Rain, Rain Go Away

ZOMG I am SO SICK OF RAIN.  I am consuming enough water to hydrate a small 3rd world country with the amount of dirty dog towels I have to wash every other day.  Sometimes I get so irritated I just throw out the dirty towels, but then I have to take more home from work because otherwise there are millions of perfectly formed little mud paw prints all over my floors. And we shall not discuss how a certain dog (Tweed) uses my walls as stationary drying posts.

I have first world problems.  But now so do you, because the incessant rain means photo taking is at the bare minimum.  Share my pain, beeeyotches!!

Even the dogs are shocked when we get the odd, non-peeing day.

It also seems to gratify the soggy chickens.

Speaking of chickens, mine are VERY VERY BAD.  If I could speak chicken, I would tell my 3 Ameracaunas that laying pretty blue eggs at an alarming rate (making up for lost time?  They took forever to start laying and now they can’t seem to take a breather!) does not compensate for their pesty habit of literally flying the coop.  At least every day, and sometimes a couple times a day, they go fly-about and wander my neighbourhood.  Now, my hood is all farms and bush on the East side, where I live, and all starter castles for suburban monarchs to the West, and sometimes they end up there.  If they wander to the left or right, none of the neighboring farmers is concerned.  But when they make their way across the road (I would also answer that age old question, if I could speak chicken) they end up in some spectacularly manicured yard belonging to someone who thinks chickens come in packages at the grocery store only.

Most of those neighbours are East Asian (ie “brown guys” – Piper’s nemesis) for whom English is not their first language, and the conversations are admittedly quite funny.

Neighbour: “Excuse me, but there is being a chicken in my yard.  I am thinking it is perhaps belonging to you.”

Me: “Oh god, I’m so sorry about that.  Let me get my boots on and I will come and get it.”

(wild chase ensues whilst I try to catch an animal THAT CAN FLY.  Neighbour is totally useless).  I finally corner the chicken and tuck it under my arm.

Me: “Really sorry about this again.  Next time you see it in your yard, just eat it.” *smile*

Neighbour: “Oh ha ha!  I am thinking about this, early today when I am first seeing this chicken.”

Etc.

Last week I sat down in front of Youtube and learned how to clip flight feathers.  Then I marched outside with a pair of scissors and rendered my wayward chickens flightless, like emus.  TAKE THAT, chickens!

(another amusing conversation I had with my landlord’s 8 year old son:

Him: “What are you doing to those chickens?”

Me: “I’m clipping their wings so they can’t fly away and annoy the neighbours anymore.”

pause.

Him: “You mean are clipping their wings to their bodies so they can’t flap them, with a big clip?” (mimes trying to flap his arms with his hands planted on his hips)

Me: *dies laughing*)

The problem with clipping flight feathers is that nobody tells the chickens that they can’t fly once you clip them.  I went inside to return the scissors, came back outside and two of the damn things were already out again.  What the eff?

The border collies are completely and utterly useless when it comes to working chickens.  I asked Piper to round them up for me and she went and fetched me a frisbee, and then a soccer ball.  Dexter ran over to assist, but all he does is make Mad Teeth(tm) at the chickens and then run away again.  He does this to the guinea pigs at work too … it seems to be that his default response to anything he doesn’t really understand is to show it every tooth in his head.

If I want the chickens put away with assistance, I have to use the most unlikely of dogs.

This is the terrier who, unless I tie her to the wall, tries to leap up and pluck the rabbits from my arms at work as I am moving them from cage to cage.  She runs over to check on the guinea pigs about 400 times a day, just in case someone left the cage open and they are falling from the table into her waiting mouth.  She will try to kill a leaf blowing in the wind first, ask questions about what she’s pouncing on later.  But ask for her help putting away chickens and she is all level headed coolness, moving them slowly and patiently along until they jog slowly back into their pen.

It goes without saying that I do not ask TWooie for help.

Actually, TWooie no longer bothers my chickens.  It took a long time and a lot of interfering when he lunged at them, but now he can walk among the hens without so much as sideways glance.  He has finally learned that the chickens are part of the “pack.”

Not much else is new around here.

Tweed is still deliriously (delusionally?) happy.

Dexter is still defying gravity.

Piper is still alive and well (thank doG).

And Spring is still bothering her brothers.

Same old, same old ;-)