Wascally Wabbits

We successfully navigated our ten plus hour roundtrip car ride to my mother-in-law's for Thanksgiving with few incidents besides Scrappy Doo spilling his root beer bottle filled with pee all over the backseat.  

The husband and my brother-in-law start the journey driving the Mini Cooper back to my mother-in-law which leaves me alone with three kids, one farting dog and a puppy we had never taken on a car trip before. Once I pour almost an entire bottle of Rescue Remedy for Dogs down both the dogs' gullets (a truly remarkable product for anyone with neurotic mutts),

I purchase a Coke large enough to be banned in  NYC, and buy each of the boys their own 16 oz root beer and an assortment of snacks containing all the different colored dyes food scientist have invented so far. I am the mother who insists on healthy, mostly organic eating on an everyday basis, but get me in a car for more than three hours and you can eat or drink whatever you want.  The more sugar, fat and artificial coloring the better.

We stop about half way through the trip since we all needed a pee and the husband joins us in the van for the rest of the trip west leaving B-I-L to drive the Cooper.   The husband stops for nothing and no one when he is traveling on the highway so when James Dean announces that he needs to pee again after having finished his large soda, the husband tells him to stick his penis in his empty root beer bottle to relieve himself.  Peeing into drink cups in the car is not a new concept for my boys so JD quickly empties his bladder into the bottle and puts the cap back on.  The amber liquid in the bottle that was supposed to contain a "caramel colored" drink tickles my funny bone.  What would happen if we got stopped by the police?  I imagine some State Trooper asking the husband to step out of the car thinking he is trying to be tricky and drink his beer out of a soda bottle.  How would we convince him it was actually pee and not a Heineken?  Yuck.

Minutes later, unable to resist his constant urge to do what his older brother does, Scrappy Doo announces that he too has to pee.  Why I put the little guy in the third row of seats is still a mystery to me but I instruct him to take his little winker out and repeat the process his brother just completed and then hand the bottle of pee back up to me.  He manages to get the pee into the bottle but as he is screwing the cap on, the bottle falls to the floor splattering the boy and Pepper the farting dog as well as soaking the floor in the back of the van.  I go Mission Impossible and unbuckle myself so I can climb over two kids and a dog in the second row of seats while driving 75 mph, squeeze into the third row and sani wipe everything.  Next time I am driving.

We finally get to our destination and have a fun couple of days visiting.  Now, some of you may remember from my blog a month or so ago that my M-I-L purchased some angora rabbits and mated one of the females for us so the boys could experience the miracle of baby bunny birth.  She actually mated both females but was unsure if they were pregnant.  Since there were no signs of labor or even evidence that the fluff ball bunny was pregnant, we loaded her up with the two dogs, three kids and three adults (B-I-L was now coming in the van with us) and headed home with the promise of a stop at Toys' R Us to make the ride a little more bearable.

My brother-in-law regaled us with tales of the pet rabbits he had as a kid, though the stories were a little more Stephen King than Beatrix Potter. Father and son rabbits banished from the hutch for fighting over the affections of the mother rabbit only to start an all out war in the backyard: Oedipus had nothing on this son.

I am starting to get an uneasy feeling about this pregnant rabbit thing.  Plus, poor Baby Bunny is still not going to be able to have a friend in his hutch because that will just make more bunnies.

The day after we get home my mother-in-law calls to tell us that the other female rabbit just gave birth. Prince is hopeful that our bunny (who James Dean named Little Bunny Foo Foo) might give birth at any moment, but she was mated before the other rabbit and is showing no signs of nesting.  The following morning I get up to check on the rabbit and nothing seems to have changed.  Two hours later Prince tells me he thinks there is a dead baby in the cage with her.  Sure enough, Little Bunny Foo Foo gave birth to two babies and then promptly killed them.  I am sure she was stressed out being in a new place and all, but even my crazy ADHD dog growing up was able to successfully whelp and suckle twelve puppies.  I think the Ancient Greeks were probably raising rabbits when they wrote their plays.

Prince immediately blames me for the deaths.  I guess I was supposed to play midwife to a rabbit I wasn't even sure was pregnant instead of making his breakfast, feeding his dogs,  and doing his dirty laundry so he could have his "comfy socks" for basketball practice.  Can you tell I am a little bitter?  Once I give him my best "How dare you say that to me" speech, he calms down and realizes that the rabbit was just being a shitty mother and he had better be nice to me in case I get any ideas.

Now that she is no longer pregnant we decide to throw poor Baby Bunny a bone and put Little Bunny Foo Foo in the hutch with him since we don't have to worry about them fighting over who gets to eat the young since the young are already dead.  Well, I guess she was feeling a little hormonal after just giving  birth and killing her babies and she pounced on top of poor Baby Bunny and started ripping the fur out of his neck.  I am sure I wouldn't really feel like entertaining a suitor right after I gave birth, but she was going for blood.  The husband quickly scoops up Baby Bunny and put him into the chicken tractor.

Now we have two lone rabbits in separate houses and no babies.  The new rabbit is no longer called Little Bunny Foo Foo, but BFF as an homage to my search for friends.  The only difference is that BF does not stand for Best Friend but rather Bitch Face.  The kids and I bond over our dislike for our homicidal rabbit and we have a good chuckle in the car when we come up with her new name.  Not the Popcorn Bowl Moment I wanted, but I will take it nonetheless.

gesundheit Chicky Rivera

The boys and I were outside last week while the chickens were pecking away. All of a sudden we heard this weird sound. "Casnuff."  I looked at Prince to see if he had just snorted over something he saw the dumb dogs doing, but he looked as puzzled as I was by the origin of this strange sound. All of a sudden I heard it again and realized it had come from Chicky Rivera.

"Did she just sneeze?" asked Prince.

"I think it was a cough."

She does it again and follows up with a hoarse cluck as she tries to intimidate the poor beleaguered Kyle the Rooster yet again.   Holy shit.  My chicken is sick!

I have three kids and have had many dogs and cats in my day, so I know how to deal with most sick creatures.  I have stumbled into steamy bathrooms cradling small colicky children more times than I care to remember.  I have dosed a dog with vitamin K because she was accidentally poisoned by the husband (don't ask).  I have blown antibiotics down a cat's throat through a straw because he was so upset by the fact that I left him for a week (according to my vet) that he got a urinary tract infection.  I have even held a horse while another really cute vet shoved some medicine up the horse's pooper. However, I have never dealt with a sick chicken.

If there is one thing I hate it is a stuffy nose.  When I was a kid a bottle of nasal spray was always on my bedside table.  It really sucks to not be able to breath through your nose while you are trying to go to sleep.  Damn near impossible to do really.  My mother tried to take the nasal spray away from me at one point because she was concerned I had a little problem.  That did not go over well.

I have definitely projected my hatred of congestion onto my kids. I was obsessed with picking boogers out of their little noses while they nursed or napped or both.  I have pinned more than one down so I could squirt some saline up there and insert the booger sucker to suck out all of the snot.  This was often met with screams of torture.  When Prince was a toddler, his room was like a Koala's womb complete with white noise and moist eucalyptus scented air.

I was a little perplexed by what to do about a congested chicken.   Even if I still had a snot sucker, I don't know where her nose is really.  In my ignorance I did the one thing you should never do when seeking medical advice... I went online.

Most people know that whatever ailment you google, all roads eventually lead to cancer.  Well, when you google coughing chicken, all roads lead to dead chicken.

I am not sure how she got sick.  We moved the chickens into the chicken Taj Mahal.  I have enough bedding in there to keep them cozy all winter and I installed a heat lamp for the really cold nights. I even put a little apple cider vinegar in their water every day to help fight infection, but she got sick nonetheless.  I sat in the hen house for a while studying her and wondering if I could actually eat her if she did keel over.  I decided to call the vet.

"Hi.  My chicken is coughing and sneezing."

There is silence on the other end as I am sure the woman who answered the phone at the vet's office is trying to get me on speaker phone so she and the other women in the office can have a good laugh.

"I'm not really sure what you should do.  I will have the vet call you back."

The vet calls me back and says it could be anything from a virus to a tumor and I should call the Avian Veterinary Center at Cornell.

Now, I love my chickens, but I am not going to be driving four hours to take Chicky Rivera to the vet.  I decide to put my motherly know-how to work and do what I do for my kids.

Chicken soup is out because that is just weird.  I do make her a nice warm tea with honey, lemon, apple cider vinegar and cayenne pepper.  I mash up some garlic with banana and flax which she still hasn't touched a week later.  I then go to the Feed and Seed to find out if they have any holistic treatments.  I really don't want to put her on antibiotics, nor do I know how the hell I would get her take them.  She is a feisty one.

The Feed and Seed is the greatest store.  I love the people who work there. They are super knowledgeable and nice.  One of the owners may be my new fantasy BFF.  Sorry Nigella.  I ask about equine grade Apple Cider Vinegar which I read about on one of the Chicken Chat Rooms.  The guy looks at me like I am crazy.  He has never heard of such a thing and no one else in the store has either.  It is now glaringly obvious that I am a dilettante.  He hands me some oil that smells just like the concoctions I have smeared on my children's chests over the years, and tells me to put it on all the chickens' heads and under their wings twice a day.

OK. Doing this to my rooster is easy.  I am the only female who actually pays attention to his attempts at cockiness and he likes it when I pick him up and pet him, but the hens are another story.  Every once in a while Chicky Rivera will squat down in a submissive hen pose when she has a lapse in bitchiness, but most of the time she and Jonah just run away from me.

I lure them all into the Taj Mahal with some sunflower seeds and close the door.  I grease up both hands with the smelly oil and hilarity ensues.  Every time I get close to one hen, she darts in the other direction.  I chase them around in circles diving at them only to miss every time. Kyle, who is nicely lubed up, is on the roost pacing back and forth clucking in confusion.  I know he probably likes me better than the two hens, but it is his job to protect them.  Should he attack me or help me?

I finally get a hold of Chicky Rivera and rub the oil all over her like I am about to roast her, just in case I can't catch her again in the morning. I sprinkle a little of the oil in her bedding as well and turn on the heat lamp.

A couple of days go by and she is still coughing and sneezing but laying eggs and beating up Kyle, so I am hopeful that she is on the mend.  I try to get the husband on board with bringing her in for a steam while he is in the shower but he shuts that crazy right down.

I have plans to go into the city to see my girlfriends and am close to canceling for fear of leaving sick little Chicky.  The husband informs me that under no circumstances will he be rubbing oil on chickens but he will put the heat lamp on and give them hot water.  I am going to go buy a humidifier.

My new BFFs

I have a very complicated relationship with Martha Stewart.  She scares the shit out of me.  I know a few people who have worked for her in the past.  I will not divulge names in order to protect them.  She sounds like a nightmare of a boss for whom I would never want to work.  Many of her DIY projects make my eyes roll back into my head as I nearly choke on my tongue.  Then there is the September cover of Martha Stewart Living where she is apparently tormenting a baby who wants a toy.

But part of me also wishes desperately to be more like Martha.  I think she is pretty badass for going to prison and walking out wearing her signature pageant smile and a fetching poncho that her celly made for her.  I also covet her collection of green glass vases she displays effortlessly in her elegant Maine farmhouse, and why can't I have a English flower garden that looks like Lucy Honeychurch is going to emerge through the lilies at any moment?

Unfortunately, I don't and I won't which is why I came to terms with my need to distance myself from Martha as soon as we purchased the farmette.  The restraining order is reinstated whenever I see a copy of her magazine while waiting in line at the grocery store.  The holiday season is an especially difficult time to stave off her advances.  She is a cruel temptress, but I stay strong.

All hell broke loose the other night though when Martha was a guest on my beloved NPR show, "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me."  She was funny and witty and even dropped the F bomb.  Be still my heart.  Have I been wrong about Martha all this time?  Would she really be an awesome friend to hang out with?

A little backstory on me for anyone who is reading this and doesn't actually know me.  I am a very social person and I love NPR.  I love my family and spending time in the testosterone cloud that is my home, but my girlfriends and my NPR keep me sane.  Scrappy Doo is the only one in the family who doesn't seem to understand the unspoken rule that no one is to come into the kitchen while I am cooking dinner and listening to, "All Things Considered."  You don't want to know the wrath that comes down if they interrupt, "This American Life."

Friendship has been a little more difficult up here on the farmette than it was in the city.  Don't get me wrong, I have some great friends up here, but I don't get to hang with them and gab the way I could in the city.  Playground time in the city was as much for me as it was for the kids.  If one of my favorite moms was in the playground, I would force my children to stay long after all of their friends had gone home so she and I could chew the fat.

The poor husband has to play substitute girlfriend for me now.  I linger outside of his office when he is home working waiting for him to look up so I can share some piece of information I probably just heard on NPR or a funny observation about one of the animals or the boys.  He tries his best to engage in a conversation, but he isn't the Chatty Cathy I am and I can tell he just wants to get back to looking at listings for farm auctions in the area.

What does all of this have to do with Martha Stewart you wonder? Well, I have this habit of daydreaming about whether certain famous women I hear on NPR would turn into my new best friend if I met them at a party. For instance, I am sure Susan Stamberg, Cokie Roberts and I would have a lot of laughs together but they would probably be more like older sisters than BFF's.  I don't think I would hit it off with Sylivia Poggioli because I don't like the affected way she pronounces her name every time she is on the air.  I would learn a lot from Ofeibea Quist Arcton, but I don't think I could ever belch in front of her or gossip about Renee Montagne.  Amy Dickinson would be a promising best friend because she is hysterical and she lives not too far from here.  We could read some of her Ask Amy letters together and make fun of people's pathetic lives.  I am afraid she would think I was jealous of her though because she is a hugely successful writer and I have a blog read by a few of my friends.

Yes.  I really have put way too much thought into this.  So, when Martha showed up on my  NPR dropping the F bomb, I started to rethink my ban on all things Martha.  Alas, ours would be an ill-fated friendship.  I would be a basket case if she ever came over and I think she is too much of a social climber to hang with me and my mutts anyway.  There is one person on NPR though that I am absolutely 100% sure would become my best friend if we ever met: Celebrated food writer and Food Network star Nigella Lawson.

Nigella is the whole package in the BFF department.  She is beautiful but not in that stick figure Barbie Doll way like Giada de Laurentis.  Like that woman actually eats what she cooks.

Nigella likes to cook just like I do and more importantly she likes to eat.  She also loves to share her food with friends and family just like I do.  I can imagine us sitting at a huge farm table together with our families laughing and eating.

She also has that dry sardonic British wit I love.  She even admitted on an NPR segment that she has the children help her in the kitchen because she is too lazy to play with them.  What's not to love?

It is true we run in slightly different social circles. She is married to super wealthy Charles Saatchi and she lives in London, but I am still positive we would be great chums if our paths ever crossed.  So in honor of my good friend Nigella, I would like to share her wonderful recipe for chocolate zucchini cake.  It is tasty and gives you something to do with all that freaking zucchini that grows in everyone's garden.  I copied this from her website: www.nigella.com/recipes/view/chocolate-zucchini-cake-1356 so you can see her funny Britishisms.  Sigh.


Ingredients

90g butter
1 tsp orange rind( i sub mint essence)
1 cup castor sugar (i use normal)
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups self raising flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup milk
1 cup grated zucchini
1/2 cup chopped pecans ( i omit due to school regs)
Method

Grease 15cm x 25cm loaf tin, line base with paper.
Cream butter and sugar and rind ( if using) in a small bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beat until combined.
Transfer to a large bowl. Stir in dry sifted ingredients, milk zucchini and pecans.
Spread into pan.
Bake 180C/350F for about 45 mins.
Stand 3 mins before turning out onto rack. Spread with icing, if using, when cold. (I add the mint essence after the butter and sugar creaming)

And They Call it Puppy Love?

My father died when I was 18 after a long illness.  I don't have a lot of memories of him, but I do remember the three things we had in common: We were both lefties.  We both loved baseball.  And most importantly, we both loved dogs.

When I was in grammar school, my mother took a weekend job at the local hospital leaving me and dear old dad to our own devices.  He would let me do things like watch the Three Stooges on Saturday morning while enjoying an icy cold coke.  I was also allowed to ride my bike three miles to a friend's house even though he had never met her parents, did not have their telephone number nor any idea where they lived.  He was the one you went to when you knew mom would say, "No."

I am not sure how we started our weekly puppy quest, but every Saturday we would scour the classified section of the Newburyport Daily News in search of Golden Retriever or Labrador puppies.  Dad would circle the most promising ads and call to get directions so we could go, "take a look."

In the beginning we truly did just go to, "take a look" sometimes driving two hours to another state for a chance to play with a litter of pudgy little pups. Dad had the same story for every breeder.  He wanted to start breeding puppies himself and needed to investigate the puppies lineage before committing to buy.  He'd be in touch. In reality, we were both just scared shitless of what my mother would do if we brought home a puppy.  Soon though, we just said fuck it and decided to bring one home.  How could mom be mad once she saw how cute the puppy was and how happy it made us?  Pretty mad is the answer.

There were a few she made us take right back and a couple she let us keep.  We even convinced her to  let us start breeding Golden Retrievers.  Dad and his mother found a beautiful little golden puppy named Molly.

Everyone was sure she was a champion who would produce Best in Show puppies. Unfortunately, like many Golden Retrievers, she suffered from hip problems and insanity.  We couldn't breed her but we could all end up in the emergency room as a direct result of her "love."  Dad had a broken bone under his eye from Molly running like a steam engine straight into his face while he was bent over trimming a hedge.  I broke my front teeth after deciding to literally harness her energy to pull me on my skateboard.

My memories of Molly either influenced or scarred me depending on how you look at it.  I have never been interested in owning another Retriever, thus the non-guarding livestock guard dog we now have.

The husband had the boys start making their Christmas lists last week and top of Prince's list was another puppy.  The husband put his foot down and refused to entertain the idea.  Prince and I strategized to develope a convincing argument.  We tried the Noah's Ark argument that we needed two of every animal.  Didn't work.  Prince was lonely and needed another dog who would play fetch.  A little wiggle room there, but still not budging. A true guard dog that would protect us during the class war (more on that later).  That did give him pause, but seeing how the livestock guardian spends his nights sleeping in the house, the husband was skeptical that any puppy we get would actually be used for its intended purpose.   Finally, I used the same argument I am imagining my father used on my mother when he convinced her to breed puppies... making money.

The husband is all about making money off of our farmette.  There are some pretty decent tax benefits from having a working farm, though to actually make it your sole source of income is a struggle to say the least. Since some purebred puppies can sell for over $1,000 each I show him how we could make $15,000/year breeding puppies.  Plus, it will be such a great experience for the boys to witness the miracle of birth.

"Isn't that why we have a pregnant rabbit?" he counters.

 I am wondering if we will be able to find one of those stickers for the back window of the van?.  You know, the ones with the stick figure family that reflects the makeup of the car owner's family?    I haven't seen one yet with 100 rabbits.

The husband sighs and walks away leaving me free and clear to start my puppy search.

I have a friend in Italy.  I could have her find me a Maremma or Italian Spinone breeder and I could take a trip over to Italy to pick up our little money maker.  The problem is, then I need to find a male in the states to breed her with.  Maybe we get a male and female?

I finally come up for air one afternoon after an extensive online puppy search and ask Prince what kind of dog he wants. After all, this is supposed to be his puppy.

"I want one that will play fetch and be a friend for Pepper."

Shit.  This kid needs a retriever, but there is no way I am getting a purebred.  The husband will divorce me for sure when he falls victim to the unbridled affection and slobber of one of these beasts.  I shift gears and start looking at mix breeds.  I need to combine the hyper activity of a lab with the mellowness of a giant dog. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing what mix most of the pound puppies have in them.  I always love the photos of the pitbulls on Petfinder that are labeled, "lab/shepherd mix."  Sorry to any of you pitbull lovers out there. That is one animal I will not be hoarding.

I find out from a guy at the Y that someone who works there just had a litter of puppies.  He was attempting to breed his female lab with a male lab, but the labradoodle snuck in there first.  So now he has labradordles.  This isn't the ying and yang Golden Newfoundland I had envisioned but we decide to go "take a look."

The whole way there I feel my feet getting a little chilly.  I tell Prince repeatedly, "If this isn't exactly what you want, we don't have to take it."

What moron thinks a ten year old boy who wants a puppy is going to walk away from a three month old lab?  Oh yeah, me.

So, Friday we came home with a new puppy.  A couple of months sooner than anticipated, but we get to cross that one off the Christmas list.  It may be a problem that Scrappy Doo has a puppy on his Christmas list as well.

The one good thing about bringing home a three month old puppy is that you actually appreciate your other dog.  Pepper doesn't cry all night in his crate.  I don't have to get up at 4 in the morning to take Pepper out to pee.  Pepper doesn't shit all over his crate twice during the night so I have to spend my entire Sunday cleaning bedding and washing poopy puppy.

When Prince asked what we were going to do yesterday because he was bored,  I nearly jumped across the table to tear his throat out.  Go play with your pain in the ass puppy that kept me up all night while you slept!!

It is Monday morning.  I am tired and unshowered because I had to use all of the hot water to clean the puppy after Pepper decided to "play" with her stinky ass outside thus sending her sliding across the muddy yard into the runoff from the sump pump in the basement.

As I sit here trying to figure out how I will ever be able to leave my house again since I don't think Athena (that is her name)  in an Ergo will be allowed in Hannaford's Supermarket, I am suddenly aware of why my mother never wanted a puppy. But when I look at her chunky little wiggly body and long silky ears, I also know why my father did.