BRB

See you in September.

Return of the Evil Duck

Well, that didn't last long. Wallace was at his nice, new home for 6 days before Barbara emailed me to tell me that he Had To Go. She sent me a video of Wallace attacking her shins. 

I wasn't surprised by this. It seemed a little too good to be true. 

It would take me a couple days before I could retrieve him and it was no happy reunion on his return. Since I was leaving for Burningman in a couple of days, and I didn't want to saddle my very nice house-sitter with this Devil Duck,  my first plan was to "take him for a ride." I drove him down to the lower field, thinking he was far enough away, let him out of the box and drove back to the house. 

It wasn't very long before he showed up back in the yard and began attacking the chickens again. And the dogs. 

I found a farmer nearby that breeds and sells Muscovys and asked if he'd like mine. I begged him a little. He agreed to take him if I brought him over first thing in the morning.

The difficulty now was how to catch the son-of-a-bitch. The mind reeled. The horror fantasies of being scratched to death or having to shoot him ran through my mind. 

But then he ran into the house. He'd never done that before. The house-sitter and I were able to corner him in the kitchen without bloodshed or broken dishes and crammed him into the cage and set him outside until morning.

And now, Wallace is either living amongst his peers, or he's been eaten by some nice, Vietnamese family.

Via con Dios, Wallace!

A new home for Wallace

Wallace has grown up and turned into a complete asshole. 

He spent most of his day attacking the chickens, pinning them down and biting the backs of their necks, coming away with a bill-full of feathers. I stopped putting him in the pen at night because he was impossible to catch and when I did catch him, he'd scratch me with his sharp claws to the point of almost needing stitches. I left him out at night, kind of hoping the coyotes would get him, but no, every morning I'd wake up to see him setting on the picnic table, waiting for me to let the chickens out so he could get to work attacking them.

Like it isn't loud enough here already without me constantly yelling, WALLACE! KNOCK IT OFF! and chasing him away from my hens.

So when he started coming after me, it was time for him to go. I momentarily considered BBQing him at the Burning Beast event, but just couldn't bring myself to do it. I advertised him on craigslist as a non-edible guard duck. Surprisingly, I got a few responses, one from a really nice person just a little ways down the road who keeps ducks and geese.

She came over immediately and informed me that Wallace was not in fact a duck, but a Muscovy who are very different from ducks. I told her that explained a lot since Wallace was such a jerk. She took Wallace away and invited me to her house the next day where I got to see the beautiful place that is Wallace's new home. 

Problem:

Solution?

Just sayin'

Source: Federal Fuel Economy Guide

Technology will not save you when nature decides to kick your ass.

Maybe instead of levees, build canals. Or maybe leave it the F alone and move somewhere else.

This is why we can't have anything nice.

To the dump, to the dump, to the dump dump dump!

I went to the dump today. To take in the last load of crap left behind by artists here since last year, including the shell of an inflatable plane that was installed in a tree. 

The artist didn't come up, but relegated the installation to one of the volunteer curators who had to jam it up in the tree and then inflate all 30 feet of it. It was abandoned here. Then it popped. It deflated. It hung in the tree looking like an enormous used condom for 8 months. All of my begging and pleading for help to remove it fell on deaf ears and every day I had to look at that enormous used condom hanging from a tree in the middle of the farm. Then, one day, it transferred itself into a heap on the barn floor. I have no idea how it happened, but now it's at the dump.

I hate going to the dump because I hate seeing all the crap people throw away. Correction: I hate seeing all the crap that people buy and then throw away because it was crappy and broke. I know what you're thinking, "But Connie, YOU are at the dump too..." Yes, but I'm not throwing away cheap, broken furniture and cheap plastic broken toys. I don't buy cheap crap that breaks or I get tired of. Once I saw that someone had thrown away hundreds of pieces of tack: leather saddles, horse blankets, bridles, riding gear - it all looked perfectly good to me. Today, in the Scrap Metal area was a pile of bikes. 

But today, today I saw someone throwing something away that I'd never, EVER guess I'd ever see. Dirt. I saw two women throwing away dirt. 

They were next to me, shoveling the dirt out of the bed of their little pickup, one shovelful at a time. I was immediately horrified and judged them to be incredible idiots. Then, I thought, maybe there was a good reason they were throwing away dirt. Maybe the dirt had been contaminated with something and they had to get it off of their property. Maybe it had been infested with a noxious weed. But I needed to know. So I asked them, "Why are you throwing away dirt?"

"It's SOD." replied one of the two women. "And they won't accept sod at the yard waste place."

"You know, all you have to do is turn the sod upside down, cover it with black plastic and in a few months, you'll have really nice composted soil."

"Oh really? I had no idea!" 

"Too bad." I said. "That's a bummer."

When I stopped at the booth to pay, I remarked to the dump employee, "I just saw two women throwing away dirt." 

She rolled her eyes and said, "You wouldn't believe it, but it happens all the time."

"People throw away DIRT? Why don't they compost it? I thought we lived in the country out here. How can people live out here and not know what to do with DIRT?"

She shrugged. "Happens all the time."

Pilates

My. It's been a month since my last post. The chickens are getting big and feathered out. Wallace the duck is full grown and mean. I joined a gym and I'm going to Pilates class. (Pronounced Pie-laytz) 

I was intimidated the first time I went, but that subsided when the instructor came in and she was a little porky - admittedly out of shape after a pregnancy. But the next class? The other Pilates instructor? Ya, well, I guess I've been living on Vashon for too long and forgot that there are women who wear makeup. And she looks like Jessica Simpson, only much prettier and taller. And as I struggled to get through the class, I kept staring at her in stunned disbelief. I didn't know that there were actually people, in the world (and Mount Vernon, of all places) walking around looking THAT good. I thought it was all airbrushing in the magazines, or 'mad Photoshop skillz' as the kids these days call it. 

If you're not familiar with Pilates, it's like Yoga, but instead of staying still, you have to move a lot. A LOT. The instructor gets you into a weird position then you have to flail a number of times. Like 100 times. All the time, using your "core." And you flail the requisite number of times, like 20 and then the instructor says "20 MORE!" and your muscles are burning and you think there's no way that you can do 20 more, but that's OK, because the instructor can't count:

"OK everyone! 20 more! Make it count! 20! ::oof:: ::oof:: 8 more! ::oof:: ::oof:: OK! 2 more! GOOD! Looking good guys!" 

SATAN

One of the pitfalls of spending a lot of time by yourself is the tendency to verbalize random thoughts. Out loud. When you live alone, it hardly poses any problem. But then, say you start to re-integrate into society by maybe, I dunno, joining a gym, because in your hermetically-sealed state, maybe you got out of shape and added a few pounds. So then maybe you start going to this gym and maybe you're reading "Self" magazine while using the Stairclimber(tm) and maybe you're reading an article where someone has written in, concerned about the health of their born-again vegan friend and maybe the responder mentions that their vegan friend can obtain the recommended daily allowance of protein by preparing food made using SEITAN.

And then maybe you flash back to the first time you were introduced to SEITAN, Thanksgiving of 1995, when you were invited to your Vegan friend's house for T-day dinner and instead of cooking a real turkey, they cooked a turkey-shaped loaf of SEITAN. Now remember, the only reason you accepted this invitation to begin with was to 1) avoid your own hopelessly dysfunctional family and 2) to ogle the husband of one of the guests, of whom you've had a crush on from the first moment you laid eyes on him. And despite the earnest attempts by your hosts to be righteous in their veganism (Please, DO NOT notice the leather chairs in their living room. Please.) you find yourself out on the deck with the smokers chanting over and over "SEITAN SEITAN SEITAN SEITAN SEITAN..." And it's funny, you see, because SEITAN is pronounced the same as SATAN. And every time after that day, whenever you've ever seen the word SEITAN in print, you, in your most evil, Linda Purl Exorcist voice, compulsively hiss, "SATAN," aloud. Every time. It can't be helped any more than my OCD friend touching the light switch 5 times before he leaves a room. 

Flash forward to the gym in Mount Vernon, full of people from America's Heartland, and there's a woman on the Stairclimber(tm) who, for no apparent reason, breathlessly hisses "SATAN."

Chicken Pox

If you don't get Chicken Pox from chickens, why does one of my chickens have it? For whatever reason they call Chicken Pox, Chicken Pox, there's nothing left to call what my chicken is suffering from than Foul Pox. 

I found her teetering in front of the waterer this morning. I picked her up and saw that her beak was caked and bloody with a warty-looking swelling on it, as well as her comb. I whisked her into the bathroom to clean what I thought were wounds and found that her feet and legs had scabs on them. And on the back of her head, I can barely describe. It looked like she had a small rock stuck in the middle of a tumor. I cleaned her up and tried to soften the lesions with warm water and vitamin E oil, but no result.

I called the hatchery and they had no idea what I was describing. I called the vet and they also didn't know, but said I could bring her in on Saturday. "I don't think she'll make it that long." They told me to refrigerate her if she dies and they can run tests and see if it's contagious and take precautions to protect the rest of the flock.

I got on (I LOVE) the internet and tried to Google for a clue. "chicken tumor," "chicken lesions," "chicken diseases," etc. until I found mention of the pox. Google images confirmed that my little chicken has Fowl Pox. There's nothing to be done about it once the chicken has it and in most cases they eventually get better. Unless the Pox has spread to their mouth and throat, making it difficult for them to breath and eat. My chicken is wheezing and won't swallow the yummy yummy special food I made for her, so she's most likely doomed.

You're the one that I want

Rookie.

Trailer Park Boys

Got Netflix? Get "Trailer Park Boys."  

Unless you're unfamiliar with the term "hot knives," then you probably won't like this show. 

If you are on the fence, hold judgment until you see the "Conky" episode. That one'll make it or break it for you.

Foul language, Canadians, ex-cons, rum and Cokes, trailers, closeted gay trailer park manager, wanna-be gangsta, thievery, a man named Bubbles who lives in a shed, cigarette-smoking 9 year olds, track pants, and weed. Lots and lots of weed. That's what it's all aboot.

You too, can dance just like a white person

Is he saying, "dicks, cocks, dicks, cocks...?"

Piles of dead birds... Mystery SOLVED?

Again, on my walk, I encountered a pile of dead birds. Explanations involving UFOs or Satan worshippers faded as I looked directly up from the spot, above it - an eagle perch. The gluttonous eagles are killing more thrush than they are eating, dropping their left-overs on the ground. The thrush, showed no signs of trauma due to the swift and lethal internal-organ piercing eagle talons. 

A Tiny Victory

Last fall when Vashoners got their property tax assessments for 2008, we were treated to a very unpleasant surprise. People with names like Biffle French were outraged. 

My tax-assessed property value doubled from 2007. According to the county, my 1955 Terra Cruiser is worth $95,000. 

I'm no fool, and no bridge salesman. I know that I can't get a dime for my Terra Cruiser. The bank knows it - they won't finance the property and my insurance company knows it - they won't insure it.

So I filed an appeal with the county. Knowing how corrupt and retarded King County is, I had no hopes of being heard, but I wasn't going to take this lying down.

Yesterday I got a call from one of the County appraisers. He had "good news" for me. They had "mis-applied" their "assessment model" to my property and they would be reducing my property value to LESS than what it was 2007, cutting my property taxes by more than half! Not only that, he APOLOGIZED for the error. 

I'm looking out my window for the flying pigs, and wondering if it's a chilly day in hell.

2 Dead Birds

The other bird isn't dead yet - the other Varied Thrush that I found - one dead, the other dying, within feet of each other today on our walk. The dying one I rushed back to my house and fed it honey-laced soy milk in a feeble attempt to revive it. It's sitting on my kitchen table in a cardboard box, in the throes of death. The already-dead one, I posed with other items procured on our walk today: a weird piece of driftwood, a bone from someone and a shmoo-shaped rock. Yes, that bird is dead. Hard to believe, seeing it's glassy eye. When I picked it up, it was still warm, but stiff. And why would two identical birds die within feet of each other? Suicide pact? Fight to the death? 

Yes, that is my house in the background, rotting. 

The dying bird occasionally thrashes around in its box. The mind may have gone on, but the body always fights it. It's instinct. Basic biology. If you've ever watched a creature die, it's not at all like "in the movies." The body fights it. It's too soon. Not now. This can't be.

Taking this picture of the dead bird reminds me of Mr. Audubon who killed every bird who modeled for his paintings. Oh, what a FUNNY STORY of him trying to kill the golden eagle so he could paint it... (sarcasm) 

Cute or Cruel?

Cute or Cruel?

A Cautious Friendship?

Wallace has been let loose in the house while Leon & Comet are outside being tortured by the new invisible fence.

 

Stella is not too sure about Wallace, but she loves the duck poo!

Um...

I had some free time today and I didn't quite know what to do with myself.