly, she barely moved, though she did stand up for a while.
This morning, we found Mingo in the coop. We explained to the kids that she died, which led to a bunch of questions about death in general -- not the most light-hearted way to start a Sunday morning. Of course, this is what happens when you have animals, and, as we explained to the kids, chickens often don't live that long.
So thanks, Mingo, for being a good chicken -- wherever you are.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Summer Update
It's been just over a month since I last wrote on this blog and I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do.
First, the twins are now 4 years old. They will readily tell you this -- both verbally and with a display of their fingers (sometimes with the correct number, sometimes not.) We had a backyard BBQ for them in mid-July, with lots of kids and adults. Let me just say, it was a lot of fun, but much more exhausting when you actually do the hosting of one of these things versus just showing up, which I've done for the first 37 years of my life.
The next major event was our vacation back to Massachusetts. We were back East for almost two full weeks. This meant the following: the kids' first airplane ride, meeting a slew of my family and friends, and living in humidity that just doesn't seem to exist in Seattle. They got to swim in the Atlantic Ocean, visit the Swan Boats and ducklings in the Boston Public Garden (twice), and generally get exhausted by a ton of new experiences.
It was great because KLC and the twins both got to meet many of the people that are so important to me in my life. (KLC had met some of them before, but others were just the subject of stories until last week.) It was by no means a complete census of all of the people I miss from back East, but it was a good start.
I think I'm a little extra thankful for this because almost to the day of our getting on the plane for Boston, I heard some horrible news. A friend of a friend of mine in DC, who I had dinner with several times and spent a few quality days in Maine with, had a completely random, tragic accident on her bike. The bottom line is that she is gone, through absolutely no fault of her own -- or really anyone else's as far as I know. It was just one of those unexpected, unpredictable events that takes someone out of this life before anyone who knows or met them wants to accept.
So, in honor of this extraordinary person, I want to say how grateful I am to everyone in my life wherever they might be. You never know how much time you or the people you love have, and I hope I can make a decent -- even if sporadic attempt -- to remind my friends, family, and friends who are family ("framily"?) how much they mean to me. And I am particularly glad that we had an opportunity to go back to Massachusetts this month so that some of those important people to me could at least start to get to know each other.
First, the twins are now 4 years old. They will readily tell you this -- both verbally and with a display of their fingers (sometimes with the correct number, sometimes not.) We had a backyard BBQ for them in mid-July, with lots of kids and adults. Let me just say, it was a lot of fun, but much more exhausting when you actually do the hosting of one of these things versus just showing up, which I've done for the first 37 years of my life.
The next major event was our vacation back to Massachusetts. We were back East for almost two full weeks. This meant the following: the kids' first airplane ride, meeting a slew of my family and friends, and living in humidity that just doesn't seem to exist in Seattle. They got to swim in the Atlantic Ocean, visit the Swan Boats and ducklings in the Boston Public Garden (twice), and generally get exhausted by a ton of new experiences.
It was great because KLC and the twins both got to meet many of the people that are so important to me in my life. (KLC had met some of them before, but others were just the subject of stories until last week.) It was by no means a complete census of all of the people I miss from back East, but it was a good start.
I think I'm a little extra thankful for this because almost to the day of our getting on the plane for Boston, I heard some horrible news. A friend of a friend of mine in DC, who I had dinner with several times and spent a few quality days in Maine with, had a completely random, tragic accident on her bike. The bottom line is that she is gone, through absolutely no fault of her own -- or really anyone else's as far as I know. It was just one of those unexpected, unpredictable events that takes someone out of this life before anyone who knows or met them wants to accept.
So, in honor of this extraordinary person, I want to say how grateful I am to everyone in my life wherever they might be. You never know how much time you or the people you love have, and I hope I can make a decent -- even if sporadic attempt -- to remind my friends, family, and friends who are family ("framily"?) how much they mean to me. And I am particularly glad that we had an opportunity to go back to Massachusetts this month so that some of those important people to me could at least start to get to know each other.
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