Meet Maple

There's a new girl in town and her name is Maple!

Maple was found by our local animal control wandering the streets.  A friend of ours let us know that there was a sweet girl with a hurt foot who needed a home, so we went and picked her up.

Jake took to her right away.  He even acted as a bit of a buffer against Butterscotch and Telly as the pecking order was established.

Sadly her hurt got a bit worse so we took her to a local specialist who prescribed some antibiotics, pain meds and foot soaks.   For the last week Maple has alternated her time between the porch, the chicken "playpen" in the yard and a softsided crate when sleeping indoors at night.

She's been good about taking her meds and letting us care for her foot, but we weren't sure what to do this past weekend, as we had planned on going out of town.

Luckily, she was able to come with us!  She snuggled into the carrier for a five hour ride and was good the whole way.  A few chicken purrs and some bored feather preening and we were there.

Maple did manage to get out of her outdoor pen the first night but was no problem after that.  It was a bit warm but she cooled off in the grass and charmed family and friends.

It was actually kind of fun traveling with her.  Who wouldn't like having a sweet girl along for the ride?!?

Her foot is looking much improved and we will take her back for a check-up next weekend.   We want her to heal up soon so she can run around with the other chickens.  But I may actually miss her being up by the house too!

Vegan-a-go-go and a-cough-cough

If you haven't seen it, my latest "Vegan Expert" post is up on the Getting Healthy section of The Demoiselles. Check it out here!

In the article I gave tips on travelling and eating vegan/vegetarian while out and about. One thing I didn't mention is what happens when you've been running on an inconsistent eating schedule, staying up way way way later than normal, walking around in the snow and cold for hours and then having to deal with major flight complications.

Oh, yeah... you get sick.

So after all of the above, I got sick for the first time in almost 2 years. I've been fine all winter while the people around me succumbed to illness but not eating or sleeping properly lowered my resistance.

I hate to take medicine and I usually don't but I do get coughing issues and have been forced (by the hubby) to take some cough medicine. What he found for me seems to be the least "harmful" formula out there... a diabetic version.



With no sugar, alcohol, sodium, dye, codeine, sorbitol or fructose/HFCS it tastes gross, but it does work and doesn't fill me full of all the crap listed.

I'm not happy about taking it but I guess this is the best option. I'm trying to find out if it is vegan and animal-testing free. I'm not sure that it is but I'm hoping it is. It's really hard to find out this info. I think we need better labeling.

And I plan on getting better soon and staying well so I can avoid taking it in the first place!

Vegas, Not to my Taste

I'm not going to couch this softly; I don't like Las Vegas. It is essentially the antithesis of everything I stand for and am. I have always thought it was the most artificial and crass city that I have visited. And the more I visit, the more I find that opinion reinforced.

I lived and worked in Orlando for years and some would argue that it is more fake and tacky than Las Vegas. But for me, Vegas is worse because while Disney's artifice has romantic fantasy at it's core, Las Vegas is all about emphasizing negative tendencies.

The city has this glittery overlay to it but just below the glitz it's garbage to the core. I hate the greed, the misogyny and the way people act when they are there... as if this is the place to give into, or even force themselves into, falling prey to their baser instincts. I hate the noise, the gambling and the smoking.

For me, the decadence becomes cloying fast. I am generally a hopeful, joyful vegan but the level of exploitation of animals, living and killed, here is appalling to me. The hotels on the strip are filled with restaurants but I was hard-pressed to find a decent non-animal-based meal. In a town dedicated to tourism you would think you could at lest find one vegetarian friendly restaurant or even a single option on the menu. Heck, I live in the South and typically have no trouble eating out, but it was really difficult here.



There were not even a lot of variety in cuisines. I was surprised in this lack of variety. Most restaurants were "American" or buffets or steakhouses followed by Asian and sushi options. Americanized Italian was a far distant third with very few Mexican or other options.

I pretty much had plain bagel with jam for breakfast and two nights in a row I ate the exact same Chinese stir-fried veggies and white rice. On the third night, wanting a different choice I decided to subject myself to Rainforest Cafe thinking a chain restaurant would cater to a wide variety of dietary needs and that I could probably get a harmless veggie burger there. But sadly their veggie burger contained eggs. In the end I had them make me a salad with the meat and cheese removed and paired that up with a plate of fries. I guess you don't get a lot of veggies in the rainforest... but you do get ribs, shrimp and lots of cheese pizzas and pasta.

You would think an adventurous town like Las Vegas would be a great place for people to try and experience new cuisines and options, but in the end it does nothing but try and appeal to the lowest common denominator. It mirrors back and emphasizes the worst depravities of our excessive lifestyles.

Sucking up to Chickens

I am the type of pet lover that totally obsess about their pets all the time. Not in a dress them up and carry them around all the time kind of way, but in the no one can take care of them better than me kind of way.

Faced with the choice between a family member or a pet of who I would try to save when they are hanging off the side of the cliff it would be a pet. My rationale is that, as a human being, you can do a pretty good job saving yourself, but my pup can't even make it on to the bed by himself, much less scrabble back over the cliff edge. So get climbin'.

Anyhow, we went away for the third trip in less than a month and had to again board the dogs and get a sitter for the cats and, more difficult, the chickens. Now the chickens are fairly easy to care for, but because it is a bit out of the ordinary it's kind of hard to get someone to come and take care of them. The folks we know who are used to chickens are dealing with more animals than we are (surprisingly) and can't help us. We typically ask the high school girl next store but they were out of town too. So we kind of had to scramble to find a pet sitter. I was actually to the point where I was possibly going to bail on the trip if we didn't like this person because I think it is more important to find someone we trust than go out of town.

I don't think we are that difficult in general to work for but maybe we just have too high of expectations. Maybe we're the problem, but as of yet, we have not found a professional pet sitter that we are 100% satisfied with. The girl next store is #1 in our book at this point.

We did meet and use a new sitter for this trip and actually felt pretty good about them during the first meet and greet. We took them through what they had to do for the cats (not much) and then took them through the chickens.

Granted, Napoleon is a pain in the butt. He's defensive and territorial and stupid (I love him, but he isn't bright). And he really needs to have his spurs cut. But he's like 12 inches tall and about 3lbs, so, if you're wearing jeans, boots and gloves you should be fine.

Anyhow, we take them through the process: arrive as early as possible, put out the food, open the coop door and let the chickens run out, go inside and shake out the buckets, pour in fresh water every other day and then leave. Ignore Napoleon until he leaves you alone. Not that hard really.

I think the biggest problem is that I didn't have her do a trial run while I was around, because after day one we got a call from the sitter that she was freaking out and scared of Napoleon. We immediately identified that she was going over way later than she should have. At that point they had been awake and locked in the coop for more than an hour and a half and were pissed off. She also was wearing my boots rather than the husbands so Napoleon was pulling on her pants and kicking her. Annoying, yes, but while you may get a bruise he can't really hurt you.

We gave her some advice for dealing with them and advised her to go over as early as possible so they are more sleepy and to just avoid Napoleon because he will eventually walk off to the two hens.

The next day we got another call saying she was scared of him still and that she was worried he was going to jump up at her. At this point I'm one of those horrible mothers who never thinks bad about their bratty kids and blames everyone else.

In instances like these I don't have much sympathy because, hello!, you're the person who opted to do this for a living. And I had never worked with chickens before a few months ago, so just get over it! We ended up telling her all she needed to do is put out the food and open the coop door - not change out the water or shake the buckets. But the whole rest of the trip, all I'm thinking is, sweetie, you just lost a job because we probably won't use the service again. It's too bad too because she managed the house and the cats pretty well.

So, luckily we had booked our trip back for Saturday. That way I was able to get the coop and pen cleaned up and I was able to let the chickens free range for a while on Sunday. It was kind of cold and overcast but they didn't mind. The played in the leaves and compost pile and watched me carry fallen branches to the burn pile. We also put a heat lamp on a timer inside the coop because nights are getting pretty cold around here. We still need to get them some more hay for snuggling into.

When I had cleaned everything up I sat down on the ground and Napoleon ran over to me and jumped onto my lap to be held and petted and cuddle. I even tucked him into my jacket and carried him around for a while. Who could be scared or such a sweetheart, right?

My new goal is to teach him to walk on a leash. Maybe. We'll see.