Poultry in Your Eye

I seem to be having problems posting because I have been sucked into the vortex of work again. I will try to post every day anyhow. Thanks for checking in! 

Egg number 5 is the work of the Polish visual artist Wojtek Ziemilski. It is a lovely example of minimal art... and minimal literature, for that matter. It captures the essence of the egg... while this project is about working with a shell, two artists, ozz (egg no. 4) and Wojtek reflected on the inside of the egg, which was either there (or there in only a conceptual sense) or not there. They returned the insides of the egg to the hollow egg, either by force or through an idea. After all, it's what's inside that really counts when it comes to the egg. And what I love about minimal art truly, is what it doesn't show you. I love that it doesn't represent. It merely plants the idea in your head and lets your imagination do the rest. This is what Wojtek did here. It is perfect.  

Here it is: 

Here is Egg Number 4. 

It was made by the Turkish artist, ozz.

He took a hypodermic needle and injected the inside of one egg into this hollow egg, put glue on the openings and then sealed it off with a band aid. If you took the egg in hand, it had a strange weight when you shook it. It didn't feel like water inside. It had that heaviness of when an egg, going rotten, contracts inside and egg. As if it were an odd sort of ball inside. Like the slime they sell in novelty shops. It was odd and exciting. I was immediately worried what would happen to this egg. How would the insides stay in? And I was justified in worrying. 

On the side of the egg was written, in the spirit of Gertrude Stein, An egg is an egg is an egg. And indeed it is so. It was a concept so beautiful, so fragile, so ephemeral, it couldn't last... 

It didn't. It seemed okay for a few days, and then I put it in the carton with the other eggs and traveled the 1,000 km. home. About 1 week later I opened the carton to the sight that the egg had leaked its contents and smelled terrible. Unfortunately, I had to throw the egg and the carton out. So all that remains of this egg is the photo. Somehow I feel that the self-destruction of this egg is in the spirit of the artist who created it. I feel that it couldn't have been any other way. Thank you, ozz, for making this egg. 

I am being worked to death but I promise some more quality content soon. 

Till then, the hen on the left is me, just so you know. (faceground)

The following egg was the last to come in (except for the +1 egg by Sybille). It was made by Julia von Leliwa, designer. I gave her a brown egg and she gave it back to me white. It is the picture of the egg that tried to turn itself inside out. It worked... now it looks more like a chicken than an egg. I'm not exactly sure what holds it together, but here it is. An amazing piece. Thank you, Julia! 

There is so much I still want to write about. I have quite a few pictures of the Bauhaus chixxxx that I want to post. So stay tuned!

But first, here are two images, which, if set beside each other (or beneath each other, in this case) give an image of the situation of pigeons and especially of pigeons in winter. (Photos by Ursula Achternkamp and László Garaczi)

I am sad I can't help every living creature who is cold in winter. :( I wish all pigeons the best of luck for survival. 

Egg number 2 is the work of visual artist Thomas Pausz. 

He constructed a small stand of wood that would accommodate the egg, like a kind of cradle. Then, with some electrical engineering, he made a tiny light that would go inside the egg to illuminate it from the inside like a lamp. It is incredible! A real work of art. I love it. It is now on the shelf opposite my bed.

Here is the picture: 

For all those who don't want to scroll back here is a short summary of the egg project. 

Each day I collected the egg put out for me by Ursula. There were 2 plates, one egg reserved for me and 2 or 3 for everyone else. There were brown and white eggs. Which ones I got on which day were random, depending on what Ursula put out for me by chance. I cleaned, photographed and blew the insides out of the eggs. I put them in a carton and when I had 6, I posted a call to the fellows asking them to each take one and do what they wanted with it. In the end, 10 fellows answered my call and each worked with the egg in a different way. So I ended up with 10+1 eggs (the plus one means that when each fellow got an egg, one fellow, Sybille Neumeyer, thought to make one more. So she has 2 eggs to her name). I collected each egg and photographs were taken, thankfully not by me. So you have seen each egg documented while it was still "nude," photographed by me. Now here are the eggs after the fellows have released their creative energies upon them. 

I will present one egg each day. For those following the blog, here is Egg No 1 (this corresponds to the day I collected the egg. Each art egg has a corresponding blank egg, so if you're interested in seeing these, scroll back). 

I have already posted this egg here once, but this is a much better picture, made with a wonderful camera under studio conditions. 

Egg No. 1. The work of Ursula Achternkamp (caretaker of the chixxxx). This is a water tower with a small shack beside it. The top of the egg has a band-aid on it and the base of the stand has a square hole cut out of it with the picture of a lamp pasted to it. It is amazing and fragile. At the moment it is 30 cm. left from where I sit, on the top of a small box of drawers. For some reason it is missing from this picture, but there is a small ladder leading up to the bottom of the egg on the inside of the tower. You can see this on the picture I made earlier.

All photographs henceforth of the egg project were made by Sybille Neumeyer. 

In truth, I have not actually finished my story with the chickens. I left off on day 12 when for some reason the site would not allow me to post what I wanted and would not save the changes I had made. So, as I promised I will conclude my story with the chixxxx. The problem is, I don't remember what happened anymore (it's what usually happens with time). There was so much going on in my life that I couldn't spend so much time with them... but of course they are always in my mind. 

I had distributed the egg shells and was collecting all of them. They were all amazing. So I will present them here one by one, each day. 

But first, back to day 12, when I was walking around the castle, as a kind of goodbye, taking pictures of all the things that were dear to me, making videos of the garden, the highway, and of course the chixxxx. You can hear them clucking in the video which I will present here in a minute. But first, here is the cleaned egg of Day 12. 

Toji No. 12: 

And here is the video I made of the chicks and their box. 

I was already missing them when I made this video and I knew I would have to say goodbye to them soon. Perhaps I will never see them again! :((((

Listen closely to the sweet, intimate clucking sounds they make. I just wanna hug them all over again!! I just love the way Alma's comb flaps when she pecks! It seems like a body part with a will of its own.

Day 13 and 14 to follow!!! ................

I have been seriously thinking about keeping chickens at home. Jelenleg nem engedi meg az életvitelem. They can live in the house, like a dog or a cat. And as far as I can see from the gallery, they seem to be acting just like any pet. What makes this possible is this:http://chickendiapers.com/

This is what it looks like:

 Nincs súlya, tisztítható, nem zavarja a madarakat. 

egy benti ól

with other pets

én is így akarok dolgozni! (irígy!)

A NAP SZÉPE!!! 

látszik, hogy eljött a január. mindenki újult erővel támad, ezért ez történik errefelé:

(remélem azért tudok majd rendesen szakítani egy kis időt a csirkékre)

üdv Debrecenből...

http://z0r.de/L/z0r-de_3714.swf

Most nem tellik bejegyzésre, csak ennyire. It brought a smile to my face. I hope it does the same for you.  

thx to Nion for posting.

I looked though my intended blog pictures folder and saw that the picture I had chosen to post for new years months ago isn't that great at all, so instead, let's have some good, clean, quality new years irony. hell yea!

(credit: http://www.savagechickens.com/)

Let's always hope that the good things won't change and the not so good things will change for the better. Let's hope for more free and happy chickens in the new year. 

...my true love gave to meeee...

three french hens birds in hats...

and a partridge in a pear treeeeeee....

A few days of pause are needed for this snow chick to scratch out from under the snow and to recover from a long journey. Afterwards, there are still two days of the Chixxxx to tell... 

Till then... 

As I expected, the initial enthusiasm for my blog has abated. We are back to the usual amount of daily visitors. But it's okay. The blog is for the birds and I, and all those who want to join in the fun at any time. 

I awoke rather late because I had gone to sleep very late, or early, depending on how you look at it. Let's just say, if it would have been summer, I would have let the chicks out before I went to bed. 

I checked my email at 1pm, still in pajamas, and I found a letter from Ursula saying that she had to leave early and could not let the chicks out. Oh no! Had I known, I would have risen sooner. I immediately pulled on my very muddy boots and my coat over my pajamas, and ran out to the chickens, who were bobbing their little heads in front of the window, wondering why they were being held captive. I hurried to let them out. They flooded out the door amid annoyed clucking. I gave them fresh water and cleaned out the house, and picked the straw out of their various seed containers. I let Ise out into total freedom, and then I had to chase after her, but she managed to run into a corner, so I could catch her easily. It still feels so strange to pick her up. The feathers! But they are completely tame and friendly. When I was in their run cleaning out the seed bowl, they walked all around me and I pet them. There was no objection. 

It felt good to have the responsibility for the chicks. I gave them an apple and picked fresh grass for them. A lady came by and gave them barley. Nina was the first in the sand/mud bath. I collected 3 eggs. This was also amazing: to pick the eggs up and out of the nest. Their gift every day to us.

Here are today's pics.

The coop and the run from the angle of the garden:

The birds checkin' me out from the corner of their eyes:

Whenever I bring them something, they always look up at me expectantly with their little angry expressions. They are absolutely adorable. Especially Nina with her beak askew. 

The side of their "tour bus":

And 1 of today's eggs. 

TOJI NO. 11:

I forgot to take the picture of today's egg before I... oh, but I haven't written about my project here yet.

Tehát az a projekt lényege, hogy minden nap begyűjtöttem ugye a tojásokat a csirkéktől. Ezeket a tojásokat aztán kiosztottam azoknak a fellow-knak, akik érdeklődést tanusítottak a projekt iránt. 6 emberrel keztem, de aztán ez összesen 10 ember lett. A 10 tojást szétosztottam és mindenki azt csinálhat vele, amit akar. Az első tojás már meg is van. Ursula műve: 

Egg from Day 1, and the first finished Art Egg, from Ursula Achternkamp:

Unfortunately, the quality of my photos leave much to be desired, since it is only a lowly phone camera, and none too good either, but Sybille Neumeyer, a graphic designer here will take pictures of the whole series when they are done and she takes beautiful photos. So this is only a kind of taste. 

As you can see, this is a water tower (egg tower) and a small shack. The egg has a band-aid on top of it, a kind of "repair" where there was a hole in the "tower." It's wonderful! I am very pleased and happy!!!! 

So today I forgot to take a picture of the egg before I distributed it to the person in charge of working with the egg for day 10. I suppose I will survive. 

And NOW... for the description of the big day with the chicks!!! FINALLY!

This day was a Wednesday. Ursula and I woke early to clean out the whole hen house. On this day, I also got to pick up my first real chicken. This was Ise, of whom there are many pictures. She is the big white hen, whose eggs I have come to recognize now and I'll tell you how in a minute. 

So at 9, I was up and waiting, ready for action. Little did I know how much action there would be!!! We let the chicks out and collected only 2 eggs. I was the one who was allowed to collect the eggs. I took them from the hay behind the ladder but it was clear that 2 eggs was not enough. We had disturbed the chicks in their holy hour of laying. But we shooed them out of the house and closed the door behind them so they would stay out on the run and not in the house. We scooped out all the hay and began cleaning everything with soapy water, sponges and brushes. It was dirty business, but I did not mind at all. We both made a mess of ourselves, while the chicks outside protested, not liking the fact that we were mussing about with their home. Ursula did most of the inside of the house while I scoured the roosts, the door, the walls and the very front of the house with a brush. We had to change the cleaning water once bc it got dirty so fast! I washed off the 3 bowls (two for their seed mix -- one goes outside and the other inside -- and the other for a kind of grit and stones) and Ursula showed me how the water dispenser works. I put out the water and some seed, and we fixed up the little covered area with hay (or straw?) so if the two chicks who have not laid yet should choose to do so, then they can have a place to do it. They ate and drank, but then I had to change their water again because they got leaves in it. 

When we got the whole house cleaned and dry -- it was not easy, as chickenshit sticks when it dries -- Ursula got out some paint and proceeded to paint the inside of the house to insulate it against rain. She said that the house was made of poor wood and the wetness leaked in. It was a terribly windy day, so it was hard to do our tasks. Also, the doors in and out of the castle are incredibly heavy and not opening-friendly at all, so getting in and out was a challenge. She painted the inside with a roller beautifully while I painted their ramp with a smaller brush. Ursula was really professional. I was not so great but I managed to cover the ramp with white paint. But now came the trying part. In addition to the wind, it started to rain. This was no great help with getting the paint to dry. We had to keep opening and closing the door of the coop with each new rush of drizzle. 

Also, the seed had been spilled because the bag got wet and as the maintenance man here picked it up, the bag ripped and the contents spilled. So we shoveled up all the seed and put it in some mail crates. We took all the chickens' stuff to a workshop studio here to keep the dry straw and seeds and stuff away from the smoking area, where it had been stored till now. So we transferred everything in the drizzle. It wasn't cold because we were working and it was great fun to make the chicks'  house all pretty and fresh. 

Somewhere in the meantime there, I picked up Ise. Ursula showed me how. She sometimes lets Ise out of the front door while the others are out on the run. Ise struts around and pecks at the grass showing the others that she is out. But she doesn't dare go far away. Ursula said you have to come up behind her and then she will crouch down and you pick her up by cupping your hands around the wings. She picked up Ise and handed her to me, but I was scared and Ise started flapping so I put her down. We tried again. This time was better. As Ise's little feet hung in the air, I could feel her little heart beating. I only held her for a few seconds but it was amazing. I will have to do it again. 

Then, another great thing happened with Ise. I saw the moment she laid the egg! This is how I know which ones she lays. It was a perfectly symmetrical egg and kind of longish. It was light brown. The others pecked at it. Then, later, I saw that Nina had lower herself onto Ise's egg. And she had also laid one, but this I didn't actually see come out. This was a smaller, darker one. So now we know that Ise and Nina lay brown eggs. If I would spend more time with the chicks, I would figure out whether Alma (small white) or Lucia (black) lays the white egg. 

So Ise's egg No. 7a. I set aside and did not include it in the project. I will maybe do something with it on my own. 

So we were still stuck at waiting for the paint to dry. We had coffee till then and went up to Ursula's room and I looked at her bird things. We share a love for birds and Bauhaus. 

Later I went up to my room to cook and one of us always went out to open or close the door and to wipe out the water, depending on what was going on with the precipitation. Finally, Ursula deemed the coop dry and arranged the straw. I watched this from my room. Then I went downstairs to take a picture of the clean coop. It was beautiful! I was proud of our work, and now I know what exactly the demands are of keeping hens. Of course, I would only truly know this if I would get up every morning to let them out and feed them and clean and water them, then give them lunch and then closing them up at night. Right now I am only a part-time chicken access worshiper. I don't know if my life will ever be ordered enough for me to actually keep chickens. At the moment, I will be sad to leave these little ones. 

Here are some pictures. 

The coop, BEFORE cleaning (yuck):

on this pic u can see where they go to lay their eggs. It is obvious who we were disturbing here. 

Ursula checking the paint job:

the straw is in the blue bag. we had to cover it against the rain. 

The coop, AFTER cleaning: (nice!) 

And> we might have spent half a day cleaning and scrubbing and painting, but all I got here was a picture of the hens' opinion of being shut out of their house all day. :))))

Chicken butts, all 4:

And that concludes my summary of the big day with the chicks. 

Today I was outside for only a short time. Nina was hogging the sand bath, which, at the moment, was more like a mudbath. 

Tomorrow I get to close up the coop for the nite. RESPONSIBILITY!!! :))))))))))))

There is actually nothing to write about, because either I am too busy or the weather is terrible. Today was the latter. All night I could hardly sleep because I was so worried about the chicks. There was a terrible storm all night and all day. The wind was howling and I was afraid that the chicks were scared or that something would happen to them in the house. But they were alright. Ursula let them out into the little caged platz that they have so the wind wouldn't carry them away, but before they were put to bed, she let them out a little to run around. They did, ignoring the horrible weather. They ran around and scratched like crazy as if they had missed something all day. 

I found an egg. So again, I took two eggs. These are now labeled egg 9 and 9a, especially because I broke one of them while I was trying to get the insides out. So there is a picture of the egg, but the egg actually no longer exists except in a broken form in the garbage. It slipped from my hand as I was turning it around to pierce the other side and it cracked so there was no point in keeping it. The number of eggs is overwhelming. If I had 4 chicks, I don't know what I'd do with all the eggs, as we do not eat very many eggs at all. Today I made them into brownies. But now I have two more that have been blown out into a cup and I have to think of what to do with them. 

I hope tomorrow will be the day when I finally write about how we cleaned the henhouse... 

There are actually no pictures of the chicks from today, only the eggs. I hope this will not stay like this. I want pictures of them from every day... 

Here is a picture of Egg 9 and 9a. 

And now it starts to get confusing. Since I took 2 eggs on day 7, they are labeled Toji 7 and 8, when actually they are eggs 7 and 7a. So here is today's egg, a white one, from mystery chicken (we have narrowed it down to Alma and Lucia, Nina and Ise definitely lay brown ones. Ise lays a light brown one and Nina lays a darker brown one), which gets labeled number of 9, but which is actually from day 8. 

As I mentioned in the post from twenty minutes ago, today was a very busy day, so I did not even go out to see the chickens, for which my heart bleeds. I want to spend as much time with them as possible, but because I'm leaving so soon, I have to get so many things done. I must start getting up earlier so I can spend more time with the chicks. I only saw them from my window as they were eating the lunch scraps gleefully. So with a heavy heart, I go to bed, with the hopes that I will spend some lovely time with them tomorrow. 

TOJI NO. 9 (from day 8): 

Today was a long day, so I still will not write about my big day with the chickens from yesterday. It requires calmness and time, and I have neither at the moment. So just for now, the picture of the eggs from day 7. There are two eggs and I will say why tomorrow when, hopefully, I will write about my account of day 7. 

TOJI NO. 7 and 8 (aka 7a):