Toxic Friends

Back in December, some of the fine folks at St Luke's church held what is known as an "Auction of Promises."  Basically, people donated their time and skills and talents for people to bid on as a way of raising money.  (In this case, for the refurbishment of the church interior.)  The Evans-Crawford team was no exception.  Jeff offered to tune up a computer by cleaning the bits inside the case, updating drivers, clearing caches, and whatever else was needed short of buying new bits to put in it.  Kate volunteered to make a personalized storybook that would be beautifully bound by her Gran.  I auctioned off a "cookie of the month" membership.  (Basically, I would bake the winner one batch of cookies a month for an entire year.... no surprise there!)  Even Gran got involved by donating some handbound photo albums made with artisan paper.  All our lots sold and the auction itself made well over £5000.

Before the auction took place, a well organized catalogue of things for sale was offered to those who had an interest in attending the auction or placing a bid in absentia.  There were some truly fabulous things on offer.  Weekend or full week stays at various vacation homes.  Interior decoration advice.  Babysitting services.  Deluxe celebration cakes.  Pilates classes. A basket of homemade chutneys.

But there was one thing that caught my eye.  An evening of enameling for up to three people.  There were other things that I looked at wistfully.  A song written for the person of your choice.  Jars of marmalade.  A family photo session.  A piano lesson.  Heck, I would have loved to have won one of the holiday rentals, but as things normally go in our family, money was tight and we had to plan carefully.

Having heard that pilates can be good for a bad back,  Jeff decided that he would bid on the pilates class taster sessions.  He can be sensible when the mood strikes.  I kept coming back to the enameling. Up to three people.  Huh.  That gave me an idea.  (I have them so rarely...)  I would ask two of my friends to join forces to win this evening of what looked to be incredible and creative fun.

I didn't have to look far.  My dear friends Gill and Alison both thought it was a fantastic idea.  We worked out the logistics as far as how much money we were willing to spend and who would do the bidding on the night of the event.  (It would be funny, but silly if we bid against each other!)  All three of us were involved in the event on the night.  Alison and I were part of the kitchen crew responsible for feeding the hordes of people who had bought tickets in advance or in some cases showed up on the night while Gill was recording secretary and treasurer for the auction itself.

The evening was a great success for both the church and for the three amigos of bidding.  We won our evening of enameling and looked forward to meeting up with our friend Clare who would teach us this mysterious art form.

We tried to set up a date in January.  Alas, after a very UN-white Christmas, the Weather Channel decided to gift us with a snowy weekend.... on the day of our event, of course.  After some frantic emails and texts, we decided to postpone.  We didn't exactly forget about it, but we didn't exactly remember it either. So, suddenly in February, a small village of (energy efficient, of course) light bulbs went off over our heads and we enthusiastically set up another date with the talented and lovely Clare.

 A March date was arranged and as it drew closer, Clare began to filter a few safety tips our way.  Wine and nibbles would be served, but after a certain point we would need to stop due to the very toxic nature of some of the enameling powder.  We had to be careful not to ingest it by accident or death could be imminent.

Then there was the last minute advice to make sure that we wore closed toe shoes.  Though spring was just starting to consider making an appearance, I felt relatively sure that none of us had broken out the flip flops as of yet... but we're a wild bunch, so I passed the advice along just in case someone decided to show off their latest pedicure.

Gill's husband, Peter, kindly offered (well, either that or Gill drugged him earlier in the week and made him sign a promise) to drive us to and from our event so that we could drink without fear of police reprisals or the three of us ending up in a jail cell.  (You can decide what the charges would be.  Use your imagination.)  As I hopped onto the back seat, I cheerily greeted everyone and inquired about their footwear.  Peter chuckled from the front seat.

"Why the advice about shoes," he asked.  "Are there some small critters that might nibble your toes?"  (Clare and her family are the ones who rescued Alejandro the Hedgehog featured in the February 2011 blog entry entitled "The Visitor.")

"No, no," I assured him.  "It's strictly for our safety.  Clare had told me a story about Pippa working in the lab and dropping something horrible on her not-well-protected feet and I think she's being careful. She doesn't want us dropping molten materials on ourselves!"

And so.... we arrived.  There was much giggling and excited laughter as we approached the house.  Nigel (Clare's husband) opened the door to us and looked at us puzzledly.  It was as if he hadn't been expecting us.

"Hi, Nigel!"  We sailed past him and into the house, unzipping our coats as Nigel continued to peer at us.  "Where's Clare?"  He still looked uncertain.  "We're here to do enameling....."  Suddenly the laughter stopped as we saw his continued look of blankness.  "She did TELL you we were coming, didn't she?"  He struggled to say something.  "She IS here..... isn't she?"  I wonder if we sounded as hysterical as we did in my head.

At that, Clare came out of the sitting room as Nigel burst out laughing.  Great jokesters these two.  I'll have to keep my eye on them in the future.  Now that all their children will be going off to the great wide world of higher education in the fall, they'll have more time on their hands to get into tomfoolery and general mischief.

Soon we were safely ensconced in the kitchen, oooo-ing and aaaaah-ing over pieces that Clare had done in the past and trying to decide what we wanted.  Earrings?  A pendant?  Hearts?  Apples?  What colour??  Too many choices!!

Gill and Alison seemed to settle on a general theme pretty quickly while I wondered if another glass of wine would make my decision any easier.  Alison was making a set of cufflinks for her eldest child and number one son, Joseph,  who was turning eighteen that weekend.  Gill picked out colours and soon spotted a butterfly stencil that would make a lovely pendant.

I was sinking into the despair of indecision when I spotted it.  My eyes bounced over it and came back to it again... and again.  Oh, dear.  I had found what I wanted to do.  Clare had made a beautiful pendant with a solitary tree silhouetted on it.  Before Christmas, I had been searching for a tree pin or necklace to give my Mother as a gift.  (Sorry, Mom... you'll just have to act surprised if I ever find a suitable one for you.)  "I love this!"  I said to Clare.  "I want to make one!"  She studied me for a moment.

"Well, you ARE creative,  I think you'll be able to do it."  She handed me a piece of paper and a pencil.  "Here, start sketching trees."  Why did I have the sinking feeling that I had picked something that probably wasn't a beginner piece?

I sketched away while we drank and nibbled and giggled and cut bits of copper sheeting with a shears/snips that looked as if it had a previous career in emasculation.  Gill and Alison filed the edges of their pieces while I sketched some more trees that looked more like things that could have been seen worn as hats at a royal wedding or pretending to be hair on the women of the French Court of Marie Antoinette and less like forest outcasts.  Growing dissatisfied with my tree-making abilities (perhaps the poet Kilmer was trying to sketch one when he wrote "but only God can make a tree") I decided to file my copper base for what I had decided would be a pin.  Alison was a pro at this filing business due to her endless hours of experience with nails of both the finger and toe variety, Gill had managed it without trouble..... how hard could it be?

Ha.

It wasn't really difficult if I'm honest.  However, when my two cohorts had filed dutifully at the edges of their projects what could be described as a "proper" noise was made.  Not proper as in a good, loud noise.  No.  A proper noise that one would expect to be made when filing metal.  A rasping scrape of metal against metal.

I made two passes of file against copper.  Puzzled, I stopped and looked at the piece and then at the file.  All seemed to be in order.  I tried again and giggled.  I couldn't help it really.  I looked up and Gill was looking at me in a way that suggested perhaps I had had too much wine to drink.  That couldn't be the case!  I'd only had one!  Or was it two?  Still!  I filed again.  And giggled... again.  Alison glanced at me from across the table.

"Tell me you don't hear it," I said to the two of them between fits of giggling.  I tried to file again only to be gripped by yet another wave of suppressed laughter.  "Why does it sound like I'm killing a duck when I try to file this!?" I punctuated my assertion with a demonstration.

"It does!"  They exclaimed and joined in the giggling.

"Maybe you're holding it wrong."

"Are you putting enough pressure on it?"

"Alison's didn't make this noise!"

"Yes, but she's a professional."

Quaaaaaaack.  Quaaaaaaaack.  Quaaaaaack.  Quack quack quack quack.   More laughter and giggling ensued.

Enter Clare looking like teacher who has returned to her classroom to find paper airplanes mid-flight while girls painted each others nails and gossiped.  "I'm sorry!"  I sputtered between giggles.  "It's just.... and it sounds like.... see!"  I demonstrated once more for good measure.  I wondered if Clare was regretting ever auctioning off her services.

Solemnly, we were taken into the inner sanctum where the kiln and the more toxic elements of our evening were waiting.  Wine and nibbles left behind, we entered single file, a line of postulants awaiting their novitiate habits and vows.

She wasn't kidding about the toxic thing.  A tray of small bottles, an alchemist's dream, each sported a VERY obvious skull and crossbows as a VERY strong warning of the content's edibility or lack thereof.  The kiln was smaller than I expected, but quickly demonstrated its effectiveness by bathing us in a warmth that both provided comfort and forewarned of its danger.

It was a trial by fire and powder.

We prepped the copper pieces and carefully used a teeny tiny sieve to apply the poisonous powders to what we hoped would be our greatest of masterpieces.  Caustic rainbows and magical colour changing moments of ooooo's and aaaaaah's.  I layered powders of different shades to create a sunset and added a black hill that would soon support the tree that was causing me more and more fear.  Like a certain hobbit approaching Mt Doom, I knew danger lay ahead but was powerless to turn my feet from my fate.

Occasionally, we would slip into the cooler kitchen to sip carefully from our glasses.  We replaced wine with fruit juice help keep our minds focused and our hands steady.  I must admit to occasionally (and carefully) sneaking a nibble now and then.

The moment arrived.  A tree must be planted.  I looked at the pin with a critical eye.  Mayhaps I could just leave the piece as a dark hill and a sunset?  Surely that could be a new and visionary style!  Or not.  Ah, well.  So, taking a deep breath (not so deep as to inhale some horrible toxins and die some hideous and probably disfiguring death) I began.  And then finished.  Clare cast her expert eye over it.

"Hey!  That looks really good," she exclaimed with more than a little surprise.

And so encouraged, I added some birds to my windswept landscape and a small figure dancing beneath the tree.

"That looks like it could be in Africa," one of my cohorts said.

"Is the person supposed to be David Attenborough?"  Funny.  Ha ha.


In the end we came away with some very lovely pieces of jewellery that we would cherish and would serve to remind us of the night we became initiated into the sacred toxic sisterhood. And... nobody died!

Hmmm... Maybe I did have too much wine!

Note Sir David Attenborough dancing beneath my tree!

Cluckin' Nuts

I always enjoy watching someone who has never been in my home enter my kitchen for the first time.  I'm usually standing at the kettle preparing some mugs of something hot and caffeinated when they come through the doorway and so I'm able to observe them from the corner of my eye.

First, they note the Mt Everest of dishes that tower in my single sink.  Conquering it seems to hold the same satisfaction level for me that I'm sure Sisyphus felt every time that damn boulder rolled back down the hill.  I feel the same way about laundry, but on a normal day the evidence of THAT mountain rules over the landscape of my bedroom and doesn't invade the scenic vista of my kitchen.  (You'll note the use of the word "normal.")

Their eyes dart to the right and take in the treasure trove of kitchen gadgets that sit expectantly in their assigned places waiting patiently for me to pull them out and abuse them with new found recipes and madness.  My Magi-Mix, the breadmaker, the very cool wizzy thing that blends up soups and jams and anything else that catches my fancy when I'm feeling like some sort of domestic mad scientist.  They glance over shelves of cookbooks and do a quick inventory of the names that beam down at them.  Lots of Nigella, a bit of Jamie, some Hairy Bikers, a Gok Wan, and some other assorted collections.  Oh, what's that red and white one?  Better Homes and Gardens?  It must be American.

And then comes the moment I wait for.  They look..... up.

They smile at me and continue whatever conversation had begun as they had entered the room and then they stop.  It's as if their brain has just registered what their eyes reported.  They look up again.  I watch their eyes travel down the length of my cupboards and then stop.  They look at me a moment and then they say it.

"Wow.  You must really like chickens."

 I'm never quite sure how to answer that.  In the grand scheme of things, I don't REALLY like chickens.  Sure, they're tasty enough.  The Colonel has branded them as "finger lickin' good."  However, the sight of one of these feathered roast dinners on the foot doesn't make me go "Awwwwww."    Seriously, there are plenty of animals that top them on the list of animals that I actually like.  For example, horses.  That one's a no-brainer for anyone who knows me.  I've been horse mad since before I could walk and in my adult years, the sharp tang of the scent of horse mixed with the smokey warmth of leather will make me close my eyes and sigh with contentment.  I LOVE horses.  The sounds of them, the smell of them, the feel of them.  Velvet muzzles with the tickley prickle of  whiskers.  The coarseness of their manes and tails in contrast to the silky smoothness of a well groomed coat.  Knobby knees and straight legs.  The warmth of their breath.  Eyes of liquid chocolate.

So, yeah.  I REALLY like horses.

And dogs.  And cats. And rabbits.  NOT snakes.  I watch Countryfile with rapt attentiveness waiting for Adam's Farm to come on so I can see the array of farm creatures that he features on the show.  Calves with their cold wet noses and their warm velvet tongues.  Sheep with their sharp feet and greasy wooliness.  Show me a litter of piglets and I'll shriek, "PIGGIES!" to the eternal amusement and embarrassment of my daughter.

But not... chickens.

So, why (you might be tempted to ask) is my kitchen filled with chickens?  They are displayed proudly along the top of my cabinets.  Crowing, strutting, nesting.  Cookie jars, pitchers, even a soap dispenser. Metal, porcelain, blown glass.  I have a whole section of nothing but salt and pepper shakers... in the shape of chickens, of course.

It is SO obvious that chickens hold some sort of importance in the grand scheme of my psyche that for Christmas I received new dinnerware featuring these feathered creatures... from my mother-in-law.  For years she has watched my chicken collection with an odd mixture of distrust and curiosity and now she's finally cracked like an egg and has joined me in the hen house.  (Figuratively speaking...)  The dinnerware has a whole range of other assorted accessories.  From blackout blinds to table clothes to aprons.

Aren't they just the sweetest things?!?

So, seriously.... how can I say that I don't like chickens?  And why ( I can hear you ask again) is my kitchen OVER RUN with them?

I blame my Grandmother.  (Yes, yes, I can hear your collective gasp as I blame St Ruth for something.)  Yes, I blame her.  Many years ago (dare I mention the word "decade?") as the early stages of the Alzheimer's gripped and twisted her memories into things that couldn't be trusted, a seemingly innocent event occurred.  It was a holiday.  A big one.  I don't know if it was Thanksgiving or Christmas.  I just know a lot of people were there.  After the feasting and the merrymaking, after the pies were cut and devoured, the female grandchildren of the family were summoned to the kitchen.  There on the table, spread before us like Aladdin's treasures were items from the sacred china cabinets that stood proudly in what we referred to as the "middle" room.  It was between the living room and the kitchen... thus... middle.  Our instructions were clear.  We were to pick items from off the table. Items that were from our Grandmother.

 How did we not all break down sobbing?  Was it the opiate effect of the turkey we had just consumed that caused us to fail to recognize this gesture of goodbye?  These were things that (though they seemed insignificant to those on the outside) had been enshrined in the china cabinet over the course of my Grandmother's lifetime.  No matter what they were, they had meant something to her.

When my turn came, I surveyed the items on the table and chose a set of chicken salt and pepper shakers.  A rooster and a hen.   They could be a set of Dominique or Pilgrim Fowl, but it is more likely that they are representing the Plymouth Rock breed.  When the day was done, I had two and a half sets of chicken salt and pepper shakers by which to remember my Grandmother.

Again, I hear you asking.... why chickens?  Why didn't you take the cut glass bell or the little plate or bowl or something else?

Look.  I never said I hated chickens.  I just wouldn't put them in my top five or even my top ten favourite animals.  I have some good associations with chickens.  Some happy memories from the happier days of my childhood.   "The Minnesota Days" I like to call them.  We lived outside the small town of Watertown which lay due west of Minneapolis.  Our three bedroom rancher sat along a dusty strip (at least in summer) of dirt road and was nestled between two sprawling farms.  Corn fields on one side, alfalfa on the other.  A girl and her horse and adventure in the middle.

I remember when we got the chickens.  Twenty-five of them.  I seem to think they came in the post, but that can't possibly be the case.  It must have been the cardboard box that they came in that made me think that.  I was young.  Younger than Kate. And I had a box of fluffy chicks that peeped and pooped.  They eventually moved into a chicken coop in the yard.  It was towards the back of the driveway and near the fence where my trusty steed, Rusty, stamped his feet and flicked flies off his back with a twitch of his tawny tail.  They may have even taken up residence in a corner of his small pasture.

They grew quickly and it soon became apparent to me that we couldn't possibly keep them all (though I'm sure I wanted to!) and I learned the sad fact that of the twenty-five chicks that I had fed and cared for, twenty of them were going to meet their untimely end at a nearby farm.  The remaining five would continue to reside with us and would provide eggs in return for their lives.

Four hens and one rooster.  That was the plan.

You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men, right?  I'll be truthful here and admit that I don't have the foggiest notion as to how one determines the gender of a young chicken.  I can check a baby bunny with a fairly reliable eye, but chickens?  Yeah, right.  Now, I don't know the identity of the person whose responsibility it was to "sex" these pullets and cockerels.  They did a fine job of telling the difference between them.  Unfortunately, they had it backwards.

In the end, we had four fine roosters and one beleaguered hen.

My memories of the chickens themselves are sparse but strong.  They were fairly nondescript chickens.  White feathers.  Wings.  Feet.  Beaks. Shining, round eyes that seemed to stare at you and through you at the same time.

My grandmother had knit a sweater for me.  Pink.  VERY pink.  Cardigan.  Cabling.  The chickens hated that sweater.  (Or at least that was what young me told herself.)  It seemed that whenever the mornings or early evenings were touched with an edge of a chill, I would wear the sweater and the roosters would chase me.  Outraged by the colour.  Maybe they thought I was a big worm?  (See..... I had to blame the sweater because child-me would never even contemplate that perhaps these sexually frustrated bachelors were taking their aggression out on the person who fed them.)

I remember discovering that the hen had laid her first egg.  Judging by the bits of egg shells and oats that were adhered to Rusty's muzzle by rapidly drying yolk, I really wasn't the first to make that discovery.    

Though they didn't make much of an impact on the greater picture of my childhood, the idea of them not being there was...uncomfortable.  They were a part of the fabric and rhythm of life.  Without them, the orchestra of my day would be missing a  small yet important instrument... like the triangle.  How important they were to me became apparent one Sunday morning as I sat in the living room reading the comic section from the newspaper.  The sunlight was pouring through the front window and I was a small queen looking over the front yard of her kingdom.  All was good in the world.

"Mom," I called contentedly. Was she in the kitchen making pancakes?  She could have been.  In the idyllic world of my childhood memories, she was.  "Mom, there is a dog in the yard."  I had been observing the little canine sneaking up the side of the yard along the cover of the alfalfa field that bordered it.  The chickens were there as well, pecking and scratching in the warm summer sun.  I heard the reliable footsteps of Mom as she approached and turned my attention back to the comics.

"What kind of dog is it," she asked before she reached the vantage point of the window.

"It's small," I replied.  "And brown."  Mom's footsteps stopped.

"Chipper, go get Daddy."  I looked up in puzzlement.  Dad was in bed and on a Sunday morning, the normal routine dictated that he stay there until he determined it was time for him to get up.  "Chipper," she said with greater urgency.  "Tell Daddy there is a fox in the yard."

A fox?!?!  My blood ran cold.  I had never seen a fox before but I sure had read about them.  Chicken Little met a gruesome end in the mouth of one.  Dad had told countless stories about fox hunting.  But to actually see one of these blood-thirsty creatures in the flesh?  I sprinted for the darkened bedroom at the end of the hall.

"Dad!"  I whisper-shouted over the drone of his rumble-snore as I shook his shoulder.  "Dad!  Wake up."  He mumbled something and scowled with his eyes still firmly shut.  "Dad!"  I tried again. Nothing.  Desperate times called for desperate measures and I did the only thing I knew would achieve my goal.  I had experimented with it before with terrifying results, but the lives of my flock were at stake!  With small and steady fingers, I grabbed a single hair of his mustache (at least I "think" it was his mustache!) and squinching my eyes closed.... I pulled.

The bear awoke and boy was he mad!

A roar of words flooded over me, but I was not cowed.  Perhaps it was the sight of his oldest child and beloved daughter dancing in front of him in a state of frenzy, but he didn't eat me.  He gave me exactly ten seconds to explain.

"Dadthereisafoxintheyardanditsgoingtoeatmychickens!"

The bed covers parachuted through the air as he leapt out of bed and started pulling on his pants while heading to the closet to get the shotgun.  I flew back to the livingroom to watch the drama that was unfolding.  Fox was still there.  Chickens were still unaware.  And now Dad and one of the family dogs were creeping along the side of the house.  (At least, that is what I imagined they were doing.... I couldn't actually SEE them from inside the house.)

I had been given strict instructions to keep quiet.  Honestly.  Quiet.  It's quite evident that I was their first child.  Anyone with kids-periance knows that the one thing that excited pre-ten children cannot do is be quiet.  But I tried, I really did.

Did the fox catch a shadow of movement moving towards him?  Were the chickens suddenly becoming aware of the danger and acting a bit nervous?  I'll never know what made the fox decide that the moment had come, but it had.  I watched in horror as he pounced on the closest of the roosters.  The slender feathered neck was held fiercely within the steel trap jaws.  Then with a motion that reminds me of how I used to bash my brother around in a one sided version of a pillow fight, the fox shook the chicken.

My child sensibilities could take no more.

I screamed.  Perhaps it was more a high-pitched and shrill shriek, but the point is that I made noise.  Lots of it.

There was the echoing report of a gunshot, the black and white flash of our terrier as he streaked across the yard towards the fox, the brownish-red blur of the fox as he headed for safety, and the white crumpled heap of feathers that was the victim.

The next series of events is something that I have been scolded for by a college writing professor.  She, too, had grown up in the Midwest and had some experience with the feathered fowl of the farm.  She doubted the veracity of these events, but I will lay them before you and tell you they are the truth.

The chicken.... was still alive.

Into the garage where years previously I had tragically and accidently hung one of my cats (yes, until he was dead.) a bale of hay was opened and an overly large nest was made for a very poorly chicken.  I have since then learned things about chickens that my child-self didn't know.  For instance,  they are rather fragile creatures and can be killed by shock and too much excitement.  I would reckon that having the stuffing shaken out of you by a pointy toothed fox would qualify as too much excitement.  It was floppy and unresponsive, but still breathing.  Glassy-eyed, but still making noise.  Quiet squawks and clucks as if muttering to itself with a sore throat.

Not ten yet me didn't know that, so with my child's faith and optimism, I set to work.  The chicken was stroked and petted and reassured.  Soft words and murmurs of encouragement.  A bit of water.  Chicken feed offered in a small, cupped hand.  I must not have noticed my parents exchanging meaningful glances over my head.

The next morning, I entered the garage through the side door to see how my patient was doing.  Now, in the movie of my life, I know how this scene would look.  Dust motes swirling lazily in the sunbeams that pour through the small windows of the building.  All is a dim haziness.  Yet there in a bright pool of light is the nest.  In the nest is a chicken.  A live chicken clucking and tipping its head to the side as if to ask, "Was it you?  Were you the one who tended me in my hour of need?"

I had missed my true calling.  I am a chicken whisperer.

In truth, that is pretty much how I remember it.  My child memory firmly believes it to be true.  The chicken patient didn't walk quite straight for a few days and a few weeks later he was back to terrorizing me and my pink sweater.... but the the wiser and grown up me always has something that niggles at the back of my mind wondering if my parents had pulled a fast one.  You'll understand eventually.

So, we had five chickens.  A few weeks later we were up to six chickens.  It was determined that an escapee from one of the neighbouring farms had heard about the top rate service given to the chickens of our flock and he stopped by to check it out.

And then one morning I woke up and there were no chickens.  NO CHICKENS!?

I feared the worst.  Has the fox returned to wreck his revenge?  The yard was not blanketed in feathers, so that couldn't be the case.  Had they flown the coop??  Seeing my distress, my parents were quick to ease my troubled mind.  They simply could not stand watching me be chased by the roosters any more.  My life with or without my sweater was starting to revolve around what part of our property the chickens were currently occupying and whether or not I would be spotted by them.  Even that ungrateful rooster that I had nursed back from the brink of death showed no mercy.

So, they were gone.  Gotten rid of.  Sent away.  Banished.

I had hoped that we would get more.  Maybe some more interesting colours other than run of the mill white.  Maybe the proper ratios of hens to roosters.  Alas, it was not to be.  Not long afterwards, my best friend on four legs was tearfully led into a horse trailer and he went to live out his days on the farm where he was foaled.

And then we moved from my idyllic Minnesota life to Pennsylvania.

And then I grew up.

Not because I wanted to, but because life happens and things change and you can't stop the world from turning.

You can't keep from turning ten.

But you do and you survive and then one day you're eating dinner at home with the family.  The meal is "chicken pot pie."  Now, to be clear.  It doesn't  involve a crust or a pastry.  It does involve a pot.  In its "homemade" state it involved big doughy "noodles" that are hand-rolled and cut and are thick and heavy and each one must weigh as much as a brick.  At least that is how they felt in my stomach.

With the amount of Pennsylvania Dutch blood that courses through my veins, I'm supposed to like homemade chicken pot pie.  And corn pie.  And stuffed pig's stomach. And scrapple.

Well, newsflash.  I don't.

So, we're sitting together.  I don't think it was all fourteen of us.  Some of us may have moved out by then.  I don't know what the topic of conversation was that evening.  Something was said that triggered a memory and I turned to my Mom and said the words that I wish I had never said.

"Mom, you know.... that was really great what you and Dad did with the chickens."  My mom's fork stopped in mid-air.

"What do you mean?"  There was a slight frown on her face, her eyebrows twitching more closely together like teenagers creeping closer together in the backseat during their first date.

"You know," I said sincerely.  "They were attacking me all the time and then you had the stock truck come and get them one night while I was sleeping and took them away."  My voice trailed off.  I was watching my mother QUITE closely now and her shoulders were shaking with silent laughter.

I looked down at my plate of cultural torture in confusion and then realization.  "No,"  I practically howled.  "I ATE my CHICKENS!?!?!"

Now before you get the wrong idea, no.  The chickens in my kitchen are not some ongoing memorial to the chickenly pets (let's face it... they weren't exactly useful) that I unknowingly ingested. 

They are also NOT some visual reminder to NEVER trust my Mom.  Yes, I'm still waiting for the day that she tells me that the miracle chicken was indeed an understudy from next door.

They do, however, tie into the storyline regarding my Grandmother's things.  You see, there has always been a bit of vagabond blood zipping through my veins.   Not much.  A few drops here and there.  It was during one of my moves that the original chicken salt and pepper shakers were damaged.  Well, actually, it wasn't IN the move.  I had moved in and hung a shelf and proudly displayed my little flock.

And then the shelf fell off the wall.

Someone lost part of their head.  There were chips and nicks.  I was devastated.  My on again/off again boyfriend at the time was there.  (I suspect that officially we were off again, but that didn't stop us from getting it on again.  I was quite single and in my thirties at the time.)  We tried to repair the damage the best we could, but our best wasn't quite good enough.  Being away from home tends to make me hold tightly to things that come from home and these poor chickens were one of those things that I gripped extra tightly.

I may have gone off the rails a little bit.  Just slightly. And then I discovered.... eBay.  The whole train then derailed properly.

Just type in "chicken salt and pepper shakers" into the search bar and viola!  A whole virtual warehouse of nothing but chicken salt and pepper shakers!  I spent hours paging through them.  Examining them.  Refining the search parameters.  Trying to find THE exact shakers that I had damaged.

But those are really unique....

And those are close!

Awww... aren't those cute?

Hey, a bargain!

And then the little boxes began arriving and soon the damaged hens and roosters were surrounded with a whole colourful flock of condiment containers.

Then I started branching out... and the rest is history.   Their number has been pretty steady since I've moved to the UK.  I know I can't go into TKMaxx (the UK version of TJMaxx) without supervision because they ALWAYS have chickens in assorted styles and varieties, but there are a few additions.  A pretty one that looks like a blown glass bowl.  I have a slate one that Jeff bought for me at the Honister Slate Mine when we were up in the Lake District visiting friends that sits proudly on my bookshelves near my computer.  (The only one who is not in the kitchen/dining room.)  And now my plates.

I'm not sure that really answers the WHY of it all, but it at least shows you the progression of my madness.  It's not really about chickens.  It's about touchstones to the past.  Those chickens remind me of things.  Childhood.  Old boyfriends.  Summer days when I was a Child-Queen.  The protective nature of parents. Probably most importantly my Grandmother.

During the winter months, I put one of my Grandmother's handknitted afghans on my daughter's bed.  It is lying over top of her dinosaur duvet at the moment.  Every night when I tuck her in, I pull the afghan up over her.  As I do, I lean down for one last kiss and to press my cheek next to hers.  I whisper to her, "And here is a hug from your Great Grandmom who knit this blanket that keeps you warm and toasty."  And I say her name the way I've always said it.   Not Grandmom, but "Grem-mulm."

Touchstones to the past.  Passing heirlooms of  love into the future.

Cluck cluck.