Why?

I have had a set of Tupperware plastic canisters for at least 25 years. A couple of years ago, the lid on a medium canister split. This is the sugar canister. I don't care about sugar. Bugs don't get into sugar. So I just put a piece of plastic wrap over the top and scrunched the lid back on.

Two weeks ago, or maybe more – I lose track of time – the kitchen was painted. That made me look at all the old, crappy stuff as I was moving it in boxes.

I thought, "I should get a new canister set for my nice, clean kitchen."

So I looked online. I couldn't find anything I liked. There was nothing as easy to keep clean as my old Tupperware. So I considered new Tupperware. It would have cost a small fortune for that. I just decided to keep my old stuff, give it a good cleaning, and see if I could procure a new lid for the broken one.

I found the part on the Tupperware site! I decided I should also buy new lids for the 2 larger canisters that get used a lot. So I called the phone number. There was a fellow who picked up the phone. A genuine English-speaking fellow. I told him what I wanted and gave him the part numbers. He doodled around with his computer for a minute then came back to me. "The large lids are only available in black," he said. My old ones are green. "That's okay," I said.

He told me there was no charge for the lids. "What?" I said, "It's only the medium one that's cracked, I just want the other two as spares, I'm happy to pay for them." He said, "No, you only need to pay $4.78 for shipping."

Wow! I felt so proud of myself for actually taking care of a problem. And on the phone, no less. I'm not great on the phone.

So this is what arrived only a few days after.

There is no replacement for the cracked lid. There are two black large lids and a replacement (updated model) for the medium canister. If I want to use it, I have to put the old, cracked lid on it.

The part number for the new canister is not even close to the part numbers for the lids.

Why does this always happen in my world?

Show Season is Winding Down

There are only a couple of poultry shows left in this season, one in Red Bluff and one near San Diego. Red Bluff is just a couple hours' drive up the valley. San Diego is quite a drive, but I'm going to try it. The length of the drive doesn't bother me, it's having to go through Los Angeles. I may be timing the drive so I do that at 3 a.m. just to avoid the traffic.

Here are some of my traveling buddies.

#33

This is the first bird that won Best of Show for me, my hen #33. She has been to 20 shows. In addition to BOS once, she has 17 blue ribbons, has been been Best of Breed 10 times, Best RCCL and Best Bantam twice, and Reserve RCCL 3 times. I mostly take her to shows because she keeps herself in wonderful condition and she likes to show. Laying eggs is not her thing, she only lays by appointment. She has produced maybe 6 chicks over the years.

Want to take her picture? No problem, just bring out the camera and #33 runs through her Top Model poses for you.

#28

This is #28, a pullet that did really well this year. She isn't as sprightly as #33, but she has excellent color. Barred and cuckoo females are often very dark, the color on their wings and back is muddied with gray. This girl and her sisters have very sharp color with a 50/50 white and dark pattern. All the judges liked her except the very last one who judged. He didn't place her at all and marked "too light" on her card. He needs to study the Standard of Perfection. He also judged the large fowl at the same show and placed my best LF pullet last because of her (excellent) color. This happens sometimes. I'm hoping the other judges will be able to pull this judge aside sometime soon and bring him up to speed.

The two girls above are bantam Dominiques. This is a large fowl Dominique that I've been showing.

#25

He's not an outstanding bird, but he's adequate to show. His tail could be better if he had wider tail feathers so there was no gap between them, and longer sickle feathers. The sickle feathers are the main tail feathers. Below is a picture of an ideal Dominique male.

This is from an old picture of an actual bird that was retouched by Schilling (a renowned poultry artist) to show the ideal. #25, the bird I'm showing, could be "gamier," which means more upright and have less body mass. #25 also could benefit from a neater comb and smaller wattles, and a fuller tail. Until I find a large fowl that meets these criteria, I'll just keep showing the one I have.

I do raise a few large fowl chicks a year, maybe a dozen. I would prefer to find an ideal bird and buy it to show, I don't ever intend to raise a lot of LF just to get a good one. Large fowl eat too much and take up too much space, compared to bantams. They are also harder for me to handle. When I first got #25 he'd been free ranging up in Oregon and he was one tough fellow. I could barely hang onto him. It took a lot of work to tame him for showing.

So this time of year I have fewer birds than at any other time. I raised 200 bantam chicks last year and have about 50 bantams left. Next week I'll be mailing off 6 more to people in other parts of the country. There are about 25 birds in breeding pens, I'm collecting their eggs and hatching them. The others are spares I'm keeping. I have 10 old hens in a spacious outdoor pen in case I need to do some linebreeding. I have probably 6 extra males in case something happens to their brothers that I'm using for breeding. I hardly ever lose a chicken. The pens are predator proof (at least they have been, knock on wood), the birds are healthy. But sometimes a male will prove to be infertile or a female will not be a good layer, so it's wise to keep spares.

I have hatched 18 bantams and 5 large fowl chicks so far this year. This is my least favorite part of showing chickens. I hatch and brood the chicks in the house. That's noisy and dusty and I hate it. But if I want to raise birds that will be big enough when the late summer shows start, I have to start in winter, and the incubators and brooders are not reliable when they have to function in a building that isn't heated and insulated. So, it's inside the house...

...the house with boxes stacked everywhere, the house that's already the scene of so much chaos right now. I need to get things back in order. Or maybe I need it to stop raining so I can get outside and enjoy the tulips, the camellias, and the lilacs that are blooming.

Still a Grumpy Mess

I still have no furniture. Everything is still in boxes that are stacked all over the house.

Before I can empty at least 4 of the boxes back into my antique bookcase, it needs to be moved. That takes 3 men. This is a really busy time of the year on a farm, it's hard to find 3 guys at once, they're all out working really hard.

Last week they were kind enough to squeeze in some outdoor work for me. The "killer" storm that was supposed to hit California wasn't near as bad as advertised but we did get about 10 minutes of very brisk wind. The sort that moans and whistles just outside the rattling windows. That knocked down a few trees here in Sloughhouse and took the entire top off the old Signorotti hop kiln, a local landmark.

Three of the trees were on my property. Two fell into the horse pasture. They rested on the fence but didn't break it. Tightened it nicely, in fact. The other was half a tree in the yard. It fell right next to my ancient Chevy truck. Nothing here was damaged. I have a tree service come every other year to take out and trim problem trees. There's still plenty for them to work on. But the guys from Davis Ranch came over with a tractor, a trailer, and a couple of chain saws and made quick work and a stack of firewood.

An observation: the "killer" wind didn't even blow the tarp off the bale of hay next to the fence. Nor did it blow the blooming tulips over. I don't think it reached the ground. Can wind do that? Just stay about 20 feet up in the air?

I'm hoping for some time soon to just be able to go through the boxes and get the house back in order. I hate disorder, it makes me crazy. Maybe I haven't cleaned up the mess just so I can blame disorder on my craziness?

The cats also need to have order restored. Biscuit just lays in his bed, temporarily on top of the dining room table. He's wise, he knows that's a safe place.

He would prefer to sleep on furniture. I loaned the wheelchair to a friend last month. When she returned it, I left it in the living room to use as a chair. Biscuit tried to make it work for him.

It didn't work for me, either. The floor is high in the middle and low on the edges, so the wheelchair rolls down into the wall. 

Gollie doesn't mind all the chaos so much. It gives her new places to hide. But she's been in this house for 13 years and wants her familiar hidey holes back, too.

Wesley takes advantage of chaos to make more messes. He pulls things out of the boxes and uses them for toys. 

To add to the catfusion around here, I'm having to take all the cats in to a new vet this week. Today is Biscuit's appointment. The mangy little black cat that was hanging out on the porch this past year got sick and had to be euthanized. I had just managed to start petting it, it was really a sweet little girl. Except I found out at the vet's it was a boy, and that it was in the last stages of feline leukemia.

I'm pretty sure Wes and Gollie have been vaccinated for that. But I can't find the box their papers are in, and their old vet has retired. I doubt Biscuit was ever vaccinated for anything until he was neutered at SPCA last fall. Biscuit spent time on the front porch eating out of the same bowl as "Little Girl," so I need to have him tested. If he's negative, the inside cats should be safe. He shares feed and water bowls with them in the house. If not, I'll need to take the others in, too.

I'd like to say thank you to the lowlife butthead who dumped a sick cat out in the country. Someday I'll get to catch someone doing that and they will suffer the wrath built up by years of others committing the same sin.

Still a grumpy mess.