All Cooped Up

I woke yesterday to a pitiful sight - a rooster lying dead at the gate at the foot of the driveway. The h said the ants had been at it for awhile so it happened in the night, after 11p but well before 7a when I found it on the way out for Jake’s morning walk.

Only Jake didn’t walk, he ran - the whole mile, even the uphill parts. I’ve been too cooped up! he seemed to be saying. Energy to burn! A five acre property he can roam at will isn’t exactly cooped up, but I get it - Jake is social and likes to get out and about to greet people and get the news (eg sniffing).

I mourned the rooster, one of the many young bachelors that roam the property. He was a healthy size, suggesting he succumbed to violence. He was dead beneath a place the neighbor’s cat is frequently seen, stalking along the top of the wall where the gate sits. Cats don’t usually attack roosters but hungry ones might go for a chick and we have 36, maybe the rooster died defending them. Or maybe he just ate something bad - we will never know.

There are two fewer chicks this morning too - the mamas in the koi pond found a perfect place to lay and sit on eggs but it’s a bad place to raise chicks. I didn’t find all of the missing chicks but from the corner of my wye I caught a tiny movement. It repeated - first I thought it was the stem of a leaf blowing in the slight breeze but then saw it was the feeble kicking of a chick lying on its back. I scooped it up and brought it to the house. I was sure it would die - it’s eyes were glazed and it’s little body utterly limp. I gave it water from my finger tip, tipping its little head back so the water could trickle down its throat. I noticed a small pink spot on its neck and put some antibiotic on a QTip and dabbed it. After an hour of giving it drops of water from a tiny china cup that was once part of a dollhouse we found on the property, and warming it in my hands, it’s eyes are bright and black, and it’s sitting up and cheeping loudly, supporting it’s own weight on its comically large feet.

I tried to put it in a box with straw but as it slowly gained strength it made it clear it didn’t want to leave my hand, so the breast pocket of my dad’s old flannel shirt is the compromise. Dad was a great champion of baby animals so it feels serendipitous to have this little passenger in this particular pocket.

I named it Biscuit (not sure if the sex yet). Biscuit is now hunkered down and cheeping occasionally from the depths of my pocket to let me know all is well.

Today we’ll attempt to fetch the rest of the chicks out of the koi pond, if only the hens will allow it. I wish I could explain to the hens that out of the koi pond they will have the run of the entire wooded area just north of the house to scratch and find a place to hunker down. Meanwhile we’ll continue getting the coop ready with nesting boxes and roosts. It will take awhile to get the flock up accustomed to their new domain but with all the food bounty, space and safety from predators it’s bound to catch on sooner vs later.

I belong to a number of social media groups comprised of ex-pats who have moved to Portugal. The plan was to join a meetup or two but so far our work schedule hasn’t permitted - the day of a Lisbon meetup we took delivery of our first appliance; the day a running group met, I had my SEF meeting. Recently I saw live music posted at a venue in nearby Sintra and vowed we would go even if the genre is country western, a style neither one of us favors but beggars can’t be choosers and we are missing live music something fierce. Going to hear a live band was a huge feature of our early courtship, aided and abetted by living in San Francisco during its heyday of live music venues - Slim’s, the Boom Boom Room, the Warfield, the American Music Hall, Pacha Mama’s, Harry’s, Bruno’s, The Fillmore and a dozen more we went to regularly, usually walking to and from. Even before I met the h, in the lonely days after my divorce when I sometimes left the house only once in three days I’d get to feeling too cooped up and scurry out to see a band. Live music is like a bookstore that way, an excellent way to take in art and be among people without having to interact with anyone.

All but two of those music venues are closed now; some fell victim to the financial crisis, others were finished off by the pandemic. It was great while it lasted. But there are other bands waiting to be heard - one of them featuring my neighbor Jonas who along with his wife has hosted us many times, and has five guitars and rocking long hair like the h. His band had recently found a garage to rehearse in, and will be playing live somewhere before too long. I don’t know where it will be but I do know that we will be there and it’s great to have going to live music to look forward to again.

update: biscuit is no more :-(