The Art Of Seductions...Here chick chick!

I have been spending quite a bit of quality time with the chicks and ducks. I know these are things I should not admit, but I assure you it is time well invested. There are so many lessons to be learned from my little, somewhat feathered, friends. I often find myself snickering at the moments of clarity I have when discovering the natural ways that things must unfold.
They do not like to be forced into doing anything that they feel is not of their own desire. I find that this is not a unique attribute.
As a mother of five I witness this acted out on a daily basis. I must confess I am doing much better utilizing this certain sagacity with the chicks and ducks than with my own children. I suppose it is easier to acknowledge and apply this wisdom to my own benefit with my domesticated birds than my human wards. The expectations are minimized and it is without
assumption of intelligent choice on behalf of my pecking charges. With the children of course we have all these expectations and a flawed deduction that they do indeed know better. Heck they walk, talk and manage to escort us into the belief that there is an inherent discernement towards the world at large. With the chicks and ducks we comfortably fall into the understanding that they know nothing
Yesterday as I was feeding the brood, it came upon my husband that it would be the perfect time to inspect one of the birds. My husband was raised on a farm, but the disposition was much different than this makeshift farm I seem to be creating.
My husband's father raised chicks with a very simple reasoning, they either nourished the families body with the eggs and meat that they offered up or they attributed to the bank account with the selling of same. Needless to say, my husband did not have imprinted in him the approval of affection towards the animal kingdom. This of course does not mean that his basic nature did not desire it as I see it expressed even in a bashful sense oftentimes with many of our pets. Interestingly enough he even shows affection to the bird my mother pawned of on us, because it was such a nasty beast, even I don't go there. More amazingly the affection is returned. Go figure.
So he plunged his hand into the brooder creating quite a rucous below and interestingly enough chose to grasp Glady's, the least likely to want anything to do with a human being, and plucked her out of the cage. She was hysterical, screeching and twisting herself about. He seemed, completely unaffected by her protest. He started to inspect her wings bringing Gladys even further into her mania. I asked him, of course, why he would ever just grab at a chick, as it surely would not end well. He professed that they were merely chickens, they won't just let you hold them, they don't like people.
I took Glady's from him, smoothing her feathers in an attempt to convey that we were not all so imposing. I explained to him that there is an art to seduction. You can imagine this was met with a chuckle. I related to my husband, the lessons that I had been learning.
I too once tried what he had attempted, and realized very quickly that the desired end results were not forthcoming. So I changed my tactics unabashedly offering up some chick feed in an attempt to coerce a little contact out of them. I found that they are pretty simplistic in their aspirations eat, drink, peck, huddle and poo in the most precarious places.
As I placed Gladys back into the brooder, I cupped a little bird seed in my hand. I showed him that certain birds had certain desires. While I fed a few of the chicks, I told him to watch the black chick on the roost, who very gingerly moved towards my outstretched hand all the while inspecting the feeding frenzy that his roomies were caught up in. I explained to my husband that this chick named Emelia would not look to peck at the seed, she had bigger aspirations. She wanted to perch on the upper area of the cage, and she was still yet unable to conquer the ability to flap her way to the top. I had discovered this quite by accident one day, when she ascended my arm to purchase a spot on the upper deck. Now, every time I brought forth the bribes of plenty to the rest of the brood, Emelia as if one cue, would use my arm to make her rise.
My husband watched as she made her ascention and proudly perched on the coveted upper area. I then showed my husband that although that perch was nice the other end of th cage seemed to be even more attractive to Emelia, so I put my finger out and wiggled it towards her little toes. She soon clasped onto my hand and held tight in anticipation of moving to the other side of the cage. This I exlained was the art of seduction, you must know what particular desire the chick has and utilize it to gain your desired outcome. The more comfortable each chicken became with my coaxing, the more affection, for lack of a better word, I would receive.
Not all the chicks share Emelia's desire to ascend. Many just merely go along with eating seed from my hand, and through impatience hop up on my palm to scratch the seed anew. Of course I exploit this to my own benefit and gain a bird in the hand so to speak, and slowly cultivate confidence that I am, as Martha would say, a good thing!
Next: Applying The Rules of the Roost to Children

They Say I have gone 2 The Birds...

Sometimes we do things in our lives with no rhyme nor reason. To the outside world it looks as if we have gone 2 the birds. Yet sometimes, it is in losing a bit of our present self, that we find these invaluable parts of ourselves that we had somehow abandoned. I am not sure when I started to lose touch with myself, I suspect it was in the last decade, but with quite certainty the withdrawal was most recognizable in the last two years.
Life had taken a very different turn for me, as I had decided to move out into the professional world and start a traditional career. After spending 22 years raising children, I, yes the woman my mother once referred to as her daughter the tree hugger and better yet, mother nature, became a real estate agent.
I jumped in with both feet, driven by my love of architecture and tickled by the idea that I could be involved in helping someone find the perfect place to call home. I totally enveloped myself in a cacoon of houses, people and office work. At the end of my first year I had earned the award for top seller, and as well, least likely to be home! The first, I was quite proud of, the latter left my heart a but stricken with grief.
I have always been a home body. A mother to a brood of five children, wife to a very patient guy, and a complete homebody who just loved the idea of putting around the house, cooking fabulous meals, and creating a little madness in my environment, okay, alot of madness.
In a very short period of time, on my second year of Ms. Professional, I had two crisis with my children, my youngest son was diagnosed with epilepsy and my youngest daughter managed to fall in with the wrong people creating a micro-mess for herself. It was very difficult for me to concentrate on work. I found myself needing to be at home more caring for my children and with that I moved back to cooking wholesome meals for us to share. I found myself coming to a knowing that it was time to just let life lead the way. I was home again and I remembered how much I missed it!
I stopped being the type A personality still sitting at her desk well past five, I didn't feel the need to work so hard for, in retrospect, so little. I just was not feeding my soul anymore and life around me was reflecting that. I realized that I needed to choose to keep my life balanced and so I would not wipe clean the slate, I needed to integrate the new and old me to be more complete. When I began spending more time at home I found that I could easily give home life my undivided attention as opposed to saying I am home, but working on the phone, the computer or both.
I began to pour myself into what I was doing, not just cooking, but returning this time a little more savvy, I wanted to use wholesome foods to make wholesome meals. Sure we still have pizza night, but now we make it ourselves, whole wheat, home made sauce, nice cheeses. I felt good about feeding my family such good things I could be proud of and in that line of thought came the brilliant idea of....Raising Chickens!
It seemed to make so much sense, wholesome food, organic, farm fresh, local. I had already come to be a quirky super slueth in making sure no product brought into the home had high fructose corn syrup. We passed on anything with hydrogenated oil. Let me tell you those two things alone made most things in the middle isles of the grocery store off limits. I had decided if it did not come from nature, we should not be eating it. Do you think a poptart dropped from a vine? Buh Bye pop tart.
So chicken,...eggs,...hmmmm. "Honey, I want to buy chicks and build a coop!"
My husband is the good sort, as I mentioned, he is patient. He surely would have to be being married to me. I do so go off into bouts of obsession, but he has come to know, he usually end up benefitting from them. So chickens it was.
Within a week I had managed to track down where I could procure some baby chicks, researched it to death and came up with how to house and care for them. It was all set, for me at least.
I decided the day and planned to pick the chicks up at a local feed and grain, but when I arrived they were out. A promise of next week was made, but as I said, I am obsessive and a week would not do. I called another feed and grain and although they had chicks they had just closed. Thinking cap on, I deduced my husband would be driving by there right about then, and I managed to get the guy to open up and sell my husband 6 chicks. Let me tell you were they cute, heck yes they surely were. So here they were at home, in their converted condo, I mean rabbit hutch, light shining down and I got to thinking, truly six can not be enough. I assure you they are like a bag of chips, you just can't stop with one. A day later I snuck down and added 3 more to the brood. I feigned stupidity of course when my husband did a recount, most assuredly they must be multiplying!
I was very happy indeed with the chicks, when I got to thinking, as you can guess, when I get to thinking trouble is usually two steps away. Now, what about ducks, chickens are so cute, but as they grow I knew they would become more utilitarian, egg producers, but ducks, oh my aren't they just the cutest things big and small. So within days I had come across the duck man, but of course he just wasn't working quick enough, so I found another man an hours drive away and I made the trek planning to bring home three little duckling only to arrive home with six. So here I am on Cape Cod, with my slowly growing accidental farm. I just recently phoned my mother to say, someone better stop me I am looking at pigs!
I am learning so much through these little feathered, well not quite yet, friends. Every day brings new challenges and moments of triumph.
Stay tuned to Gone 2 The Birds...