coop attack, paintball, and tea cups

I have become the unwilling custodian of the rescued infant-massacre chicks. "I am not the chicken dumping ground!" I said. Except I am, because I have the chicken coop. One of my mother's co-workers with a yard backing the jungle will take them in a few weeks, when they're big enough not to be eaten by the wild pigs. So I have a chicken orphanage in my yard right now, which technically speaking we are not allowed to have. But they are temporary rehab birds, OKAY?

I don't feel like it's okay. They are nice little chickens, though.  

During the week, there was a smash and a frenzy of peeping, and the man ran outside in time to see the neighbor's dog dash out of the yard with a chick in its mouth and retreat back into its own yard through the open gate, then into the house through the dog door. Mr. Across the Road came trotting outside to close the gate while Mike was rounding up a terrorized chick that had escaped the attack, and then he hid. An hour later, when he thought the coast was clear, Mr. Across the Road came outside to finish putting away his tools, saw Mike heading across the road calling his name, pretended not to notice him, and hid around the side of the house. Mike waited for him at the gate. When he crept back out, Mr. Across the Road pretended to be surprised. "Hey, neighbor, didn't see you there! Oh man, did the dog get out? Naw, I didn't see any chicks. That's so weird." As if he didn't notice the dead bird chewed up in the living room.

Next time Mr. Across the Road misses the garbage truck on his side of the road and runs outside in his pajamas to roll his garbage bin next to ours, I will helpfully roll it straight back into his driveway. 

- - - 

Planning a pandemic graduation party is a checklist leading to misadventure: What can we do for fun with a group of teenagers that is outdoors, has lots of space, and includes face protection? We narrowed it down to snorkeling, ax-throwing, paintballs, and tiny race cars. Since teaming up to try to survive in a Hunger Games scenario is more sociable that paddling in circles with your face in the water, the teenagers opted for paintball. 

I opted for staying home with Zenny and making tea cups. 

As it happens, paintball is also the recreational activity of choice for off-duty marines. The kids were solid canvases of yellow paint and welts by the end of the day, and Leif has decided that being hunted for sport isn't his hobby of choice. I made fresh kaiser rolls and bbq pulled pork for dinner and we watched MASH. 

Knowing what you don't want is important. 

learning curve

 Very important content: my cat laying nude in the window. 

A moment later he yawned, fell off, landed on a graduation balloon, and exploded.

I’ve been throwing mugs every evening, partly because it takes at least an hour a day to get good at anything, and partly to stay out of my mother-in-law’s hair. The pottery is accumulating. Still a bit wobbly, but finally getting height. I have a much easier time pulling handles than the boys, which is shocking if you’ve seen how it’s done.

 (Not my hands, I’m a lot slower)

Probably because I don't find it counterintuitive to smash them flat afterwards.

Sitting downstairs in the studio, rinsing clay off my aching arms, taking a break in my comfy chair to paint a bit, I felt deeply satisfied. 

A rainbow of skill development

My first handles

Waiting to be trimmed and smoothed out

First block-in. Don't hold me to any of it.

I’d like a lifetime of hours like these.

Graduate

My mother-in-law is visiting for Gavin’s high school graduation. I got home from work on Friday to find takeout on the table and the boy in the shower after a day at rehearsal. We sat down to wait for him and chat a bit, and when Gavin walked in behind her, I did a double-take and burst out laughing, because apparently the school had decided to hold rehearsal out on the football field for four hours and give all the graduating seniors mask-shaped sunburns just in time for one of the biggest and most photographed events of their lives. I went into the worst kind of sudden hysterical laughter - doubled over, incoherent, banging the table -  before struggling to get my shit together and asking, through tears, “so... it was an overdose?” Mother-in-law had been in the middle of describing the circumstances of her friend’s daughter’s death.

And that is why she doesn’t like to talk with me.

But really 

It was a good ceremony, even though the pandemic protocols required us to drop off our senior at the gym and wait in our cars to be escorted to the field, so I wasn’t on hand to get in a fight with the principal when she tried to stop Gavin from walking because his jeans weren’t dark enough and his tie had tiny skulls on it. One of the security guards ran next door to his house and lent Gavin a pair of dress pants, which he pulled on right over his jeans because his legs are pool noodles. The principal had to yell at some girls about wearing white sneakers instead of white high-heeled sandals, so the tie slipped by.

SKULLS OH NOES

Having big feelings about this thing.

Trim

Trimming is hard. My bowl lost its grip, flew off the wheel, hit the wall of the basin at high speed like an overconfident 7 year old at a skating rink, and knocked out a chunk of its rim. I bent it back into shape, carved a matching chunk out of the other side of the rim, and now it’s a ramen bowl.

Still counts.

Wheeling

Absolutely outraged that I was not immediately fantastic at pottery throwing. FaceTimed my mother, completely covered in clay slop, and complained. “THIS IS ICE SKATING ALL OVER AGAIN.” On the fourth attempt at making a mug, I made something like a bowl, threw down my sponge, and called it a win. I am a natural at making lopsided bowls, like I am a natural at making a half-turn on ice skates so I slam into the wall with my body instead of my face.

It was a whole lot of fun, and we are going to have the best punching muscles once our arms figure out how to keep up.

Leif made a shot glass 

Such pottery, very wow

Gavin felt soggy after his second vaccination and just supervised 

Zenny made a cat dish

Annoyed about bowls not being mugs

Tomorrow is trimming, which is where you take your nearly-dry piece and carve away all the ugly bits. Or shave holes in your stupid bowl and call it a design feature. We will see.

Yikes

Guess who’s got fake tattoos and tickets to New York in August?

This lady. 

And also the college kid, since he’s the one getting delivered to his dorm.

It’s really weird having things happening again, after a year of standing at a door. But starting Monday, door duty is OVER, and the library is open to all riff-raff like usual, with no time limits or book quarantine or hourly cleaning. Masks and distancing are still in effect, so I’m going to be constantly screaming across the children’s section for people to cover their stupid noses, but that is one of my special skills, right under “barnyard noises”.

Pottery update: we tried making a wedging board, which is a slab of plaster that won’t adhere to the clay while you’re kneading the air bubbles out of it like bread dough, and accidentally made way too small of a box with way too tall walls, so you could kind of drop the clay into it and smush it with your fingers, if you were really determined. 

Damn it.

I’m going to make a lot more plaster and fill it to the top like a giant brick. Then next time I hear prowlers outside the studio, I can arm myself with a 20lb hunk of plaster instead of an empty beer mug. 

My Instagram stories got spoopy this week. 

Note: NOT MY CAT.

Belts arrive this week, then the pottery wheel will be wheeling again. And I’ll be on it.

Slightly later is the time

We put on our aprons, plugged in the wheel — and all the old belts broke. Another week before the fresh belts arrive. 

That’s okay, my tattoos are still in the mail anyway. 

Here are some flowers that are drying in the studio.

Now’s the time, the time is now

This thing is gaining momentum. I ordered clay and aprons and glazes and tools, my mother salvaged a load of kiln shelves, and we are ready to start making a mess.

This kid is in it for the linen aprons

Rearranging the studio

Annoyed we can't start throwing 5 minutes before dinnertime

I’ve started a new Instagram page for pottery stuff (hollybeepottery), where I’ll post wheel-throwing videos and scary kiln reveals. Ordered some large fake tattoos to add a pretentious air of artistry and also to cover up the fact that my arms are basically just two wet baguettes. FOR NOW.  

Goals:

 

Egg rescue and SADNESS

I used to have a friend who found playing cards on the sidewalk so frequently that he started looking them up to tell his fortune, just in case the fates were trying to leave him messages. I think he probably just had a lot of gamblers in the neighborhood, but it's a nice idea. This week I woke up from a nightmare for the fourth night in a row. Peeled a dead mouse off the library walkway. Fell asleep in a zoom meeting. Sat at the door waiting for patrons, staring at the sky and having an existential crisis. Discovered I’m one of the suspects in an Ann Cleeves book.

So when a playing card dropped out of a book I was handling, I went straight to the internets and looked that shit up.

Ten of Spades means SADNESS mixed with tears and disappointment. 

It isn’t just a bad card. It’s poisonous like jealousy. It will in a great measure counteract the good effects of the cards near you. You might be overcome by the feeling that nothing is right and the only thing you wish is to be to left alone. Ten of Spades is also a warning: take care not to get addicted to your sorrows.

 

Rude.

One of the wild hens behind my mother’s house pecks her babies to death. When we catch her on a clutch, the mental egg-hatching countdown starts, and our ears perk up for the sounds of infanticide. My mother still can’t drive with her recovering arm, so I came over for my weekend shift as caretaker and first thing this morning that stupid psychotic chicken started pecking her chicks as they hatched. We ran outside and grabbed up the survivors and the cracking eggs. One had already been murdered overnight, one had a horrific brain injury and is in a special hospice box with a warmer, and two got away alive. We dabbed ointment on the one that was bleeding, and we are on eggy watch now.

It is really hard not to mess with them. You imaging cracking them open and having fluff balls fall out, but what you’d get is a wet shrink-wrapped thing that bleeds to death. Let them work themselves out.

Will update this post as they hatch. Live video on my Instagram stories. 

Update:

Four viable chicks so far. Two eggs were having difficulty, so over the course of 8 hours we gently and slowly helped them along (don’t tear the membrane, give them a chance to struggle free so the blood vessels close), and they did finally break free, but one had a fatal birth defect, and it’s going to die. Which is fucking awful. The other, however, managed to get its shrink wrapping off just fine once it had some help.

Chopper, who made it out all by herself in record time 

Pecky, the baby who survived multiple head injuries 

Eggy, who had a little help and popped out successfully 

The lucky baby who escaped murder hen while she killed the others and hid crying in a flower pot until we rescued her

Update again:

Holy shit, what we thought was a scary birth defect was some kind of yolky prenatal weirdness, because she absorbed it all, kicked off her shell, and screamed “I’M ALIVE, MOTHERFUCKERS.” We apologized and cuddled her and took her out of the hospice box to put her in with the others. 5 survivors!

Update next morning:

Two more eggs hatched, one at bedtime and one in the morning. 

The chicks are in a bird cage with a soft pocketed warming pad suspended over them so that the pocket hangs down like a tunnel, and they’ve all crammed inside it to make a cuddle puddle. Guess what we didn’t need? 7 MORE CHICKENS. We will find good homes for these sweet nuggets.

Hibiscuits

Painting hibiscus over here. I’ll probably sit down for a few more hours and try to ruin these things before calling it quits.

In my latest act of transfiguration, I turned $300 into a pottery wheel. Currency is the oldest and laziest form of wizardry — but just because you know how it’s done doesn’t mean it isn’t magic. As soon as I figure out what kind of clay and glazes we need, this ceramics operation will be in motion. I’m going to make a flower vase the cats can’t knock over, and a coffee cup you could use in hand to hand combat. The kids can fill the house with bowls and little mangled figurines. Making things is important.

Also there are MORE CHICKS. 

Two feral hens got into one of the flower pots behind my mom’s house and shared a clutch of 21 eggs. 14 of those hatched successfully, and the two moms realized they didn’t know how to get the nuggets out of the big pot. We had to scoop out handfuls of fluff balls and deal with the dead ones while the mother hens tried to sort out whose chicks were whose. In the end they settled on walking around together while the chicks run back and forth between them.

Adorable.

Especially because they’re not my problem.