Katy Klein Has a Chat

I always wonder just how far we’ve evolved when I watch chicken behavior and then notice the same behavior in people.

Those of you following the story so far would know that our oldest and most fabulous chicken, Clucksy, had a stroke. More strokes followed and although she’s made a decent recovery since, we now need to lift her onto her perch at night.

Dusty took this recovery time to start residing on top of Clucksy. Not just when she was sitting down either. Should Clucksy be standing upright, Dusty would leap onto her back. Clucksy’s more stationary habits were leading Dusty to be a little senior citizen before her time.

So we decided new chickens were in order and trekked to Bulleen. Basically we pick the chickens based on personality, so in addition to our Australorp and Pekin Bantam, we now have a Sussex and a Wynandotte. Pegs was named for her lovely legs and Megs (or Mega) was the size of a sparrow and had the same markings.

Whenever we bring chickens home I always expect them to jump out of their box and run over to the other chickens. But chickens are like children, in that they need to hang out beside each other first before they start playing nicely together. If you act too eager, like Megs did, you run the risk of losing a couple of feathers.

Luckily in the chicken world everything can be reset within 3 days. Introducing two chickens to two chickens makes it easier for them as any bullying gets divided up. So now they all hang out together and cuddle up together at night. 

Anyway, it occurred to me that integration of new ideas or people isn’t that dissimilar to bringing home new chickens. There is the initial hesitation and then some pecking to establish dominance. Then there is an uneasy truce and finally after three days it’s considered the norm. Of course some people are a tad more mulish than chickens….

Well I have to say that you never stop learning.

For those of you that have been reading the enthralling adventures of our chickens you will know that last month we lost two of our girls to a rather nasty tom cat.

So to make ourselves feel better and to get a mate for Clucksy, we had to get a new chicken. We tried a new pet store in Bulleen and were pleasantly surprised by the range of chicks and enormously huge Isa Brown’s available. For the first time we got to pick out the chicken. We chose the one that seemed to be command. Her name is Dusty and she is a Pekin Bantam with little feathers over her feet like little feather dusters (hence the name). WE decided to stop naming the chickens after food in case it encouraged any more cat attacks.

Dusty is the first chicken we’ve bought that came complete with chicken skills. When you bring home a cage reared bird, they seem rather surprised by what free range has to offer and take a while to learn how to scratch and dust bath. Dusty in all of her 10 cm glory immediately jumped out of her box, proceeded to peck and scratch and when Clucksy decided to establish dominance, flew into her face to give her what for. It was like a sparrow attacking an eagle, hilarious.

Dusty is a determined little miss so on the second night when we were trying to put them to bed, she decided she would much prefer to sleep under Clucksy. Now Clucksy isn’t maternal at the best of times but lately she has moved into downright narky. After pecking at Dusty didn’t remove her, Clucksy looked at us as if to say, ‘Do I have to put up with this?”.

Anyway, just when we thought things were getting better, Clucksy had a chicken stroke. At first I thought she had a sore foot because she was having difficulties walking. She kept falling and had to use her wing to steady herself. When I couldn’t find anything wrong with her leg I called the Vet, seeing her fall over when she tried to eat was just too much to bear. The first Vet laughed at me when I asked for an appointment for my chicken but kindly gave me the number for the Bird Specialist in Burwood.

The Bird Specialist was a lot more understanding, apparently we’re not the only ones who bring in our chickens. The Vet thought it was neurological. And much like a person-stroke, Clucksy did make a fairly good recovery over the next few days.

Initially though she was a very unhappy chicken. Dusty took this opportunity to sleep on top of Clucksy and then wiggle underneath her at night since Clucksy wasn’t up to pecking her into place. Even worse our 10 cm chicken started crowing imagining herself to be the top chick.

Anyway, Clucksy is still limping but otherwise seems happy and healthy. Dusty has been relegated to the second rung of the chicken roost. And we have learned a fairly important lesson about not feeding your chickens too many fatty foods.

On Tuesday morning, two of my beautiful chickens were killed by a nasty tom cat. Clucksy survived, I would say by the grace of the gods, except it was more like the grace of sleeping in.

I didn’t even really understand what had happened as I stood in a garden covered with feathers. Tandi and Parma were gone. Parma was a big chicken and we’d never had any problems with cats before. Then I saw the big grey tom cat on the fence eyeing off Clucksy and flicking its tail. He jumped off the fence when I yelled and jumped straight back up again.

Clucksy is completely dejected, she hasn’t talked to us since, not even to demand treats. She doesn’t even run when she sees the compost bowl which was previously one of her favourite events of the day.

Clucks watched me bury her mates and has stood by their graves ever since.  It just breaks my heart. I know they’re just chickens but they kept us so happy with their little chicken antics and cluckings. 

So I wanted to say goodbye to Tandi, our lovely teenager. Such a little miss, the youngest and bravest of our chickens. Constantly leading the others to new and unexplored territories like down the driveway. For some reason her favourite spot was in the patio planter. The moment my back was turned, in she’d hop and up and down she’d strut.

And Parma, the most beautiful of our chickens. Not so bright, but still Clucky’s best friend. Parma was the most prolific of egg layers, every day without fail. Usually she’d announce the event by loud cackling as if each day surprised by what had popped out of her bottom.

May they both go to a happy place where there is plenty of scratchings and treats. They will be missed.

I really like operas. Each one is different. Some you see for the music, some have amazing singing, some have laughs and some are all about the action. Some operas even have nudity. All of them are about love. It turns out that I have racked up about eleven operas thus far and hope for far more. But the thing that has intrigued me since my very first opera, is why the heroine has to die.

In the operas I have seen, there have been two where no one dies. These are usually the comic operas like Die Fledermaus and the Barber of Seville. Don Giovanni is the only opera I’ve seen where it’s the guy who gets it (rather oddly by a concrete statue that has come to life).

But overwhelmingly, it’s the chick who has to die for love and the list of dying options is fairly varied. Here’s just a few:

Tosca – by throwing herself off the battlements.

Madame Butterfly – Stabs herself.

La Boheme – Consumption (Tuberculosis).

La Traviata – TB again.

AIDA – sealing herself in a vault so she can be buried alive with her fella. There’s devotion for you.

Lakme – Eating some poisonous Datura leaf.

Turandot – stabbing herself for love.

I haven’t seen Il Travatore and Rigoletto but the chicks in these operas sacrifice themselves to save their lovers. And if that wasn’t enough, one then takes poison from her ring and the other one is mortally wounded.

Maybe we just don’t believe in romance like the old days or maybe RSVP is just so handy we don’t need to go to these extremes to prove ourselves.  But if you really want to impress your fella next Valentines Day ladies you may want to re-think the chocolates and cards and say it with TB!

Weird people wantto talk to me. I’m not sure what it is but I’m like a beacon to them, especially on public transport. It could be because public transport seems to feature higher than normal levels of certain populations. These include the smelly’s, the terrible-music-played-at-full-volume’s, the-unable-to-move-over’s (who put the ‘it’s all about me’ back into PT), the inane-mobile-phone-conversations-at-full-voice’s and the NQRs. It could be that I am particularly lucky but nearly every day I will be sitting next to one of these people. And if the carriage is pretty much empty they will usually sit down right beside me, personal space is for suckers!

Now every time I have had the pleasure of catching a train at Coburg station I have some of the wierdest interactions I have ever had And this is compared with a life time of weird interactions.

The first time I was fortunate to listen to two men discuss the fact that their mate was unlikely to get away with not doing jail time this time around. I think that was for holding up a servo.

The next time I met the mad Need-A-Light lady who when I told her I didn’t smoke said the she hadn’t either until she was 34, it was the kids that made her start, they caused her so much stress!

But yesterday took the cake. Witch-Lady walked out on the platform and I knew my beacon was at full signal. She looked as close as possible to the wicked witches in fairy tales as someone wearing holey trackie dacks could. She was all curled over, with straggly black hair covering her face, hauling some bundles around and used her walking stick to poke the train information button. I was sitting on a 2 metre long bench and she sat down right next to me with not a centimetre to spare. The first thing she did was lift both feet off the ground as if to examine her sneakers, she remained like this for the 7 minutes it took for the train to come along. Upon spying me writing away (please don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me) she said “I like to write. I like to write so I can look at the words I wrote, they look nice’. As a kid she learnt to write by copying out encyclopedias unless of course she went yabbying with her sister. She was 38 and looked about 60. The conversation pretty much went down hill from there as I tried to appear enthralled by the notes I was writing (’That must be interesting!”).

So if your keen on meeting some interesting people I highly recommend Coburg Station on the inbound platform side.

For ages I thought I was the world’s worst bride. I didn’t want to go frock shopping, I don’t care if serviettes match the flower arrangement and I am never going to spend time on Bonboniere. In fact I am perfectly happy to continue on living in sin. Given the chance I would get married on holiday with whomever we could muster up to be witnesses and then kick back with a cocktail (or two, okay maybe four). The thought of spending a year planning my fairytale wedding is just too gruesome to contemplate.  I would have thought that most guys would be super happy to have a low stress, relaxed big day. But I was wrong.

Bridezillas are a well known phenomenon and are mentioned through gritted teeth by anyone lucky enough to be chosen to be their bridesmaids. But it would appear that we have a new contender for the title. For those of you who thought it was meant to be all about the bride, turns out that may no longer be true. Enter the GROOMZILLA!

I think I mentioned that I really wanted to get married at Crocosaurus in the Cage of Death on a recent trip to Darwin. The wedding photographer would have cost $110, white bikinis and board shorts would have been around $150 and getting the croc to cough up the rings – priceless. But noooooooo, I wasn’t allowed to do that. That would have been too easy.

Turns out that my ‘non-traditional’ partner is in fact fairly traditional. It did take me a while to figure out we were at cross-purposes though. My version of ‘non-traditional’ involves no fancy dress, no make-up or hair do, no guest list and preferably getting married overseas.  Turns out that his version of ‘non-traditional’ is not having a wedding in a church.

I tried every option I could think of to find a happy compromise. Getting married on holiday and then having a big party when we got back to celebrate. NO. Having a small guest list and going to a really good restaurant (to escape the chicken or beef dilemma). Fine as long as we could invite a lot of people. Inviting everyone to a party and then getting married unexpectedly. NO. We were allowed to elope, as long as every came along with us (Def. ‘Elopement’: Run away to marry secretly). For me, the only person I want there is him. For him, the only people he wants there comes to an 80 person guest list. Which isn’t a problem unless you happen to be paying for the hole shindig yourselves.

So I’ve watched other brides rise to the challenge and get the happy day sorted. One particularly focused new fiancee I knew had the venue booked and the dress bought within two weeks of the question. Some of them even complain that their fellas aren’t at all keen on being involved (oh I wish). But I’ll get there eventually Groomzilla or no Groomzilla.

So I was reading the local paper which is chock full of stories to interest community minded individuals and there was a story on the local Freemasons.  Turns out the Freemasons seemed a little put out by the conspiracy theories in Dan Brown’s latest book and thought they needed to set the record straight about whether they rode goats and secretly controlled the world (not true according to The Leader’s article). They also seem to be having problems recruiting new members which is one problem with your ’secret’ society, very hard to market.

So they had organised an open night at the grand puba masonic lodge and all were welcome to come along. I figured that this chance wouldn’t come up too often so off we went on a Friday night (I know, I know, my social life is sadly lacking).

I have to admit that the open night was pretty interesting. ‘Merv’  was a witty and informative speaker who explained what the Freemasons were all about, the symbology they used and what happens at lodge meetings (apparently a lot of singing and acting out plays to learn about a suitable moral code).  The overall values espoused and their commitment to the community and charitable works was lovely. One sentence in their Freemasonry Victoria newsletter put it as “so that he may live respected and die regretted”. The only Freemason benefits seemed to be 10% off at a certain plumbing company advertised in their newsletter.

I was also impressed by the use of the ceremonial aprons at the meetings. The aprons are less about baking cookies and more about protection of clothing for your working masons, which may be less necessary nowadays. The ceremonial aprons do look marvellous in the photos, although I suspect they would never have been seen in your medieval quarry.

The only disappointing aspect of the evening for me was that women were quite pointedly excluded throughout the night. Quite honestly the fact that women can’t join the Freemasons doesn’t worry me at all since singing and play-acting isn’t really my thing. It was more the fact that the ways in which they left the female attendees out were just unnecessary. They shook hands with my partner but not with me, the information packs were for the male guests and how many male guests were there here tonight? All a tad Grade 6 for me (maybe scared of girl germs?). Which for a society that prides itself on the inclusion of all creeds, faiths and occupations just seemed a little bit false. After all women have been out in the workforce for at least a couple of years now.

I suspect that in there is one good reason that women are excluded though.  Most likely it’s because meetings would never get anywhere because the women would be laughing so hard seeing men wearing aprons and saying that it would be nice if the men could wear them a bit more at home. That and the possibility of women telling each other about the secret handshakes is fairly high.

A little while ago it occurred to me that it seemed like I had to trim my toe nails fairly frequently. But just how often was I trimming them?  Were my toe nails growing more profusely than others? Was I a contender for some Toe Nail Growing Competition?

To answer these important questions I decided I needed to do a bit of an every day scientific experiment. At 6 pm on Sunday I cut my toe nails. Then I forgot about it for two weeks. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that within this time my toe nails had grown an impressive 1 mm, or 0.5 mm/week. No wonder I felt like I was always trimming them, I am probably averaging a trim every 3-4 weeks.

So I did a bit of research (i.e. I checked at least four websites) to check on toe nail growth rates in case I needed to get onto a certain Book of Records. Turns out that fingernails grow about 3mm a month and take 3-6 months to grow out. Toe nails take a lot longer to grow out at 12-18 months. Growth rates are dependent on age, gender, season (summer being the season for toenail growth), exercise level, diet and hereditary factors.

So it doesn’t seem like I will be crowned Miss Toenail 2009 which is a little disappointing. I’ll just have to settle for being  impressed by my own toe nail growth rates in the off-season (winter). Apparently cutting your nails encourages growth so if I give up exercise and regular nail maintenance I should be able to at least slow down their enthusiasm.

So last week I got TB which came as a big surprise to me. I had gone for my new job medical which I hadn’t been at all worried about since I had one ten months ago. The staff health nurse had told me I wouldn’t need to come back for the results. So when I got a letter telling me to come back to the clinic I was fairly sure that it was a bad thing. 

Sure enough the next morning I was told I had TB. I was also told ‘not to worry’ which just wasn’t going to happen since I was freaking out. How had I been healthy ten months ago and then suddenly caught a case of the TB’s? Where does one even catch TB these days? Was I consumptive and should I feature in my own opera La BohemeKaty?

To make matters worse I had checked the test information which assured me that the test was very specific and very rarely wrong. Although the doctor said that he had seen three false positive results in three years so I had some hope.  So either my last test was wrong, this new test result was wrong or somehow I had caught TB walking past someone in the hallway. Usually you need to live with someone with the active disease but I was pulling the immaculate infection.

The doctor seemed quite bemused that I was so worried since I only had the latent form of the infection. Which has a 1% chance of becoming an active infection in your lifetime (he left out just how hard it is to treat once it’s activated). You can treat the latent infection but since I had just turned 35 there was a fair chance I would get liver damage from the drugs (after 40 the chance is so good they don’t treat you at all). Awesome, I had become Typhoid Mary. I couldn’t even talk to my friends in case they thought I had the cooties. Although I did manage to trump one mate who told me he had gout, that’s nothing I said I’ve got the TB’s!

Anyway the doctor said that we would test again in two months time since there was nothing I could really do about it. I said we would test again right now. He thought I was being pushy. I thought I was removing two months of extra worry from my life. It was bad enough for the one week I was TB positive since every time I coughed I thought ‘that’s it, it’s started’!

Turns out I was right to be pushy, my next test came back negative. I’m not sure if I was relieved or angry. What I do know is that the test possibly shouldn’t be marketed as very specific and very rarey wrong, it’s obviously pretty crap. The lesson to be learned here is to always demand a recount and only worry once its absolutely positively undeniably true.

So a lot of us never take the time to think about how our pets are dealing with ageing.  We are so caught up with our wrinkle creams, tautening and toning and doing our best to dress as lamb instead of mutton that we don’t consider why we are the only species that seems overly concerned about it all.

My favourite chicken, Clucksy, recently underwent ‘the change’. She went from a four egg a week girl, to an every 3 day girl, to a really can’t be bothered but I will sit on the nest anyway because I like to have a nap girl. Whilst she was laying, Clucksy was looking a little threadbare.  Then when she hit menopause she was completely miserable.  She wouldn’t even move for treats which are usually Clucksy’s main purpose in life.  She was so listless that I became concerned that she was ’shell-stuck’.  This is a nasty chicken ailment that is exactly what it sounds like.  My 1940’s chicken book recommended an oiled finger to the vent to remove the offending egg shell. It was singularly the most gruesome thing I have ever done. Strangely Clucksy didn’t seem to mind at all, in fact she seemed quite pleased with the attention.  She even strutted around a little afterwards like she had just got lucky. Turns out she wasn’t shell stuck at all but getting a bit of loving does seem to have helped her turn the corner.

Anway the moral of the story is that although Clucksy was a fairly sad chicken for a week she is now back to her usual treat-pecking ways.  And she has regained her former plumeage.  In fact she has never looked better, glossy, sleek and full of feathers. I can only hope that the very same happens for me, without the feathers though, there’s no cream for that.