Yolko the Chicken.

Today is a good day to write about Yolko.  Why is today a good day to write about this particular chicken?  She was injured at some point between yesterday and today.  Her injury doesn't appear serious, but it is gross.  Part of her comb, the red part of fleshy skin on the top of her head, seems to have been sort of scraped off her skull.  Like a wierd fleshy hangnail. I think I will call it a "combnail", maybe? There is blood down both sides of the comb but it was all dry by the time I saw her.  I quickly checked the other chickens to see if 1. they were all there and 2. were there any other injuries.  Well, all of the chickens were present and accounted for and there didn't appear to be any other injuries.  Relief washed over me because we have already lost one chicken (R.I.P. Poppyseed). I decided to google what to do about a broken comb and the best I can tell is that it was likely caused by one of our other chickens (most likely Dumpling) and that it can be fixed with some neosporin.  So I went back out and slathered the poor girl with neosporin.  I will keep an eye on it and if it doesn't get better maybe eat her take her to a chicken vet?

A little background on Yolko.  She is a buff orpington and her full name is Yolko Moira.  She is yellow and we thought that Yolko was a fun play on words. I always liked the name Moira, so when we were picking chicken names, I was pretty insistent.  But when we went with "food" names, I relented and said she could take Moira as her middle name.  Her show name, as I like to say.  We don't show her though.  I've looked into it.  There are a suprising number of chicken shows.  And I digress...she lays a brown egg.  This is her egg.  I think.  Dumpling also lays a brown egg and I've never been able to figure out which hen lays which brown egg. 

I hate to pick favorites, but Yolko is my favorite.  She always squats for me to pet her.  Now, you may be wondering, "did she just say the chicken 'squats' so Lauren canpet her?" In fact that is exactly what I said.  If you google why a chicken may squat, as I did shortly after Yolko did this a few times, you will see that a chicken squats when it is being submissive.  And here I just thought she liked being petted.  Anyway, Yolko is our "friendly" hen and will squat for you to pet her or pick her up.  Eugene has also had her ride on his shoulder.  She is just that kind of hen.

As friendly as she can be, she also is our "broody" hen, which means she wants to sit on the unfertilized eggs until they hatch spoil.  When she is broody, she is not very friendly. Her feathers get all ruffled and she will not come out of the coop for days.  She won't even come out to eat or drink, which is why a broody chicken is bad.  When it's really hot, she could dehydrate and even die.  A chicken goes broody when she wants her eggs to hatch and if they eggs never hatch, broodiness can be indefinite if not cured.  If I take her out, she angrily plops down on the ground and as soon as I turn my back, she runs back into the coop.  We've had her go broody probably three times.  There are several ways to cure it and we've tried a lot of them.  We've tried dunking her in cold water (results=wet Lauren, wet and still broody chicken), tossing her out of the coop (results=airborn, but still broody, chicken) and keeping her locked out of the coop at night (results=great success).  She is not broody right now, so we're keeping our fingers crossed.

This is our Yolko.  She is a nice pet and we enjoy her and her delicious eggs.  And we won't ever eat her. 

The time I got a weave.

No, the blog title was not a typo.  I did, in fact, get a weave.

Ten thousand years ago, when our relationship was young and new, I wanted to do something special for Eugene.

As previously blogged, Eugene once had a goatee.  It was not pretty.  After a few months of dating, I had sort of verbalized my thoughts on said goatee and for Halloween 2003, Eugene shaved the goatee.  He also shaved his head for me (I do have a thing for bald guys, also as previously blogged).  Eugene went as Billy Corgan for Halloween.  That was pretty.  And I digress...

Since Eugene took the initiative to shave his goatee and head just to make me happy, I decided a few months later to see what I could do with my hair to suprise him.

At the time of this story, I had short hair.  Not boy short, but a short bob.  Eugene had told me that he really liked long hair.  I knew I could grow my hair out but that would take time.  In addition to being a little eccentric, I am also impatient.  I decided that waiting for my hair to grow just wouldn't cut it.  No pun intended.  I decided to get extensions.

I knew there had to be a beauty school somewhere nearby.  To my delight, my transexual friend (not a typo) knew where the local beauty school was located and said I could get a great deal on whatever beauty work I wanted.  I called the school and asked if they did extensions. I was told they could do a weave.  Is there a difference, I wondered?  Yes.  Extensions are typically glued, while a weave is sewn.  Apparently, I would be the first white girl to get a weave in this beauty school.  I really wanted to show Eugene how I looked with long hair, so I agreed to a weave.  Could it really be that different from extensions?  Yes.  Yes it could.

First, my transexual friend informed me that I had to go buy hair.  We went to a beauty store and looked at the hundreds of hair packets.  Based on my transexual friend's recommendations, I decided on a human hair packet.  Notice I said "packet" and not "packets."  I didn't know how much hair was needed for a weave, but I would learn that it was a lot more than one packet.

I got to the beauty school and sat down for what would be about 4 hours of weaving.  Since I only had one packet of hair, the weavist or stylist or whatever said she could only sew about 4 rows.  Again, I had no idea what that meant, so I said "Sure!" I was getting my long hair!  So I thought.

My hair was braided in very tight coils around the crown of my skull.  Then the packet of hair was sewn into the braids.  Mind you, as excited as I was, I was kept from the mirror until the weaving was wove.  Upon turning around to face myself, I could barely contain my laughter.  I looked ridiculous.  After four hours, though, I just wanted to stand and stretch.  And leave.  I paid my $40 and walked into the evening air, laughing all the way to the car.  I couldn't wait to show Eugene.

This is what I got for $40, one packet of hair an 4 hours of time.

Bam.



And a side shot...


At least the color was close.

Needless to say, Eugene thought I was insane.  My gift ideas are often a little insane.  One time I made a stuffed elephant out of panty hose socks.

I cut the weave out the next day and yet to get another...yet...

Our first date.

This will be a short post.  It is a short story.

Our first date was Arby's. As in the Arby's of liquid roast beef legends.  Eugene would disagree and say it was Terminator 3 (my choice and I laughed my way through).  I say it was Arby's because the first time Eugene and I went out after we spoke on the phone was to Arby's. It just so happened that I called Eugene and asked him if he wanted to get some food and I went to his house to pick him up. (I let him pick me up for our Terminator 3 date.)  He said he was hungry and just saw an Arby's commercial so he wanted to go there.  I was a little taken aback, assuming that this was a date, but I agreed.  I only found out later that he didn't think this was a "date." 

We get to Arby's and the woman behind the counter states, and I quote, "Ooooh.  You brought your girlfriend to Arby's? (insert my blushing face at being called Eugene's girlfriend). "You should have brought her someplace classy..."

Now, take a moment and envision what "classy" places could mean.  Could it mean an intimate Italian bistro, perhaps? Maybe a nice steakhouse? Or something French?  I would agree that any of the aforementioned could indeed be "classy" and would have been places I would have been proud to accompany Eugene, goateed and all.  Ms. Arby's surpised me, though, with her recommendation.

"...someplace classy like Applebee's."  Really? Applebee's?

How I wooed my husband.

I met my husband, Eugene, back in the summer of 2003.  We met at the University of Georgia during summer classes.  Both of us majored in criminal justice (I also majored in Psychology). I happened to want to graduate in four years so that meant I needed to take summer classes. The class was Criminology.  As I happen to be something of a nerd, I usually sat in the front of the class.  I sat in the front of this class on the first day.  When I first saw Eugene, all I saw was this really tall guy walking to the front of the class to get a syllabus.  I always notice the tall guys.  In addition to being tall, this guy had a goatee too.  I don't like goatees.  After noticing the tall guy with the goatee go to get his syllabus, I barely gave him a second look...that was until he turned around...and to my suprise, this tall, goateed guy was wearing a Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt!! I have sort of an obsession with bald guys and the Smashing Pumpkins, but I will try to refrain from digressing too much. 

So, this tall, goateed, Smashing Pumpkins t-shirted guy got his syllabus and went to his seat in the back of the class.  Where the bad kids sit.  I was interested.

Interested, yes, but without a plan. I didn't think too much about the "guy." The next day I was late for class.  Being late, I didn't want to interrupt the class too much so I just got a seat in the back.  I honestly didn't pay too much attention to where I was sitting until I realized that I was in the same row as Mr. Goatee.  I thought "fate" was somehow involved so I decided to give fate a hand and see if I could start something special.

Each day after that second day, I sat in the back row.  I thought I was being stealthy and every few days I would move a seat closer.  I tried to act like I just didn't remember what seat I normally sat in. (in case you couldn't tell, I am so cool.)  After about 10 days, I was only two seats away from goatallboy.  I had decided that I would try to actually talk to him if he wore the Pumpkins shirt again, believing that I had no reason to talk to him aside from the shirt.  And I couldn't just ask him about his shirt because it had been weeks since he wore it last, so I would look like a stalker. And this was in the days before facebook, where one could stalk anonymously.

As luck would have it, tall goat boy spoke first.  It was not, however, to me.  The first time I heard his voice was when he had to answer a question posed by the professor.  I had no idea what I expected when I heard his voice, but it was not the deeply southern drawl that spewed forth.  I immediately thought that I had made a mistake in trying to sit closer to this tall redneck.  The accent explained the goatee, so at least there was that.  I decided that his height outweighed his potential stupidity so I decided to stay the course.

After a few more days, I finally worked up the nerve to talk to redneck tall boygoat.  Much to my suprise, this guy was smart.  Really smart.  Although I don't remember the exact words of our first conversation, I do remember that we discussed going to law school and I decided that this smart tall guy with a goatee would be a nice guy to date.  He told me that he had already taken the law school entrance exam and that I could borrow his books.  I decided that if he remembered to bring me the books, I would ask him out.  He brought me the books the next day so I asked him out.  We went to have coffee after class and I hastily gave him my phone number as I exited the campus bus later that afternoon.

It was fourth of July that weekend and I was going out of town.  I hoped he would call while I was gone.  I told my mom I met the man that I would marry.  I'm a little psychic...

He did call but I wasn't with my phone.  He left a message.  I tried to call him back but he had used a CALLING CARD to call me.  Looking back, it is quite adorable.  I mean, who uses calling cards anyway? We never did talk on the phone that weekend but we talked when classes resumed and the rest is history. Our first date is a good story for another post.

Don't bury my eyes.

I intended my next post to be somehow connected to my biography.  I wanted to do things in some kind of order.  Needless to say, this post doesn't really fit in anywhere. 

So I've decided that, when I die, I want to haunt someone.  I don't really care who (see last paragraph for the truth behind this statement). In furtherance of this goal, I've decided to add certain provisions to my Will.  The following are my wishes, in case I am too busy drafting Wills for other people to draft my own. 

First, when I die, I would like part of me to be buried.  Which parts? The less important of the parts.  I am not partial to my actual body, so it can go in the dirt. I want my heart, eyes and brain removed before burial. Why bother burying anything, especially when it seems like all that will go in the earth is a decimated shell of a human.  In all honesty, I really want some part of me to survive in the ground for future archaeologists/aliens that have taken over Earth to dig up.  I will probably draft a note to place in my coffin (which I really don't want...I'd rather have a burial shroud ala medieval burials but it is illegal to be buried without a coffin...at least in Bibb County Georgia...I don't live in Bibb County, so maybe I can do what I want) to let these future people/aliens know why I'm missing some essential parts.  Although, come to think of it, organs do decompose so it probably wouldn't suprise these people/aliens that I was missing the fleshy parts...in any event, I also want a haircut. Now what to do with these parts/hair?

I want the organs (brain, eyes, heart) cremated.  I want the cremated ashes to be turned into diamonds.  This can be done. A lot of places do it.  For instance, Ashes to Diamonds.  Or Life Gems. And no, I did not get this idea from Michael Jackson.  I had the idea way before Michael Jackson ever did it. 

My other thought would be that my ashes should be mixed into some paint and then something beautiful painted.  For a while I thought I wanted my blood drained and then used as a varnish for something wooden and beautiful...a violin perhaps.  If you haven't seen The Red Violin, I just basically ruined the ending.  Sorry.  In the end, I've decided that this is even too macabre for me.  I know, I know.  How can something as simple as draining my blood to use as paint be more macabre than removing organs to use as diamonds.  For some reason, the latter just seems more appealing.  And sparkly.
I want the hair to be twisted and braided into some fabulous rings or broaches. Or maybe a locket. It used to be high fashion to create mourning jewelry out of dead person hair.  I could live in a world where we all wore dead people hair. 

I told some friends about my post-mortem wishes and they recommended that, at least as far as the hair jewelry goes, I ought to cut my own hair and fashion the jewelry before I die.  I can then bequeath the pieces in my Will and avoid forcing some bereft loved one to deal with my requests.  Plus, I'd rather not have to haunt someone just because they screwed up my hair jewelry...

Which came first?

For us, it was definately the chicken.

I decided when I was a little girl that I wanted chickens.  My dad, on every trip back to the motherland known as Philadelphia, drives us by the house where he buried his pet chicken in the wall.  Apparently people used to give their children chickens for Easter and my dad both received and lost an Easter chicken.  He decided to bury his chicken in a wall outside his home.  So, since hearing that story, I think I always wanted a chicken.  I don't intend on burying my chickens in any wall.

So for my 27th birthday, my husband agreed to let me get chickens.  He even offered to build the coop.  Beginning sometime in September, he started designing and building.  After discussing logistics and predator-proofing, we had a good design and he started the labor process.  It took nearly nine months, but I eventually got a great coop and run for the chickens I would order!  The coop is named "Coop de ville." It has a sign which we intended to paint, but never got around to it (what with me birthing a baby and all).

I decided to order five little "bitties" from a nice farm up north.  I paid a whole quarter to have the five "sexed"...I only wanted females.  The farm only claimed an 80% success rate in sexing the bitties.  Boy and girl baby chickens don't have discernable boy and girl parts.  So, five bitties with an 80% success rate.  You do the math.

So, our babies arrived in May of 2009.  They were mailed overnight special delivery.  I went to the post office to get the babies and they were the cuuuuuutest things I'd ever seen!  I got a Dominique ("Dumpling"), a Buff Orpington ("Yolko Moira"...her full Christian name), and Three Easter Eggers ("Nugget" "Noodle" and "Biscuit").  The bitties lived in a warmed box in our house for about eight weeks.  The dog and cat loved the bitties.  I have picture proof.





We had great success.  The bitties grew into pullets (which are females that aren't a year old). Well, almost all of the bitties grew into pullets.  Again, see the success at sexing rate.  Our Biscuit decided to grow into a rooster.

We don't take kindly to roosters.  Roosters do not limit their crowing to mornings, as Foghorn Legohorn may suggest.  They crow all the time. Because we live inside the city, we felt it best to send Biscuit to a farm where he could crow as much as he liked.  We took Biscuit to a nice chicken farm and traded him for a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte, whom we named Poppyseed.  Poppyseed was a bit younger than our ladies and she never quite assimilated into the flock.  As far as pecking orders go, Dumpling is the top.  Poppyseed was the bottom.  Poppyseed died.  But that is another post for another time.

Our chickens lay delicious eggs.  Once they started laying, which was around 4 months old, we started getting about an egg a day from each hen.  Two eggs are brown, one is green and one is blue.  The easter eggers are aptly named, as they lay different colored eggs.

Most people are very suprised to know that hens lay eggs regardless of whether a rooster is present. A rooster is good for two things: baby chickens and protection.  A rooster can be more vicious than a Michael Vick pitbull.  (Our Biscuit didn't hang around long enough to get vicious but he was definately the man in charge.)  Without a rooster, you get unfertilized eggs.  Unfertilized, delicious eggs.

Our ladies have grown into beautiful hens.  Well, the ladies minus Poppyseed. I will blog about the individual chickens in individual posts.  They each deserve an in-depth biography.

Adventures in birthing a baby.

I started with a post about me and who I am.  The first and most important thing you must know about me is that I am a new mother.  This means I like to talk about my baby.  She is my world.

How much I love her aside, I am very passionate about how this beautiful being came into the world.  I gave birth to a mermaid.  A mermaid, you ask? Is this possible?  Indeed it is.  Finless and scale-less, but a mermaid nontheless.

I gave birth in a hot pool of water.  It was intentional.  I was not one of those women who "didn't know I was pregnant" and birthed a baby when I thought I was merely soaking in a luxurious bubble bath.  No, I chose to have my baby in a tub.  Google it.  There are a lot of videos out there.  I will not post a video of my experiences waterbirthing. 
Why would anyone choose a waterbirth? For me it was simple. I didn't want my legs in stirrups with a bunch of people crowded around looking into my hoohah. I didn't want drugs. I didn't want drugs with a passion.  I didn't want drugs with a passion that suprised me because I have a very low threshold for pain.  However, after doing a lot of research on the topic of birthing, I decided that having my baby in a way that was convenient or best for anyone other than my baby or myself was not what I wanted to do. I also am concerned about the drugs that are used and the unknown long-term problems they may cause.  I used a midwife, labored for 28 hours and in the end, had my baby the way I wanted.  It was an amazing experience that I will try to replicate for my next baby(ies). 

Today I am a happily recovered mama.  I breastfeed, I make my own baby food (sometimes), I co-sleep and I wear my baby around town.  I am a member of AP Moms of Atlanta and will post about the rest of that stuff later. 

A little background.

Lush and rolling hills, grasses swaying in the blowing northeastern winds.
See, I started with a joke.

After enough people told me to, I decided to write a blog.  I usually don't do what other people tell me to, but this time I decided to try.  I usually have something to say so now I will say it on the internet.  For people.

I will tell you a little background about myself and then as I post in the future, I will explain what I am about to include here. 

First and most importantly, I am a mother.  I have an eight month old daughter Elise.  She will be mentioned many times, of this I have no doubt.

Next, I am a wife.  I have been married to my husband Eugene since March 2007 and we are happy as squids.

I am a lawyer.  I work for a small law firm as the only associate.  I do domestic work, probate work and small business litigation.  My boss told me he planned on writing a sitcom about me.  I intend to get royalties.

Now, after learning the above about moi, the next little bit may suprise some.  Once you get to know me, though, I don't think it is suprising.  It is just me.

I am raising chickens in my backyard.  I clean poop.  I clip wings.  I collect brightly colored eggs.  I do these things and live in the city. 

I have a cat named Zero.  He is a therapy cat.  Certified, even.  He has an email address.

I have a dog named Lydia.  She is smart.  She is not a therapy dog.  She does not have an email address.

I have a lot of good friends. Some are here in Georgia, some are in Pennsylvania and some are in Germany.

I speak ein bischen Deutsch und freue mich auf Elise Deutsch lernen.

I like going to yard sales, antique shops and thrift stores.  The blog title is a word I made up but it sort of means antiques and oddities.  I am the oddity. I just like antiques. One day I will have a bed and breakfast.

I hope you like me/like getting to know me.