Mulish & Co.

Making Time For Work, The Good Kind

Okra Blossom
 

 

I've imposed a work schedule upon myself. The best part of the schedule is the 25 minutes set aside for morning meditation. I didn't realize how much I needed that until last night when I enjoyed a much needed evening meditation. Sleep doesn't even quiet my mind the way sitting does. I incorporate anything that I'm worried about into my dreams, the most vivid being those just prior to waking up so the images, the dialogue can haunt me for hours. Of course, this is just the first day. I'm sure by Wednesday I will have a blog post titled, "What The Hell Was I Thinking?" but until then, this is where it's at.

One day last week, while driving to work, I had the grand realization that I'd been driving myself to the wrong job for fifteen years. I love the clinic that I'm at now but it's so left-brained that by the end of the day I'm in a muddle and exhausted. I have hardly anything left for myself. I feel depleted.

So my left brain did me a favor for indulging it all these many years. It's created a schedule for my right-brain that includes meditation, free writing, and painting and more writing. I'm liking it. I like it enough to do it again tomorrow and hopefully create a habit for myself. It's a morning thing right now. It starts the day off right. We've (my right brain and left brain) have also agreed not to call the clinic w-o-r-k anymore. We just call it by its proper name, like a friend. My real work, is what I do here, for myself at home. I want to love my work and I love the work that I've created for myself in the morning. I realize that I may stumble, miss a day but I intend to forgive myself and remind myself that it's ok. All I know right now is that it feels right.

 

Hush, Now

It would seem that the garden has come to a resting point but the truth is that the changes that are taking place now are slow coming. The excitement of a seed emerging from the soil, a blossom fixing its lovely self to a hardy stem, the formation of an okra pod - all of that is behind us. Now we wait. We wait for the tomato clusters to color, we wait for watermelon and cucumber blossoms to magically transform into fruit. I go out to see if I can detect the changes but they only happen when I turn away.

Maturity, it would seem, takes its sweet time with vegetables as well as with humankind. So I wait. Some days I'll turn a spadeful of compost and wonder at the life I've turned up, all scrambling to take cover. Other days I'll brush my fingers over the herbs and bring their fragrant oils close, inhaling the sweetness of mint, of savory of thyme.

I play the part of sentry, of protector. Sometimes I get to play the part of a small child entranced by the orderliness of ants. My imagination gets to explode with all of the possibilities of what lay beneath the soil - of what tiny lives thrive in the soil cities complete with super-highways and waterways. Where do you take cover when it storms, little friends? It's a mystery, the garden, slowly evolving and thriving  under the late spring sun. I just want to be near you. That's enough for right now.

The Word On The Bird

So, yeah. I did exactly what I said I wouldn't do. I took Hazel to the vet. My feelings were that if I was planning on culling her I wanted to know that I wasn't jumping the gun. I wanted some assurance that it was the right decision. I wanted to know if she was eggbound or had an obstruction. Maybe whatever was causing her crop to be soft and squishy, whatever had caused her to stumble and fall and vomit and withdraw from the flock would be treatable and she could go on scratching in the yard and eating bugs to her hearts content. So I took her with me to work.

 

She was a good traveler. Not much fuss at all.

She was a very good patient, didn't poop on anyone.

She stayed still for her xrays.

In the end, there was nothing obvious that stood out. There was not even a washer or screw to be found which was a fear I had given all the debris in the yard. Her doctor looked at the fecal we collected under the microscope but it wasn't floated so she couldn't look for eggs. It was reassuring that she didn't see a scope full of wiggle worms, in fact, it was nothing like the party the nematodes were having. It looked pretty subdued under there.

She did give Hazy some SQ fluids under her wing and she gave me a prescription for an antibiotic should I need it and I have a packet of panacur wormer. The good news is that I doubt that I will be using any of it.

This morning, for the first time in over a week, Hazel was not huddled on her roost all by her lonesome but, instead, was clamoring with her sisters to come out. That, dear readers, is a significant improvement in and of itself. Chickens are unapologetically social. One of the clearest indications that she was under the weather over the past several days was her withdrawal from her flock. But today she was her old self.

I let them out to eat their kefir-yogurt-green tea breakfast and she joined in and put it away.That much hasn't changed, throughout all of this she's maintained her appetite. I felt her crop and much to my amazement it wasn't full and sloshy. She was most definitely on the mend.

I don't know what did it. She didn't get any meds, she only had the fluids. I really think it was all of the kefir and green tea that I gave her over the week and the Verm-X which is a natural, herbal worm preventative. Maybe it was the fright of going to the vet but she didn't seem all that stressed out. Lesson? I'm glad I didn't send her to heaven. I'm glad I waited it out. There was a part of me that was panicking. She is a sweet bird and I didn't want her to suffer because of indecision on my part. I don't know that I will always haul a bird off to the vet but in Hazel's case it gave me some peace of mind.

The Simple Life Made Complicated

"Overcome the notion that you must be regular. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary."

–Uta Hagen

That is the quote that is fixed to my wall for the month of May on my small calendar. Thank you, Uta for planting the little seed in my brain that I, too, possess what it takes to be extraordinary because I don't feel extraordinary today. The truth is, I hardly even feel regular. I've been feeling a bit inadequate for the last few days but I try to go through the motions of a regular day. Getting through a regular day with no glitches would be satisfying right about now. The only thing that makes me think that there is the possibility of extraordinary is seeing the progress of the garden. The new growth, the presence of blossoms or the swelling of okra or squash or tomatoes - all of that is extraordinary. Knowing that this growing garden came to be due to my intent, my planning and time and doting, that will have to do for extraordinary right now.

I don't feel particularly extraordinary in the realm of animal husbandry. My little hen, Hazel, is not her robust self and I have no idea how to help her. I knew that one day the honeymoon would end and I'd have to deal with an illness or injury with the birds. I imagined that I would pull a book off the shelf, run my finger down the index and flip to the page bearing the solution. This is not how it played out.

Last week, when Hazel was sick, I was completely bewildered but tried to play it cool. My approach at the offset was to see if her vomitting was just an isolated event. If it was, no big deal. But it wasn't. So I asked one of the vets at work their opinion. I know without seeing the bird it is unfair and they are at a distinct disadvantage but really, an opinion was all I was after. I just wanted to see if I was on the right track with my sour crop theory. I still think she had sour crop but I'm not sure that is all that is going on.

Putting Hazel up in the kennel by herself, taking her off solid food and giving her kefir & powdered greet tea for a few days seemed to have made a difference. The wicked, wicked smell emanating from her is nearly gone. She is thin, however, and has diarrhea and is unstable on her feet. From the start she's been bright and alert and her appetite never waned. Something is not right but I don't know what it is. Parasites? Could be. A tumor? Maybe. She seems big under her vent but I'm not sure.

For whatever reason, not knowing what is the matter with her, not being able to restore her to her previous vigor makes me feel helpless and anxious. I feel that I am lacking as her caretaker. I refuse to morph into a crazy chicken lady and spend money that I don't have by having her examined, x-rayed, and possibly medicated. Yes, she is darling but the fact remains that she is a chicken, she is a source of food for us. No, she is not disposable so I do what I can.

After reintroducing solid food to her, I felt she was ready to join her sisters again. She does all the chicken-y stuff - scratches in the dirt and sits in the nestbox. That's prety much the life of a hen. She walks gingerly though so I keep a close eye on her.

Maybe bringing her up and out of this illness will redeem me for my laziness and my hubris. I was lazy for popping into Petsmart, picking up a bag of what is essentially rabbit food and thinking it would be adequate nestbox material. I was a know it all for thinking that I didn't need to make grit available to the birds. I thought that all of the pebbles and dirt they picked up while scratching around would be grit enough to aid in the breakdown of their food but it wasn't. So there you have it, the bottom line. I feel like a lazy know-it-all and as a result I have a sickly little hen. I made a rockin' garden but I'm killing the birds. That's what I've been carrying around with me. Yet another puzzle solved through writing.

Why the hell would I ever need a therapist? I keep a blog, afterall!

Deja Vu

Thursday, last week, needed my attention. Slip had to be at the vet at 7:30 a.m. which may as well have been 4:00 a.m. in the morning for me. On my way home I stopped at a burger joint. Yes, at eight in the morning, but not for the obvious reasons.  It was a brief stop and soon enough I was on my way.

When I got home, I let the chickens out. Miss Hazel stayed behind on her roost. I didn't think much of it until later that morning when I noticed there was something about her that was not quite right, but that's another post for another day. I went in, sat down with a cup of coffee and a few minutes later Michael returned from his morning run.

"I was on the road behind the  house and there was one of those pet store birds in street. The neon green ones. A truck was coming down the road and drove around it so he wouldn't hit it."

A short discussion of the birds' intelligence followed and that it may have escaped from the grade school or someone's house. I got in my car to look for the little green bird in the street. I found him and followed him. He flew into a field and onto a felled tree. He flew into the brush. I tossed a small blanket over him and picked him up.

"Little Bird, what's the matter?" I asked. And like any self-respecting little green bird, he said nothing. And then it happened. The most unexpected thing. He bit the shit out of my finger.

"That little thing is mean as spit" I told Michael when I returned home, "and that's what I'm naming him. Spit."

I went from door to door asking neighbors if they had a birdcage I could borrow. Carl had one but it was "bent up". Norma used to have one but gave it away. The owner of the third house had a cat carrier and it looked like that was as close as I was going to get so I took it while the getting was good. I took it home and put timothy hay inside and a bowl of water and a slender bamboo stick for a perch. The little green bird sat on the perch and I left him there sure that he would be safe and sound until I returned from work in the evening.

It wasn't an ordinary day. Like I said before, it needed my attention. I was not going to breeze through.

I drove home with my drunk little dog riding shotgun. He was still queasy from his sedation and had thrown up on me earlier but seemed to be improving. I stopped at the pet store for a birdcage and some parakeet food. I asked the clerk why the cage wasn't 15% off like the sign said it was but he just looked at me as though I were being difficult. I had an overwhelming sense of deja vu and offered that I must have been mistaken. Nevermind. 

I left feeling excited because the birdcage was pink and white with little wire flourishes. So cute! I thought to myself how much better this bird was than a pet store bird because I found him in a field. We have a history. Somehow it seemed like Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

When I got home I settled the dog in, took a quick look at the hens and then ran to the backyard to see how the little green bird was doing. I peeked in through the holes of the carrier. There, in the timothy hay, lay Spit. Beak down, his little tail feather higher than his head. A most unnatural position, anyone could tell that. The waterbowl obscured most of his body from view. I nudged the green tuft with the slender bamboo stick. Nothing. From afar, I imagined, it must have looked like I was taunting a cat in a carrier.

Spit may have been an unnecessary distraction in a day that needed my attention but the potential friendship buoyed me up for a short while. Finding him made me feel that I somehow made a difference, that I was providing him with safety and care and food; a room with a view, even. He did not want a room with a view. That bird had bone and was not meant for captivity. He was a free agent, living on the edge of a field. I should have let him die there too. It's hard to know when to stop sometimes. It's can be difficult to know when to stand back and let the world spin as it always has even before I was here, to let it spin just as it will after I'm gone. But I love this world and its creatures. I love it and I want to care for it - for my hen and my dogs and my husband. I want to feel the spin beneath my feet and make a difference in even the smallest way while I'm here. Little Spit, for a burst of a second, let me feel like that good person.

Google: Chickens, Sour Crop

Thursday, last week, needed my attention. Slip had to be at the vet at 7:30 a.m. which may as well have been 4:00 a.m. in the morning for me. Afterwards, I returned a burger to Jack in The Box. Yes, I did that. I was given the wrong order the night before and I refused to eat it. I took it back at eight in the morning and the manager wanted to make me another burger right then and there and I told her I could not, would not eat a grilled onion swiss cheese burger at eight a.m. She looked at me as though I were being difficult. I looked at her as though she were joking. In the end I got my cash back but I had to say very clearly, "I just want my cash back," because I could tell that if I was not very, very clear we could stand staring at each other all morning long. I'm not good at mornings.

When I got home, I let the chickens out. Miss Hazel stayed behind on her roost. I didn't think she was feeling poorly, I was thinking she was like me, not a morning hen, so I let her be. A bit later she rolled out of the coop and I do mean she rolled out of the coop. She looked round and heavy like a bowling ball. I went out to see what was the matter.

"Hazel, what's the matter?" I asked. Like any self-respecting bowling ball, she said nothing. She only rolled away ever so slightly. I picked her up and she went from bowling ball to bota bag. Remember those? My, oh my. Bota bags. Well, that is exactly what she felt like – an overfilled bota bag. I could hear the liquid slosh inside of her. And then it happened. The most unexpected thing. She threw up.

I can handle a lot of things but chicken vomit is not one of them. It's nothing like a dog or a cat with their pre-puke dramatics. There is none of the heaving or sound effects with a chicken. They just sit stupidly while the fluid rises from their gut and spills out and over their half open beaks. I hate to ever refer to Hazel as stupid but she seemed oblivious to the horror that she was subjecting me to. I wanted to throw her down and run but she looked so pathetic.

I turned her upside down to empty her out and there you have what has now become a daily activity. I suspected an impaction because I filled her nestbox with timothy hay and she ate it. I know better and have kicked myself ever since. Whatever is stuck in that pelican gullet of hers has fermented and the odor is unbearable. That makes me think that she is suffering from sour crop.

Twice a day I scoop her up and take her to a quiet part of the yard away from the other hens and Beagle. I bend over, holding her upside down, her beak hovering close to the ground and I squeeze her boda bag until she is drained. From afar, I imagine that it looks like a weird tandem purging ritual - woman and hen, but it is not. I could very well join her simply from the smell but I turn my head away and hold her downward and work out the contents of her crop. It fills again several hours later.

I will not be able to do this much longer. It's the weirdest thing I have ever done in regards to caring for an animal. I want to laugh, I want to cry, I want to cull her, I want her to get better. I've dosed her with olive oil. I've added apple cider vinegar (the good stuff - Bragg's) to their drinking water. This is to neutralize the ph in her gut. They can develop a fungal infection and I've read that a dose of Monistat can aid a hen with sour crop. I'll continue with  our routine and give her some time but I have a feeling that this will not end well.

Hazel Is Feeling Poorly

My poor Hazel is under the weather. It may be sour crop. It's big, fat and watery. She sounds sloshy inside until she throws up. She throws up a lot. More to follow. I don't want to overwhelm you.