The Chickens Are Driving Me Crazy

We’ve been home six days and I’m still a little jet-lagged. I used to think, back in my corporate warriors days, that I never got jet-lagged but actually what was happening was I never got sleep. When you are sleep-deprived almost constantly it feels normal to be light-headed when you drink caffeine and get super emotional over nothing. I just thought that was the way I was. Luckily I don’t do that - not sleep - anymore. I say luckily but it was actually a conscious decision, one day I just had enough and I quit. It felt very sudden to most people but to me it felt like removing a not very sharp, not very long knife from the right side of my chest.

I don’t really mind the jet lag, it can be good to be reminded how much better your life is now than it used to be. Now I sleep at least six hours a night - sometimes more, sometimes a little less. I wake up naturally, no alarm unless you count the roosters which I guess duh, you should. Twenty plus roosters make a lotta noise.

I’m still prejudiced against sleep though. Some people love it and are really good at it and they will probably live longer than me. I’ve always been this way - not so much unable to sleep as unwilling to. It’s always felt like a waste of time, never more so than when I first lay down. No matter how tired I am I usually think about ten things I could be doing instead of sleeping. Often, I go through a list of all the things I want to do the following day, or plot a story I’m working on. I once read it takes a person on average eleven minutes to fall asleep. It takes the h eleven seconds. It takes me about an hour, sometimes more, and that’s even when I blank my mind and do long slow deep breaths. And I never look at my phone - I don’t need that to distract me when I have the hamster wheel of my own mind for entertainment.

If there was a pill you could take instead of sleeping, I’d be first in line. Think of all the stuff I could get done! Because here it is 9a and I have got a lot done but nothing I wanted to, just stuff that needs doing. As soon as I woke I let the pintainhas out of their brooder hutch, put down some water and fresh food (ground up chicken feed mixed with ground up unsalted peanuts), plus a plate of chopped up apples and blueberries, first cutting each blueberry into eighths so the littlest ones would get some because if I cut them in half the larger, older, hoggier Princess Leia would be the only one who could eat them, which she does lightning fast, the piggy darling. I close the door to their room though - it’s far too early to be chasing them (or being chased by them) around the house.

at least it’s a nice walk to the quinta

Next I walked over to the quinta with a load of dirty dishes, unloaded the dishwasher and re-loaded it. But before that I put the dryer on for a 10 minute spin to remove some of the wrinkles in the clothes I accidentally let sit in the dryer all night. Then I fed the eastern flock of chickens, patiently waiting until the solo hen of the flock of twelve arrived…she always takes her sweet sweet time. While I waited I noticed the trumpet bushes - once just little sprigs less than a foot tall, now each taller than me - could use a little water, so I attached the hose to the spigot and watered them and while I was at it watered the almond tree and the potted plants, we have quite a collection now, all from Rosa - orchids, aloe vera, coreopsis, begonias. The aloe vera plant is healthy and green again - it turned a sickly gray-yellow on the porch of the palaceta, who knows why. The leaves of the begonia were an inspidid light green when I got it, now they glow with a deep emerald fire. The orchid has a little sprout. Orchids are beautiful but they sort of piss me off too, they are so damn finicky and you have to do everything *just right* or they will quit on you without warning.

Unbelievably I remembered the clothes in the dryer and hung them up and felt super proud. I gathered up some oranges for squeezing juice.and went back to the palaceta, realizing that I left my keys in the quinta door only once I’d reached the carport. I turned around and went back to the quinta and I’m glad I did because I left the door wide open, a sure invitation for the more intrepid roosters (Larry and Jackson Pollock) of the eastern flock to walk right in and poop everywhere. I already have one house full of chicken poop and I most definitely do not want another.

I went back to the palaceta where the h said, we’re out of oat milk, I texted you but you didn’t have your phone. I went back to the quinta to fetch the oat milk, then returned to the palaceta and by now Jake was up and wanted breakfast which is when I realized his food bowl was over at the quinta, so I had to go over again - a fourth time. My step count shows 3,000 steps already and I didn’t even have my phone for two of those round trips to the quinta.

girls just wanna have fun

When I returned I let the chicks out of their room to wander the house (they were staring out the window like the dinosaurs in Jurassic park in the last scene, gazing out at the sea) and they ran around screaming with happiness about their freedom, immediately finding the basket of ginormous leeks in the kitchen and standing around on top of them pecking at the dirt that clings to their roots.

I fed Jake, Princess Leia spotted me chopping up veggies and blueberries in the kitchen, stretching her scrawny fuzzy neck to see better then following me into what we call the living room but will in fact become the dining room someday where Jake waited on the couch like the chocolate Prince that he is, waiting to be fed. I don’t know how or when it started but he won’t eat unless someone holds the bowl for him. Princess Leia finds this the perfect opportunity to score some extra blueberries, perching on his bowl and brazenly stealing his breakfast. Jake minds, but not too much. He’s a good guy.

The other babies mill around under the bowl to catch the bits that Jake drops. While Jake eats I look around. It’s not exactly a nice room - there are still torn scraps of wallpaper to remove, the bare plank floors have nails with bits of old carpet stuck to them, and one wall has a pattern of dried blackened wallpaper glue that looks like a flamenco dancer. But it’s comfortable enough and frankly we don’t see the nails and paper and glue stains anymore, they are far down on our list of “things we will get to when we get to them”. We have a pull out couch and a coffee table and spend most of our time there because there is nice light during the day and it is one of two rooms that has a lamp at night, thanks to the extension cord that stretches all the way from the quinta to the palaceta.

see the dancer?

We don’t have enough cords/long enough cords to have light in any other rooms so we use rechargeable lights in those. That was my next chore - gathering up all the rechargeable lights in the kitchen and bathroom and plugging them in so we can have light later this evening. There are nineteen lights in all. I don’t mind - it’s much nicer now than the early days, living by candle light and headlamp at night.

back when candles were the only source of light and heat

Then I filled the buckets of water - taking time to water all the plants in the courtyard planters - and took them up to the bathroom, and filled the big water jugs we use during the day for making coffee and tea and filling our water bottles. Then it was time to feed the southern flock. They straggled up to the coop so it was hard to get an accurate count but after a quick look at the fruit orchard and picnic flats I counted twenty. I did not locate the third hen of the southern flock (we are down to three after a predator has killed seven plus most of the chicks from three different peeps). After writing this I will search for the third - Betty White who is a young spotty hen who is not laying yet, at least not that I know of. I hope she is okay.

When I returned to the house those danged pintainhas were nowhere to be found. The front door was open and the cardboard was in place that blocks them from escaping but allows a breeze to come through. Alphonse leaped to the top of the cardboard and hopped in and went straight to the tray of food meant for the pintainhas.

No sir, I told him, picking him up and giving him a kiss and then dropping him gently over the cardboard onto the porch. I checked the cellar - this week the chicks discovered the cellar and now make a beeline for the steps whenever I’m not looking which is a real pain in the butt because the cellar is dark and there is nothing down there that would be of interest to the pintainhas but you can’t tell them that, oh no, they will have to explore every room for themselves until they satisfy their chicken curiosity which is huge. I have swept and used the wet/dry vac down there so I’m pretty sure there is nothing on the concrete floor that can hurt them but it’s a dank dark place and who knows what chicken dickens they could get up to so I don’t want them down there.

I could block their access by closing the double doors that communicate from the mudroom to the hallway but 1) one of the doors has a frozen hinge so needs to be fixed which is just not a priority among the millions of other things that need doing and 2) closing those doors will make the hallway a lot darker, as it will block the light that comes in through the windows in the mudroom. Natural light is one of the few things that doesn’t need fixing around here so I don’t like to limit or curtail it in any way.

Once I got the chicks out of the cellar and back in the kitchen exploring the basket of leeks I noticed a few work emails that needed attention, and questions from my company’s Telegram community that needed answering so I did that. I swear it only took ten minutes but by the time I was finished there was no sign of the chicks anywhere on the lower floor of the house. I checked the pantry, the mudroom, the cellar, the living room but no chicks. I stood stock still and listened and heard a very distant cheeping coming from above me - Princess Leia had led the whole troupe up the steps and they were now exploring the yoga room. I let them, and went downstairs to finally enjoy my coffee which was lukewarm, the word for that in Portuguese is morno by the way, which is easy to remember because I mourn the days I could have a nice hot latte in peace as I do my morning writing.

So here I am deep into this post and only just now getting to the work, which come to think of it is kind of like my morning, I am deep into it but only now getting to any real work that causes my life - as opposed to that of my dogs and chicks - to progress and get better. As I write this Jake is snoozing on the porch but it is only a matter of time before he paws at the cardboard to come back inside where he will put his beautiful chin on my knee and mutely ask for a walk. Alphonse and Potsy are nearby, and will move quickly to enter the house just behind him, in search of peanuts or what have you.

Jake and Alphonse, hanging

If I am lucky I will get my face washed and teeth and hair brushed before I have to succumb to the pressure and take him out. I have walked around the village without doing these things more times than I like to count. Who is that fright with the purple hair and the nice dog, people are probably wondering. Or maybe not; one thing I like about getting older is knowing people aren’t really paying attention to me as much as I worry they might be.

So, the work: yesterday the property looked very busy, with three vans pulling into the driveway disgorging a half dozen strong-looking young men. What are they here for? I asked the h.

Well, we’re expecting a wood delivery for the cottage roof, the h said. And one of those vans belongs to the window guy, he must be here to take some measurements. Our new windows for the quinta are being manufactured now, bringing us that much closer to living in quarters that will contain a bed, a refrigerator and dishwasher, cooking surfaces, a hot indoor shower and a flushing toilet - not to mention, floors that can be walked on barefoot - all in the same place.

The third van, it turns out, was just manpower - our contractor Tiago needed some good old-fashioned muscle to hoist into place the huge thick 15’ beam that spans the cottage ceiling. The work on the cottage is coming along rapidly - the walls are repaired, and there is now a doorway from the kitchen to the outdoor porch, a space that stretches the length of the cottage and which before was only accessible from outside. I am looking forward to fixing up that space which will have a plexiglass roof, a clawfoot tub, a wall of potted plants, an area for making tea/coffee, a table for eating, and a place to lounge/sleep. I love indoor/outdoor spaces.

the cottage waits for its roof

Why are we fixing up that old cottage and not the palaceta where we actually sleep, you may be wondering. The answer is, nothing is straightforward in a renovation like this. For complicated reasons I won’t get into here, we can’t electrify the palaceta until we electrify the cottage and we can’t electrify the cottage until it has a roof. Once the cottage is wired, we can extend the electricity to the palaceta, and then we can begin doing the sanding and drilling and all the other things that will require power to restore the Brokedown Palace to, if not its former glory, then at least livable condition.

Meanwhile, in the outdoor spaces everything is growing, growing, growing. The h showed me the first zucchini from the horta a couple of days ago, today he picked it and I swear it is 30% bigger. The tomatoes race up their trellises. The marigolds are two feet tall, the morning glories and daisies are in full bloom and ready for transplant.

We’ve been eating a lot from the garden - yesterday’s lunch was a cucumber avocado tomato arugula salad with freshly made garlic croutons using bread Alberto brought over from his padaria-owning friend. Dinner was a just-picked zucchini grilled and stuffed with tuna, tomatoes, onions and topped with parmesan and a side of three bean salad with celery, onion, and pimentas de tres cores.

It’s been windy as heck, blowing out panels of the greenhouse and irritating the h to no end. He noted the crappy design from the beginning, and even after reinforcing it with bamboo and screws, every gusty day seems to shake something loose.

Despite the wind the days have been pleasantly warm so I’ve worked with the front door in the entryway propped open, which the roosters and hens take as an open invitation to hang around the porch. The wind blows the tailfeathers of the roosters all around so they look like a cadre of blowsy cancan dancers coming home after a bender. While they wait for me to emerge so they can follow me around hoping for food, they peck around my plants, which luckily are now big and mature enough to survive the scratching of their dinosaur feet and the peck peck pecking of their seeking beaks.

how many roosters can you spot (hint: there are more than four)

I did not see Alphonse sneak back into the house but I can hear him in the other room busily pecking away at the food tray set out for the babies; meanwhile I can hear the babies pecking away at the leftovers in Jake’s bowl, which is aluminum, so their beaks make a musical little ting with each peck. Peck peck peck goes Alphonse. Ting ting ting go the babies. Click click click go Jakes toenails as he crosses the tile to arrive at my knee, putting the silent pressure on to go for a walk. Er-er-er-er-eeeeerrr go the roosters, asking about lunch though I just fed them. Everyone has what they need but they want something else.