real-toro

Snooki is MIA. Our little wild child hen who refused to stay in her coop, and then refused to stay in her run, and then refused the entire yard after she decimated the majority of our plants, instead preferring to visit the neighboring yards, has not come home.  She took her typical jaunt around the neighboring yards on Monday and we haven’t seen her since. Our neighbor swears he saw her hop the fence and come home Monday afternoon, but we cannot find her anywhere in the yard. There is no evidence of a predator in our yard or the neighboring front yards. Her counterpart Chica, now our sole hen, remains visibly upset. So much so that she refuses to enter the coop, preferring instead the antique metal scale on the back porch, modified – begrudgingly by The Husband after being henpecked by The Wife to accommodate the perched bird.  I just thought pieces of hen and feathers and blood might not be such a good way for a 5 year old girl to start her morning.  The large cat is thrilled with this new development. So much so that he is forgetting to eat, instead parking himself at the back door and alternately intently watching the unsuspecting hen and stretching up on the back door in a feeble attempt to reach her. 

We’ve resolved ourselves to the fact that our wild child is probably dead, though we prefer to think that someone has a new hen in their yard. At least I do, though logically she was probably already someone or something’s dinner. I sleep better thinking the former. 

As for the last hen standing, I have become the alpha hen, being followed everywhere I go in the yard.  When she hears the click of the door lock she comes running to the back porch. She clucks almost sadly when I leave the yard for the car. She has always been our broody hen, so I think a few fertilized eggs might do the trick.  Unless a miracle brings Snooki back. For now though, she is going to have to tough it out as the last hen perched.

By the title you can probably guess that 2014 was not the best of years, especially at the start. Rocky, tumultuous and toxic. Somehow I made lemonade out of lemons though, and fought with everything I have to create a more positive and healthy environment for me and my daughter. I’m now ending the year feeling stronger, healthier and so much more empowered. I’ve realized that I’ve allowed toxic and abusive relationships that I married into to plague me for over a decade – and I am beyond elated to kick those suckers to the curb without a shred of guilt or remorse. Those people have no place in my life nor in my daughter’s.

I suppose in some ways then, 2014 was a pretty good year. A year of insight and deep soul searching. A year of coming out of a fog that I didn’t even realize I was in. And it’s given me feelings about the future that I haven’t felt in nearly 2 decades. It confirmed to me that I and my daughter deserve respect and consideration and kindness, that I am not the monster the toxic people in my life made me out to be, and that my daughter does not have to be subjected to their toxicity simply because she is related to them. That I was simply their scapegoat so they don’t have to face their true selves. Those people will never be happy, or healthy, or whole and will continue to swim in their river of denial until their raft goes overboard. And I’m really good with that. Let-me-help-push-the-raft good.

So good bye 2014 and hello 2015. Nice to see you, where’ve you been? We’re going to experience some incredible things.

After over a year of being “Momma Hen” I am officially crazy.  The Husband might also be.  Especially once The Fox began visiting.

The first time, The Fox was seen by The Husband and dismissed by me in my usual, “oh there he goes again, overreacting about what is probably just a large cat”.  The second time The Fox was seen by me and chaos ensued.  (Apparently The Husband wasn’t overreacting the first time.)  The Husband and I were in the house, and had just finished a late dinner, when I looked out the window and saw The Fox, rudely standing on the edge of our bocce court.  I yelled to The Husband “The Fox is on the bocce court!”, which led to The Husband bolting out of the house in his jammies and socks, down the porch steps, across the patio and down the backyard steps where his socks failed him and he landed on his arse at the bottom of the steps with an explosion of expletives.  All the while, The Wife was behind him, eyeballing The Fox who was still rudely- and calmly -standing on the edge of the court, looking at us like we are a bit off.  Three of our hens were off to our right, and we formed a cozy little triangle, with the fox obviously analyzing if he could grab a hen before the crazy people got to him.  He decided against the chicken.  This time.

The third time The Fox came back it led to yet more chaos and a bit of destruction.  At least to my yard.  We noticed him in the yard by the chicken run and The Husband ran outside (in solid shoes this time), and carting The Toddler’s red bouncy ball seat with him.  The Husband yelled at The Fox and then hurled the red bouncy ball seat…which knocked out a patio light and a canvas overhang, and made quite a racket.  But didn’t come near The Fox.  The racket of things banging and crashing down were apparently enough for The Fox to run in the opposite direction of the crazy people chaos.  And we still had four safe chickens.  Scared, but safe.

The last time The Fox was seen I was on my way out to pick up The Toddler from school, and the crows (the two who sit on the edge of the fence by the coop and squawk until they drive me and the dogs crazy) were squawking on the fence – loudly and more continuously than usual.  I went out to quiet the crows, and saw The Fox walking across the top of the fence along the chicken run, eyeing the fat little hens hovering in a corner.  I started to run toward the coop as The Fox jumped down into the run where the chickens were locked in (our attempt at keeping our yard looking more like a yard than a feeding ground) – like sitting ducks for a hungry fox.  I ran across the yard, yelling at the fox to get away from my chickens (like The Fox understands English?), hoping that I wasn’t going to find a chicken beheaded.  When I got to the gate to unlock the hens, the crows flew off and I could hear The Fox scrambling through the fence and into the ivy in the neighbor’s yard.  And I saw four safe but terrified hens, who were promptly calmed, corralled and locked in their coop – their safe locked home on a raised platform – and with their water and food until I got home from picking up The Toddler.

So, now I am in hyper vigilant mode, and the hens have music – or news- as well as lights.  And Momma Hen has a nice little BB gun.  Just in case.  🙂  Like I said, I may be officially crazy, all thanks to four chickens.

P.S.  I am having fun firing BBs into potatoes though.  🙂

 

These chickens have taken over the yard.  No joke.  Snooki routinely flys out, and for the longest time would not let me near her, so anytime she got out The Husband was called in to rescue.  Only on Sunday morning he was out running yard errands, and when I went out to check on the hens, Snooki was gone.  The others are little tattle tales, because as soon as I went outside the remaining three came running to me, clucking loudly.  After a quick head count I realized Snooki was gone.  Which did not make me happy in the least because she is the one hen that I can’t rescue on my own.  So out to the front yard I go, in my PJs, hair going every which way, alternately calling her name and doing my own version of clucking.  (Laugh all you want, but if you have any better ideas on how to find a lost chicken I’d love to hear them.)  Eventually I found her at the neighbors house, on the front lawn.  Of course she would not come near me, so I attempted to play border collie and herd her back to the yard.  I’m pretty sure all I did was terrify her.  After what seemed like forever, I hear The Husband’s truck pulling up so I flag him down.  I’m pretty sure I terrified him too.  He tried to get her, and he’s usually the one she will let pick her up, but she just kept running away from him.  I got a good video of him chasing her – though I don’t think it captured the swearing adequately – but then she ran into the cactus garden so it took both of us to herd her into a corner where he finally was able to grab her (with gloves which I was lacking) and get her back into the yard.

Chica is another escape artist, though she doesn’t seem to venture as far and instead of chasing her, I end up fielding calls from the neighbors that my yellow chicken is out front, or at so-and-so’s house, could I please come get her before someone else does or she gets run over.

I still can hear him when he brought the chicks home when they were just days old – “what are you complaining about?  chickens are easy!  you don’t have to do anything to take care of them”.   Really?  And we haven’t even talked about laying eggs yet!

 

The chicken coop is really a two-story house for the birds with a little ladder that gets them to and from the top, where they sleep and lay their eggs.  Well, in a perfect world it is where they lay their eggs.  The Husband built a nice platform for the coop, so that no little grubbing raccoons or other predators could dig their way in and kill my chickens.  (Yes, I realize I have become possessive about the chickens. Read on.)  And the chickens are very good about going up into their “bedroom” when it comes nightfall.  Nightfall as they define it.  I learned the hard way, after chasing chickens and attempting to herd chickens into their coop, that they will go into the coop when they are good and ready.  And not one minute before.

When the coop first went up, The Husband concocted a little run for them with some chicken wire and posts. Which was ok for about a day.  The dogs soon learned how to dig under the chicken wire and get into the run, and though they didn’t really bother the chickens (ok, Fuego did do some chasing), Rumba ate all the food.  To the point that I had to call the vet and get him another prescription for his Phlegm Fat formula so he didn’t balloon out and explode.  And, in the meantime, and perhaps because of the dogs, the chickens learned to fly out of the run.  Yes, fly out.  Whoever thinks chickens are not that smart is either not that smart themselves or has never lived with chickens.  Snooki was the instigator, and was the first one to figure out how to get out.  Chica followed and a little later Raven figured it out.  Easter, the fancy little hen with the feathers on her legs, just clucked inconsolably until someone opened the gate and let her out.   So the run became pointless very quickly and the chickens now have the run of the yard during the day.  Which leads to its own  host of issues.

The Husband came home with these 4 little chickens, 2 days old, last year.  I knew nothing about chickens and wasn’t particularly fond of birds in general.  So I’m none too thrilled with these birds in a cardboard box that the 2 year old is going ga ga over.  (Although I have to admit that they were adorable little fuzzy things and it was super cute to see the 2 year old so excited.)  He also has a red lamp.  I ask what it’s for.  He tells me the chickens need to stay warm and need the heat lamp until they are strong enough to live outside.  Huh?  Where are they going to live until then?   I’m the  practical one in the family.  The Husband is the opposite.  “Don’t worry about it” is a very, very common phrase of his with me.  Which is really ironic because he knows I’m going to worry.  Anyway, he tells me the little chickens will be living in the kitchen for 6 weeks.  The kitchen?  Really?  Are you kidding me?  Not like I could think of anywhere else to keep them.  And the 2 year old is completely in love with fuzzy little buggers.  Plus I do tend to be a sucker for animals, so  to the kitchen they went…

They lived in the kitchen in the cardboard box in the kitchen until they started hopping out of that.  So I put them in the dogs x-pen.  At this point they are large enough that they flutter about and get their bird bedding all over the kitchen and breakfast room.  The housekeeper is not happy.  I am not happy.  I tell The Husband that they are too big and too messy for the kitchen and need to go outside.  The Husband, who works probably 80 hours a week and is near brain dead from stress when he comes home every night, tells me he’s going to build a chicken coop.  After I picked myself up off the floor, and after a week or so went by with no coop construction commencing, I remind him we need a coop.  I tell him he needs to buy one.  Which kicks off Coop Shopping.  The Husband researches EVERYTHING to the nth degree.  Literally to the point that I want earplugs because the summary of his findings borders on obsessive.  In any event, after much visiting of chicken coop retailers and pictures of various coops texted back and forth, The Husband buys a coop.

 

I’m a fourth generation real estate broker.  My grandfather, Gen 3, had a newsletter he would send to clients called – drum roll please – RealTORO.  It talked about real estate.  Or rather the “bull” of real estate.  Bull like BS.  I never saw a copy so I can’t be sure.  Which is actually surprising because my mother saves EVERYTHING (more on that later) and we can’t find a copy.  So, my intent for this blog, originally, was to bring back RealTORO – BS about real estate.  But it seemed a little narrow, and frankly a little dull, especially when I thought about the variety of topics that can be blogged about under BS.  So, BS it is.  Talking TORO.

In addition to the real estate thing, I’m a wife, mom to a very busy 2 year old, an 18 year old stepson, 2 dogs, 1 cat and 4 chickens. So I’m sort of a home farmer if you add in the citrus trees that I talk to regularly – laugh if you want, but my blood red orange tree has 2 oranges and my friends tree is dead – and the neighbors goats.  My stepson is horrified that he lives near goats.  He wanted his room soundproofed so he can talk to his friends and not have to admit we’re part redneck.  Of course, now that he’s ticked off all his “friends”  we don’t hear much about soundproofing his room.  Though with the amount of video game playing he does I was starting to like the idea of soundproofing his room so I don’t have to hear a firing range in the next room followed by expletives every time he gets killed.  He wears headphones now so I just hear the rapid fire tapping of the keyboard.  And the expletives.  I have never heard such a loud keyboard.  Ever.

So now you have a glimpse of who is Talking Toro here.  And you understand why you may not see regular or frequent posts.  I’m probably out chasing chickens.