STUFF

I once heard a comedy bit on 'Stuff' in which stuff was described like this, "ever notice how your stuff is stuff but other people stuff is shit". My question is when does your stuff become shit, and then, when does your shit become stuff that other people want?

When?

When you have a garage sale.

I myself am not a huge fan of the garage sale. They always start at some god forsaken hour. Often you have people knocking on your door the night before wanting to see your wares, hoping to get a jump on things. And they have a tendency to attract a certain personality. My apologies if you are a serial garage sale-er but believe me when I tell you that garage sale trolling is a kind of addiction and garage sale-ers are addicts.

We are no strangers to garage sales. We have had a few over the years and each time I have always finish the day with a resounding "well I'm not doing that again". The last one was when we moved from suburbia to our rural hamlet. It was a bit of an unmitigated disaster. The ad didn't go into the paper. We had too much shit, sorry stuff. There were too many people rifle-ling through it. I am sure we lost a couple of things that shouldn't have gone. And of course that old chestnut, it started at some god forsaken hour and seemed to linger on and on and on. Now we are doing it all over again. Technically, though, this garage sale is not our garage sale but we still have our jobs to do.

This garage sale is specifically for our daughter who is having her own Year of the Chicken. But for her it is more like the Year of the Bald Eagle. She is making very huge changes in her life by pulling up roots here in Oz and moving to the US of A. To follow her dreams, make a new life and be with her man. First though, we have some shit, sorry stuff, to get rid of.

It's not going to be easy downsizing her life of eight years in a two bedroom townhouse to a few packing cases. We are still deliberating over furniture, books, knickknacks, kitchen ware and cd's. I'm sure she has got it under control. Our job is not to question what is staying, what is going and what ultimately will make the trip with her to America. Our job is to provide the trailer, man to stall and help sell her shit, sorry stuff.

Stuff (Part 2)

It’s the day after. And boy does it feel like the day after. I’m suffering from a massive garage sale ‘hangover’.

A small portion of our daughter's garage sale shit, sorry stuff.

 As predicted we started at some god forsaken hour. Of course there were the hard core garage sale-ers knocking on the door before the advertised time and at the end of the day there was a resounding “well I’m not doing that again”. So after yet another garage sale, which was depressingly the same as all the other garage sales, I have decided to present to you the benefit of the wisdom of my experience. 

GARAGE SALE LESSONS LEARNT

1. COFFEE IS ESSENTIAL – someone SHOULD do a coffee run for proper coffee (no instant coffee). But thank you Mum for ensuring we had cold cans of soft drink and bottles of water on hand. It was much appreciated. 
2. DON'T hold a garage sale in a suburb where the population consists of mostly old men (over the age of 70 that is). Whose only goal in life is to wear pants held up by a rope and pay a shilling (that’s 20 cents in today’s language) for a house full of shit, sorry stuff, like some bad scene out of 'Oliver'. My apologies to the over 70 male population but let's face it you know I’m right about this. 
3. The Op Shop lady is your best friend. Although you won’t get anything for your shit, sorry stuff, the Op Shop lady always welcomes you with open arms and a grimace disguised as a smile as you load her up, apologise profusely and try desperately to hide those items that you know she will never sell. That’s why you giving them to the Op Shop lady in the first place. Right.
4. NEVER, EVER under any circumstance say “well I’m not doing that again”. Why? Because of the breeding tendencies of shit, sorry stuff. And because of Op Shops ladies. And Because while shit, sorry stuff, exists in our lives so must the garage sale.

And finally. Next time we have a garage sale I’m hanging up a sign that says;

DRESS CODE:

OLD MEN WEARING ROPES AS BELTS WILL NOT BE SERVED

even if you have a shilling to spend

NO PEEPS

It should have been today. It’s been three weeks and it should have been today. But instead, today there are no eggs and no peeps.

Three weeks ago I purchased nature’s lucky dip, a dozen fertilised eggs and set under my little black clucky mum. Today, three weeks later, there are no peeps.  What went wrong? I'm not exactly sure but I do have a theory. Last weekend things went pear shaped and now, there are no little balls of fuzz, no peeps.

We were warned it was coming. We knew it was going to be a bad. We knew we were in for a couple of days in the high 30’s and I thought we were prepared for it. A predicted heatwave for the weekend. Two days when the temperatures would soar as high as 40⁰C (104⁰F). I had some concerns for mum and her eggs but I was confident that I could see her through it. She was happy sitting on her nest behaving like a proper expectant mother chicken. I made sure she had plenty of water, good air flow around her and if she got off the nest, I made sure she wouldn't be off for too long. But when you work a full time job, away from home, you just can’t be there all day, every day. Unfortunately an expectant chicken is not considered  a reasonable excuse for missing work. So on Monday morning, after a quick check, I left  the day, leaving my chicken, and her eggs, to their own devices. That’s when whatever happened, happened. 

Upon returning home that afternoon I went to check on mum and eggs only to find her sitting on an empty nest. Not one egg left. Nothing but one half of one shell. It was an epic fail. What happened? What went wrong? Did mum eat the eggs? Or did one of the other chickens or something else find its way into the nest and devour them? I had no way of knowing. All I knew was that mum was sitting on eggs in the morning and in the afternoon she wasn't.

My initial reaction was one of shock and disappointment, closely followed by a pang guilt. But as I walked back to the house something else settled over me. A feeling that was a mixture of acceptance and determination. If you can have such a feeling. Completely ignoring the fact that dinner needed to be prepared and that my husband would be home within the next half an hour I started to rummaged through ‘Google’ hoping to find an answer.

‘clucky chicken no eggs’ = buy eggs. No good.

‘clucky chicken eggs gone’ = rats ate them, other chickens ate them…  And then.

The only reasonable answer that it could be. The eggs were not viable. There were no chicks. No peeps. I had found a site on 'Google' that revealed that a mother chicken will ‘talk’ to the eggs and if they don’t answer back then she will eat them. That must be it. That must be the answer. Was it possible that the high temperature over the previous weekend had caused all the eggs to ‘die’ and the only choice for my chicken was to dispose of her eggs? There were no peeps. That had to be it.

My next concern was, “what do I do with a clucky chicken with no eggs and no peeps? Does she still need to sit on eggs for her allotted time, hatch them and raise her brood? What happens now?” Back to ‘Google' who provided advice that ranged from the ridiculous to the downright cruel. I even contemplated for a whole night the idea of 'chicken adoption'. Purchasing several day olds for her to raise as her own. It was discussed, it was planned and it was all but put it into action. The next day, however, it was clear that this would not be necessary. Our little mum had decided on her own that enough was enough and she was off her nest and had re-joined the other girls. I must confess I was a little sad that this had happened. I really was looking forward to a handful of warm, peeping fuzziness.

In reflection, these past four years of living a semi-rural life has made me quite pragmatic about things like this. If this had happened when we lived in suburbia I would have been devastated and mourned the loss of the little ones that never came to be. More than likely even shed a tear or two. But this is the reality of my life now. This is not the first time that my little flock has suffered a significant loss since we moved here. Foxes, eagles and hawks have all helped themselves to a chicken dinner care of my girls. And only this past year, helped by my mum and dad, we dispatched, plucked and prepped the three young roosters who hatched from my last batch of peeps. 

There will be another chance for peeps in the future. And I will be better prepared next time. Maybe I will try hatching them and raising them myself.

Hmmm... I wonder how much an incubator and brooder costs?

THE CALLING

Ages ago, so long ago that I can't even remember which anniversary it was. My husband and I gave ourselves an anniversary present of a weekend stay on a farm in the mountains. A beautiful, tranquil place of cows and green rolling fields with an uninterrupted view of mist covered hills that slowly unravelled to expose a much wider view of the surrounding mountains and the coastline beyond. And nestled snuggly into this was our own little cabin with a wood fire to dream in front of and veranda to relax, drink wine and eat cheese on.  Just for the weekend, our own lush green slice of valley dotted with eucalypts and cow pats for exploring, walking, talking, laughing, thinking in. It's possible that the years have made my memory of this place and this weekend softer and fuzzier and have given it a dreamlike spin but I have a sense that that weekend is the pinpoint of the beginning. When that thing in my head clicked and which eventually has brought me to here.

It was not long after this weekend that my husband and I went on our own search for a slice of rural life. We talked of acres of open space, rows of crops, houses atop of hills, cupboards for a home grown produce and the thrill of owning our own stock, though it would mostly likely be chickens. But reality was something else again. We had a small child in school. Secure jobs in the city. There was no work in the country. And we were living a hand to month existence based on a similarly sized savings account. All this dictated the scale of our dream and formed the solid boundaries of our rural lifestyle reality. But we pushed and tugged and stretched as far as we could and found ourselves with a small farmlet in the bush to play with, albeit five hours drive from home.

the small child with "REX".
who provide for us warmth on cold nights in the shed,
hot water for our showers and many tasty dinners. 
but who, sadly, we had to leave behind.

 For over 20 years we struggled to keep the dream of turning our bush block into what we first experienced in the mountains, but it was not to be. Money, drought and distance all got the better of us. At first the 25 acre bush block was a novelty for us and our extended family. We regularly made the five hour pilgrimage to sleep in a shed, shower in a bush shower and cook and eat around an open fire. It was like having our own exclusive camp site. But as the years passed it became very clear to everyone and to ourselves that we did not have the money to translate the dream, build a house and live the rural lifestyle we craved. Our daughter was now a teenager and in high school, the non-existent job market in the rural sector continued relentlessly and we still had the mortgage on our home in the suburbs to contend with. All of these were the anchors that kept us from moving on.

Slowly as the dream paled and more and more stark reality settled on us, the visits to our "farmlet" dwindle, first by our family, and eventually, ourselves. Sleeping on the floor of the tin shed amongst the mice and geckos, along with the long drive to and from the property and the lack of suitable bathroom facilities, once a rich source of humour, had become an inconvenience too difficult to bear. An outdoor shower and long drop toilet can only be tolerated for so long. For most, the lure of a weekend in to country was not enough to overcome the discomfort of the long drive only to spend a weekend in some very basic living conditions. Towards the end even my husband and I were visiting the property only once a year just to check on things. The romance of place had died and it was clear that our days on our bush block were numbered. Finally, during one of these last visits we pulled out the pencils and paper, did the sums and decided it was time to let the place go. I was devastated.

The drive back to the suburbs was one of pensive reflection. Both of us lost in our own thoughts of what could have been, what was lost and what it would mean for the future. For myself I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand the thought that we had given up on what we had held onto for so long. But five hours is a long time in a car. And by the time we were two hours from home we were well into our next adventure. 

"Sell the house in the suburbs. Our daughter no longer lives at home. We don't need such a big house with no one in it. Find another smaller rural block closer to work, this time with a house. Move to a semi-rural community. Keep the dream alive but down size it. What was stopping us? Nothing." 

We hadn't lost our dream. We just had to find another way to make it work. Another way that meant we could live it 24/7. That meant we didn't have to sleep on the floor in a shed or use an outdoor bathroom. It was so simple. Why didn’t we think of it sooner?

As soon as the decision had been made it was like the universe said "well it's about time you listened to your calling" and everything started to fall into place. Within eight months we had sold both our home in the suburbs and the farmlet in the bush and moved to our own place in the mountains. And although we don't have cows of our own, our neighbour is a dairy farm and I am more than happy to borrow them for the view.

the house on the hill : the continuation of the dream

 It has now been four years since my husband and I move to our semi-rural hamlet. And the calling is stronger now than it has ever been. And this year, the Year of the Chicken, will be the year that I will give myself over to it. There will be classes in permaculture to attend, vegetable gardens to build, chickens to raise, fruit trees to tend and hopefully surplus fresh produce to preserve. I may not be a farmer. And it is likely I’ll never will be.

But I am certainly ready to give it a red hot go.

1 DOZEN

Almost like a symbolic gesture to mark the start of my Year of the Chicken today I became a “mother” again. For the third time.

Not a mother of a child. I am already a mother of one child, and a “mother” of a dog, and a “mother” of four chickens. Actually not strictly a “mother” of the last two, more like a vessel for food delivery. Which sometimes is what a mother actually is. And today I have also become the symbolic mother of all of the above non humans and in three weeks hopefully 12 cute little cheeping balls of fuzz. 

As I said this is my third time, having already attempting this twice before with varying degrees of success. Unfortunately we fed a fox the first time. And the second time, three of the four cute little cheeping balls of fuzz grew into large feathered fiends who enjoyed a good crow at 3am. Which was not fun but they were tasty none the less. 

Now the youngest of my little flock of four has decided to become a segregate teenage mum. She is less than a year old and has chosen the career path of raising chicks. The other three, are a somewhat mix of productivity. There is one hard working girl, laying a single very large egg every day, and two lazy bums, who obviously have decided to go on a permanent holiday. But they are full of character, fun to watch and lucky for them too old and tough to eat so they have escaped the dreaded chop. 

new mum

For a week now my little black hen has taken up position in the laying box, protesting quite loudly when either myself or my husband attempt to remove eggs or her. So this morning we blessed her with one dozen fertile eggs purchased from a local chicken breeder and set her up with a potential brood of 12 chicks. 

With 12 assorted eggs nestled under her, she ruffled her feathers and settled in for the next 21 days on the nest. 

natures lucky dip

This time we have decided to give some pure bred breeds a go. The blue eggs in the front are platinum sussex, the next two are araucana, the next are black australorps and the last six are mixed breeds. Basically the mongrel equivalent of the chicken world. We are very excited to see what will come out. Nature's lucky dip. 

My potentially 12 little balls of fuzz will be marking the time with me over the next the next 12 months. 

Who knows where we all will be on the 1st of November 2015 at the end of the Year of the Chicken.

Chicken on the Head

So you are asking. “Why did you call your blog - Chicken on the head?"

Actually there are two reasons. (A) the blog name "The Year of the Chicken" was already taken and (2) It's a diversionary tactic.

Simple. 

“What? How can a chicken on the head be a diversionary tactic?”

Okay, it's a long story but here goes.

In the 80's Australia was going through some pretty tough times. Inflation was high, interest rates on homes were through the roof and jobs were, well as scarce as hens teeth. Basically we were in a bit of a mess. Our Federal Treasurer at the time (Paul Keating - who later became Prime Minister) called us a “Banana Republic” and gave us the "the recession we had to have". Ouch!

Australia's political satirists where having a field day and a little radio drama "How Green Was My Cactus" was born. The one and only story line that I remember from “Cactus” was the one about the chicken on the head.

The inspiration behind this particular story line was our then Prime Minister Bob Hawke, who was portrayed in "Cactus" as “King Bonza - the charismatic”. In a desperate attempt to draw attention away from the country's failing economy "King Bonza" decided a diversionary tactic was required. A chicken on the head if you will. 

In real life the diversionary tactic was a political debate on the possibility of changing our national flag. Needless to say this caused a huge stink among the great unwashed. In "How Green Was My Cactus" this cunning diversion was for "King Bonza" to wear a chicken on his head. It sort of went like this..."What are you doing about the recession and... and... and ...why exactly are you wearing a chicken on your head." Good hey. You really can get past it can you. You just can't ignore a chicken on the head.

Still haven't answer the question?... Okay.

Let's face it what exactly is the social media, blogs, Facebook and such things? What drives these narcissistic needs to record our every thought, capture our lives in pictures and words and then send it out into cyber space for all to see? 

Well, it's a diversion. A diversion from real life. And what's more not only is this a diversion for me... but it's also a diversion for you. And you know I'm right because if I wasn't writing this then you wouldn't be reading it. And what would we be doing instead. It's a diversion from life. This blog is my, and yours, chicken on the head.

So the answer is simple. A diversionary tactic. Nothing at all to do with chickens.  

However... There is a trick to having a chicken on your head. And "King Bonza" knew it. He was, after all, the master of chickens on the head. It's all about making that chicken work. It can't be a freeloader. 

This blog may be my diversion, and yours, but in a bizarre twist it will also serve as an impetus for action during my "Year of the Chicken". A constant reminder of where I need to be, what I need to do. A reminder of what the "Year of the Chicken" was all about. Quite simply, if I let my chicken just sit there, it will most certainly poop on my head. 

Which, sadly, is exactly what happened to "King Bonza"...  Wish me luck. 

Leaning In

What happens when you stand on the edge of an abyss?

Shake with uncontrollable fear? 
Gulp and gasp for air? 
Turn around and get the hell out of there?

... Or ... do you lean in? 

Feel the updraft rush violently past your face? List into the silence of the emptiness that stretches out before you? ... Wonder "what if?" And then. Just let yourself go.

I've never stood on the edge of a real abyss. But for more times than I care to count I have stood on this metaphorical abyss. Sometimes alone, but mostly with my husband and my child. It's scary, really scary. Taking that leap of faith, especially in yourself. But it’s also exhilarating. And every single time it has paid off, sometimes in ways I could never imagine. My greatest legacy is that when I leaned in with a small hand in mine I never realised that I was imprinting this behaviour in my daughter. Who, is now herself leaning in the biggest way.

By now you are asking what does all this have to do, this leaning in, with Chickens.

I'm 49. I've been in my current job for 9 years (the longest I've ever been in a job in my whole life). I've hit a massive bump in my life. On this surface everything is just peachy keen. We live in a great place. I have a secure and very well paid job. The sun comes up every day and sets in the afternoon. What more could you want? ... Well, life. A life that is not an empty shell. Shiny and smooth on the outside but completely hollow inside. Fragile and easily broken, with no substance to hold it up. It is well past time to lean in again. It’s time to begin twelve months that will potentially change my life and lives of my family, forever.

And so begins the Year of the Chicken.