The Month of Living - Day 5

I've come to a rather shocking issue that I didn't think would crop up in this adventure. I already live my life pretty much by the seat of my pants as it is! So learning to do it is becoming a challenge because I simply don't know what else I can do.

On the full moon of this month I am joining a couple friends with some runes and Ouija boards in a cemetary to speak to the dead as a fun little adventure, but honestly, I'd probably do that without this month to sponsor the idea. Frankly, I stole the idea from my friend Sharon, who can't make it to the event SHE brought up one day during lunch. Yep, not only do I steal, I don't even bother to make sure the person I stole from can enjoy the event, haha.

I'm also going to see Outback Spectacular this month. I also have plans to drive to the middle of nowhere and skinny dip in a, most likely, crocodile infested river. (It's Australia, it's better to assume things will kill you - and then just get over the idea and do shit anyway).

I am reading this book called Down Under by Bill Bryson and in it, the author travels Australia and tells Australian stories of things he heard. I have been to just about (well, actually, so far, ALL) of the places Bill has mentioned. I even took the same walk along the same path in Bondi he did when he was in Sydney. I even have been to the same exact beach and soaked my toes in the same exact water as the story he told where a kid was severely stung by box jellyfish. I have already BEEN living! For fuck's sake, I jumped in a famous box jellyfish (read: deadliest creature in the WORLD) infested ocean knowing full well it could right kill me.

I have steered a camel across the centre of Australia, in Ayers Rock. I have driven to the countryside and sung Australian folk songs with people missing teeth (and had broken limbs from, get this, bull riding) around a bonfire made of old Bridgestones. I have flashed my ass to 30,000 people at the same time to a group of dirtbike stunt enthusiasts at a Crusty Demons show (and I got $150 for the priviledge!). I made out with a sword swallower seconds before I dakked him in front of the same show to show his girly red lacey knickers. Sad to know, if you were ther, that it was staged, isn't it? The part where I made out with the sword swallower wasn't though - that was just me being a dag, just like the time I stole a pair of footy shorts from a famous Cronella Shark.

I have climbed down unknown stairs in an alleyway in Adelaide without knowing what was in the depths of the rickety wooden dark entrance (an antique shop, with damn good prices, actually). I have mustered cattle in Australia and bought designer heels in LA. I have travelled across the entire damn globe with nothing to my name but a suitcase of clothes and a few hundred dollars.

I have gotten drunk on mead at renfaires. Hell, I've even made the mistake of being married once before (though my divorce papers clearly show a SEVEN YEAR gap in my ability to do THAT one again). I've lived in snow. I've lived in sunshine. I've lived in the shadows of buildings taller than some people can begin to imagine. Hell, I hold almost three passports. Once this year is done, I will have that third one in my hands. I am literally 5 months away from that. After my marriage, my husband can get British and I will hold four. Four damn passports. By the age of 24. How the FUCK am I NOT living already? Honestly.

New experiences are what I do best, damn it. I take the piss out of life and pretty much have little regard for the human capacity to, well, die easily. I think that's what makes me Australian. Yes, I know I'm NOT Australian, but it's what makes me one. Aussies are good at the not fearing death thing. You pretty much have to be to live here. Of course, I've noted, a lot of Aussies really don't live, even though they don't fear death like a normal person does. They go to work, have a beer at the pub, go home, eat dinner and wake up the next day to do it again. Every now and again they dreamily talk about hiring a camper van and settling off to the Outback to 'live', which they finally do when they're somewhere in their late 60s, if they can afford it.

So what, exactly, am I supposed to DO this month? Be myself? The self-improvement aspect of this month is quite nice, however, and I am keeping up with that in getting dancing lessons and singing lessons to tide my learning desire over for the month. After that, I pretty much do exactly what I say already.

I've never stolen a street sign with my name on it (which is more common than a 'roo here to have streets named after me) and I'd like to do that, but that's kinda highly illegal and stupid to post about if I did end up doing it. Part of me is like, "Fuck I'm 24 and I've never done this 15 year old thing of stealing a street sign! I am more mature than that now, so I shouldn't do it." and another part of me is picking exactly where the damn sign should go on my wall. Ha. But really, I doubt theivery is considered living and probably won't do that one. If you see a street sign at my house, I paid for it, really I did.

So now it's time to figure out how to bump my life up a notch. And for the fucking life of me, I don't know how. Suggestions?

To Eat or Not To Eat, that is the question...

Everyone, meet my babies. Or, anyway, most of them. That's Nigella Hoverchicken in the background, a little bit wet from the rain. That's Julia Childs in the foreground saying Hello and two out of three of those brown ones are affectionally called Two Fat Ladies. The third remains nameless. I can tell the difference between them close up, but not from behind... however I think the two with their heads up are the Fat Ladies.

...and they might die tomorrow.

You see, the Fat Ladies are horrible horrible chickens. I named them at the same time because they never part from each other. I probably shouldn't have named them after such nice ladies, because these ones are mean! I put a baby chick (from the previous post) out for a supervised free-range and the ladies JUMPED it. Full fledged attack. Plus they attack everything else and after a day, everything stops laying eggs!

Julia used to lay and then once the Fat Ladies came into the picture, she immediately stopped. She's top of the pecking order, but she still seems to be effected by the Ladies' bitchiness.

So.. they're about six months old and if you know anything about real home-grown chicken farming, this is a very good age to be eaten. Only battery horrible farming chickens in locked up pens flooded with antibiotics were meant to be eaten at 6 weeks (and thank Gd who'd want to live longer in those conditions?). Hens tend not to be intended for food, but here we are... eggless with eight chickens and two should-be-laying scoundrels who have been nothing but trouble since Day 1.

Of course this means.. we have to kill them ourselves. This is going to be a new experience for me if I end up doing it. Part of me wants to send them to the farm, where they'll have 750 acres to play on but another part of me doesn't want a couple of hens attacking mother's chickens either! Who knows if they'll calm down in a bigger space?

So... I'm torn. My husband is perfectly fine with killing chickens and seems a bit gung-ho about it, actually. (His last text message to me being "Well then I'll give them the chop!") He was raisedon farms and his job, quite frequently, was quickly and effeciently doing away with birds for the dinner table.

I trust him to not let them suffer - however part of me is weirded out by the fact I have raised these hens, fed them, given them a home.. and then chopped their heads off. Then, there's the part of me going, "If I am going to eat them, I should be the one to kill them." And it's true - I should have the cajones to do the deed myself and not send someone else to do it. Of course, even farm cows are sent to meatworks to be slaughtered, the farmers rarely do it themselves - so am I really so bad sending my husband in to do off with them?

Moral. Dilemma.

Especially since the chickens may or may not lay. But here I am, faced with the very real decision of ending something's life - so that I may eat. I eat free range organic chicken nearly every day and I pay out the arse for it. I know what these chickens have been eating (and expect perfectly beautiful yellow corn-fed meat), I know where they slept and I know what kind of food they should make... this is it, right? This is farming.

So, basically I send my husband to kill them both, I kill them myself (potentionally doing it wrong and letting them suffer), I wait for them to stop being arseholes and costing me a lot of money in feed in the meantime for eight non-laying scared as piss chickens, or I send them up to the farm in hopes of reforming them.

If I can't kill a chicken to eat.. should I really eat chicken?

Edit: And just to chuck some confusion into the mix, Julia just laid another egg! If she keeps this up, we won't have to kill the Fat Ladies, seeing as they're not halting egg production anymore.