Return of the Steamer and Chicken Health Update

Another day sweating with the wallpaper steamer. I met Will coming out of the bank this morning as I was leaving to go to Calais to return the thing. He suggested that we keep it until Saturday so that I could take the paper off the walls of my bedroom. With drooping spirits, I agreed. After spending a few hours with Toni playing the recorder, I headed for the house. I lugged the steamer upstairs, filled it with water and while it was heating up, pulled the rug from the bedroom down the stairs and onto the front lawn (I use the word loosely) to kill the grass. After it dies, I can begin to make it into a garden. Then I carried the ladder upstairs and set to work on the walls.

Like a gift from the gods, the paper slid onto the floor with very minimal effort. It was hot work, but not difficult until I got to the last wall, which had a different kind of paper on it. Underneath was a lot of different material, since there had once been a door there. The combination of the two factors made for an obnoxious task and I didn't quite finish.

Demeter seems to be recovering from her brush with disaster yesterday. She didn't want to go out today and sat by the watering dish where she didn't have to move to get a drink. When I put the rest of the chickens in tonight, she was on her feet and looking pretty good. I think she is going to be all right.

Fun and the Near Disaster

Phyllis and I went to pick out the tile for my new kitchen and studio floor this morning. First we drove to St. Stephen to leave Plummer (her dog) to have his hair done. Then we drove back to Calais to have a look at the tile at Marden's and EBS. I found something I liked at EBS, but when the woman there told us it would be over a thousand dollars for the amount we needed I was aghast. Phyllis was unruffled and reminded me that the floor had to last forever, that it had a good warranty, etc. I was unconvinced that any floor was worth that kind of money and refused her offer to buy it. We went to Marden's, where I felt comfortable among the ripped-open packages and discount prices. I decided to get the same kind of flooring that David has in his kitchen, which I have long admired. It was still expensive, and I felt very strange standing there while Phyllis paid for it. Many aspects of this process is quite surreal. We then had lunch back in St. Stephen and picked up the very handsomely groomed Plummer. The ride home was beautiful with big, puffy clouds against a blue, blue sky above our heads and the quiet water to our left. I like being with Phyllis and it was a fun day.

There was still some of the afternoon left and I went to Judy's to spend some time with the art group. David presented me with the new sound system he had bought to go with my computer. It is as if everywhere I go new things are falling on me. I really can't take it all in. I set up the system when I got home, with more difficulty than I imagined, but it is in place and working, I think. I can't figure out how to play a CD, and am too overwhelmed to figure it out now.

After the visit to Judy's, I came home and went out to feed the chickens. I had left them out while I was gone, and they all clucked happily (or so I interpret the sound they make) and came running to meet me. I had bottles of water with me for them, so found it difficult to close the flimsy gate I have rigged up. I left it hanging loosely while I gave them their Triscit treats and filled up their water dish. Suddenly Patrick streaked across the yard and began running along the fence, barking furiously. Two of the chickens ran out through the gate and into the bushes with Patrick close on their trail. Then I saw Lytton jump over the porch railing and head after them. I didn't know what to do first, but opted to secure the remaining two chickens in their house before seeing what I could do about the ruckus. It took some time to convince them to go in, but finally I closed the inner door on them and went to find the dogs. I saw Lytton fairly quickly, but of course he wouldn't come to me. I went back to close Benny in the house before he, too, got off the porch, and to get two leashes, visions of dead chickens running through my head. When I came out again, Annie was standing by the chicken house and gladly joined the two others inside when I let her in. Within a few minutes I spotted Lytton running around the neighbor's yard and sweet-talked him into coming to me. I put his leash on him and took him back to the house.

I returned to the yard to look for Patrick and the last chicken, Demeter. I walked all over the neighborhood, into the fields behind the house and the bank, along County Road. I called and called, but had no hope that Patrick would come to me. Eventually he showed up, though, appearing from nowhere, and I led him back home. I checked for chicken blood on his face, but couldn't see any.

My last unhappy task was to search for Demeter. I had little hope that I could actually find her, and expected that if I did, she would be dead. I pushed my way through the thorny rose bushes between my yard and the one next door, back and forth, back and forth, calling "here, chick chick, here chick chick." Whenever I got within earshot of the chicken house, the three others answered me, but I saw no sign of Demeter. Nevertheless, I continued to search and finally saw some brown feathers under a dense growth of bushes. I crawled under them on my hands and knees, expecting the worse, but when I got close enough I could see that the feathers were moving slightly. Demeter looked like a pile of rubble, but she was alive. She was covered with her own feathers, but when I reached out brushed them off her head, I could see that her eyes were open and alert. For some time I wondered whether she was too injured to be saved, running possibilities through my head about what to do. I couldn't tell if she even had any legs, and when I pushed her gently, she just fell to one side. Summoning all my courage, I reached in and picked her up. I could see that one wing was injured, but otherwise she looked to be in one piece. I backed out from under the shrubbery, holding her carefully, and carried her back to the chicken house. I stood her on the ground, but she held one foot curled up and started to tip over. When I pulled her foot out to its proper position and she put it down, standing in a daze, weaving slightly. I checked her over for injuries and found only the one rather mangled wing with a puncture in it. While I inspected her, she stretched out to peck at a piece of chicken feed, so my hopes rose. After placing her in with her companions, I went back to the house and called the vet's emergency number, feeling a little foolish. Still, I had to see if there was anything I could do to enhance her chances of survival. The vet called me back and was very nice. Her advice was to put hydrogen peroxide on the wound and hope for the best. She said Demeter was probably in shock, but chickens are hardy and can survive a lot.

An hour or so later I went out to check and all seemed well. I took a shower to soothe my scratches and wash the sticks and leaves out of my hair.

The end of the Wallpaper Steamer

I worked until two o'clock stripping wallpaper in the kitchen and then couldn't do anymore. My shoulders, which have held up admirably, simply gave out and I wasn't able to hoist the steamer onto the wall one more time. I managed to get two walls done before I gave up. My chronic bursitis did me in. I feel old and inadequate, but the wallpaper in the kitchen had to be scraped off in miniscule flakes, and with great difficulty. The second layer was vinyl, and the steam couldn't penetrate it to soften the glue. Well, I did my best. I took pictures of the progress we were making while the steamer heated up. In some ways it looks worse than it did originally, but this is the destruction phase. From now on things should start to take a turn for the better.

I spoke with Ann at the bank today, and she asked for documentation of my divorce settlement and bankruptcy. She also needs copies of income tax returns, which is what is bothering me the most. I did not claim a lot of my income on my tax returns because I was trying to avoid paying very much tax. Now this is coming back to haunt me, because my stated income on the loan application was higher than the tax returns show. It is this discrepancy that worries me and I fear that it may cause me to be denied the mortgage loan. Will I lose everything I've been counting on? I dare not contemplate it, but it lurks in the back of my mind and prevents an uncomplicated sense of anicipation. I still feel in limbo.

All chickens lived to see another day. One of the Demeters and Mary ate out of my hand today for the first time. I really love my chickens.

At the end of the day I spent some time with David. We discussed religion, among other things, which evolved out of memories of Quebec. It is difficult to visit Quebec without thinking about Catholicism, it is so present there. If I could have chosen it, I might have been born into a devout family there. I would have been raised among people who look like I do. My name St. Germain would have been common, and I would have gone through life knowing that a higher power had my best interests in mind, no matter how it seemed to me. I would have surrendered myself to another authority, confident that all things happen for a reason I am not capable of understanding. Instead, I know that I mean nothing in the larger sheme of things and that my existence is finite. I know that what happens in my life is trivial and insignificant, that I am a particle of matter making what I can out of the smallness of my existence within the context of my world, which is infinitesimal within the cosmos.

Wallpaper and Death

I've been working at steaming off the old wall paper in the house, getting it ready to paint. It's very absorbing. Other thoughts do not intrude on a mind glutted with the hissing of steam, the smell of wallpaper glue, and the feel of damp strips of paper yielding to the scraper. Hours pass in contented oblivion and at the end of the day something tangible has been accomplished.

Another tragedy in the chicken house--some predator got inside and killed one of the chickens night before last. I found poor Adah when I went to let them out yesterday, dead and somewhat mangled. I realized that I had to deal with the body myself this time, accepting that the last catastrophe was not an isolated incident. I put Adah in a plastic bag and placed her unceremoniously in the trash can. Today I put another bag of trash in on top of her, feeling squeamish and disrespectful. The truth is, though, I have never been able to associate a corpse with the living being it once was. If I did, the indignity of death would cause me untold suffering. I would experience such embarrassment for the living creature that it would supercede more conventional reactions that I want to nurture.

I imagined that whatever murderer entered the chicken house did so because I thwarted its attempts to get at the feed bag in the outer shed. I had rigged a bungee cord to hold the doors closed, since so much feed was being eaten during the nights. I plugged up every possible entrance point that I could find and last night I left the doors open and the fence down, hoping to entice whatever animal that killed Adah. I would much rather have it eating the feed than the chickens. Apparently my ploy worked, since this morning the feed bag was observably ransacked and the chickens were all alive. As for Adah---well, I feel awful that I was unable to protect her and she had to experience such a terrible death.