A Tribute to Liza Minnelli

If you don't know already, you're about to learn right now that we have chickens. We also have two dogs (Juniper and Lillian), and a baboon/monster/baby wolf named Marlowe, but this post is about our flock, well, one of the girls in particular.

Here's a little backstory...

About a year ago, El and I started to get more serious about our fantasy of finding a place to live that more suited our lifestyle, or what we wanted our lifestyle to become. This meant moving from tract home-suburbia to country-suburbia. It also meant moving 10 (more) minutes away from my precious beach, so now it takes us 15 minutes to get to the Pacific. I know, I'm a baby. I told Elgin that if we were going 'country' we needed to go all out and find a place that had at least 1 acre, with a chicken coop.

Boy did he deliver. Here's the coop. (Sorry about the picture size).

It couldn't have been more perfect, and the weather-worn red paint...FABULOUS! I put together an overstuffed succulent planting and placed a re-purposed chair on the other side of the threshold to add some color and make it look more inviting, after all, it is someone's (or somesix's) home.

Just as soon as we did our research and prepared the coop, we headed over to the local feed store to pick out our birdies! We decided to ease ourselves into chicken-ownership, so we started with two (Polly and Chicky). A week later we went back to Country Feed for a bale of straw, and came home with two more (Thing 1 and Thing 2). A few months went by, and then one day on a routine post-work feed pick-up, I found myself wandering back to the hen pens. I knew it was a bad idea to even look, and before I had the chance to think like a logical/rational person, two more of the prettiest hens you've ever seen (Bock Bock and Nelly) were being corralled and boxed up by my friend Mike. Yes, I knew the employees by name at this point.

Fast forward about 2 months, and we have the sexiest flock of chickens this side of Alta Vista Drive. They're: fully-integrated (the last two had to live apart from the group for a few weeks while the older gals got used to the idea of adding more sister-wives), vehement egg-producers, and best of all-child friendly. In fact, we've learned that chickens make GREAT pets. They let Marlowe approach them, chase them, squeal at them, and are very forgiving when she handles them as a typical almost-2-year-old would, that is to say: lovingly rough. MJ has decided that the strength of her chicken hugs directly correlates with how much she loves them, which is a lot.

Back to the point.

We love our girls. All of them- human, feathered, and furry alike. Some more than others; there is definitely a hierarchy of love: obviously Marlowe is first, but coming in close second is Nelly, and everyone else is next, no one is last...well, Lilly is on my s-list right now, but that's neither here nor there.

This is Nelly when we brought her home:

It's a little hard to see in this photo, but her feet are completely covered in long, fluffy feathers, giving the sensational illusion that she is wearing black leather chaps, which is obviously why I had to have her. Nelly is actually a nickname, given by Marlowe, who couldn't pronounce the full name: Liza Minnelli. There was no other option when it came to naming the girl, this chicken IS Liza Minnelli: huge, innocent doe-like brown eyes, over-the-top costuming, an endearing 'cluck,' and a sweet, sweet temperament (I don't know the human counterpart personally, but I assume as much). Nelly quickly became everyone's favorite; at first because of her hilarious 'outfit' and then because she loved to be held, carried around, or perched on a shoulder (or head).

Here's where the story gets a little weird.

About a week ago, we were perplexed when we started to hear strange noises coming from the coop at odd, yet seemingly scheduled hours of the day, like sunrise and sunset, everyday. It was the unmistakeable, obnoxious, cringe-inducing crow of, yes, a rooster. Someone in that coop was a BOY! But who? And how would we discover the culprit? Every time we are heard approaching the coop, the chickens get quiet. We needed to plan a sneak attack, which just meant that when we heard the crow I would advance from the side and crouch down below the coop's front window before opening the door. We sure fooled those chickens! Ha...not really, but we did discover the she-he, and of course, it had to be Liza Minnelli, the littlest, sweetest, non-roostery-est one of them all.

When we really thought about it, all signs pointed to rooster. We felt like idiots because just a few days before, we had been talking about how Nelly, the runt of the group, was finally starting to stick up for herself and move her cute little chap-clad booty to a higher position on the pecking order. So naive. What was going on in the real-world was this: Nelly was going through puberty, and taking control of her, I mean his, flock. Picking small fights, flapping her/his wings, and herding the hens around the yard like a feathered Napolean Bonaparte is all textbook rooster behavior.

Now, what to do?

We decided on: nothing. We liked the prospect of having a rooster, and LOVED the irony of our rooster being named Liza Minnelli. But, we are also moderately considerate people, so we agreed that we would keep Nelly only until we received a complaint from a neighbor, specifically the neighbor next door who would be the only one with a legitimate argument. Well, Nelly's residence lasted about 5 more days, when we received the dreaded call from Old Man Jack.

I was a LOT more devastated than I thought I'd be, mostly because I knew how much Marlowe loves Nelly and because I worried about what her (he will always be a she to me) life would be like without her flock, and without us. Would her new owners save meal scraps for her? Would they indulge her in her passion that was perching on a human head? What would her new flock be like? And what about her new coop? There's no way it could be nearly as shabby-chic as ours. So many uncertainties.

There was really only one thing I could be certain about, and that was: Country Feed Store has a really good return policy. I could bring Nelly back, where she would live in a clean coop, with some nice new chickens, while she waited to go to her new home. Well, the decision had been made, so when Elgin got home from work that day (this past Tuesday), I made him snap some farewell photos of Nelly:

Fancy Girl (Boy).

The chaps in action.

Sharing one last shoulder perch together. Nelly had (some) inside privileges.

Elgin even went in for the farewell pet (I don't think I mentioned that he's terrified of the chickens...he says he 'appreciates them from afar.')

I couldn't believe my eyes when this happened a few seconds later. Nelly was so awesome that even ELGIN held her. Tear.

We debated over whether we should let Marlowe give Nelly one last hug, but she was napping at the time, the feed store was closing soon, and for Nelly's own safety we decided it was best to just get it over with. And then, as I was putting Nelly in her cardboard transportation box and taping it for the car ride, I knew it would have been too traumatic a scene for Marlowe to witness. She's only seen chickens come OUT of the box, never the other way around, and Nelly was clearly stressed. I know she's just a chicken (he's just a rooster), but it really was a sad moment for me and I let myself shed a few small tears as I picked up the box and headed through the gate to the garage.

When I arrived at Country Feed, my trusty amigo was there to assist. Even though I go to the store on the same days, usually around the same times, I like to think that Mike was there for a reason this past Tuesday (his reason for being there had nothing to do with his work schedule, it HAD to be much more profound, right?). After all, he was the one who had helped me the day I brought her home. All joking aside, I explained the situation, retrieved Nelly and her box from the car, and followed Mike back to the coops to send her off once and for all.

Her, I mean his, set-up is pretty sweet, with a much more manageable (2 young hens instead of 5 old broads) and proportional flock to monitor (Nelly is no longer the smallest of the group, but the largest!)-I finally felt good about our decision.

So then, as I turned and began to walk back to the car, I passed a coop and peeped this little fella...

And after Mike ASSURED me that, yes, this girl was DEFINITELY, FOR SURE a girl, well, now we're back to 6 chickens!