Green/Verde My favorite rooster is dead

This is a picture of him last week. He was the biggest fattest greediest and most needy chicken in the yard. He followed me around. He came when I he heard me come out my door. He came running when I would call for the chickens in the morning for breakfast.
He loved the sound of running water and loved to drink the water out from the hose while I was washing things or filling water trays. When it would rain, he would be standing in the puddles because he loved wet feet. I was forever refilling water trays this summer because Verde loved to stand in the trays and would knock all the water out. He had a lot of personality.

Yesterday morning I noticed that he was still in bed after all the other chickens had left. I swatted him out with a broom, but I was concerned. I gave him more food and I let him be.
I saw him later that day sitting under a tree, and he didn't really move from that spot.
I put food in front of him...he's normally a mean pig about food. So last night, I made him a nest and I hoped he would make it to the morning.
He made it. But he didn't make it past noon.
Everyone told me to kill him and make soup. A sick chicken is edible, but a dead one is bad.

I couldn't do it.

Let us watch Verde's (V-air-days) baby videos in his memory.

One is Green and the other one is Blue..but I forget which is which.

My neighbor's cat Nemo felt my pain and helped me dig the hole. Kiki supervised...as usual.


Good bye Verde. Life in the garden isn't the same with you gone. =(

A chick died tonight.....

I heard squawking outside, so I thought a cat was bothering my chicks and I ran to the window and pounded on it (maybe I should have directly gone outside).

I hear then silence.

I grab a flashlight to scope out their coop, but too slowly.

I look inside their cage and I didn't expect to see one chick lying on its back with it's neck straight and feet in the air.

I opened the door (again, maybe too slowly) and.........poke it.

It's still warm.

I shake it, and then feel along its neck.

I then knock on my neighbor's door and ask Tina for help cause she's my chicken pro.

She tries to give it semi CPR...but she says it's dead.

No marks, no evidence of cat, no broken anything and a very very healthy looking chick (one of the biggest). Maybe it's the food? water?

p.s. Dogs shouldn't eat maybe sick birds, so the little guy is in a plastic bag right now, and I'm supposed to find a hole to put it in tomorrow morning.
p.s.s. I am off to Bucuresti to get Katie =) Then she'll be here and our: Castle Trip will begin! Castle in Romania, Hungary, Austria and Germany. mauahhaah
p.s.s. In this period of excitement, it is clouded/overshadowned by a death. I have grown too attached to them...but not all of them. It wasn't Bandit nor Jack.

Bad Romanian day

Morning started: Going to work at the Primaria (mayor's office)
-chain of bike got tangled and I was dragging and huffing and rearranging the chain all the way to work.
- 4 dogs chased me on my bike on my way home from work.
- my project with my organization suddenly became "my" project and I was "informed" in the "it's not you, it's us": there's no help in funding it...and I realized I have to do everything myself to keep it working: research costs, printing, distributing, etc...

After that fun, I had to go to the city to get some stuff done, and here's what had to get done:
1. Pick up a muffin tin from a girl, a muffin tin that was bought in the capitol of Romania and has had to travel between 5 intermediates to reach me.
2. Pick up 3rd book to the Twilight series form a lady.
3. Print out 200 copies of our local newspaper to distribute in my village.
4. Pick up a package delivered to the city post office.

How many items got done? => 0
-Muffin tin girl was out of town
-Book was inside a closed building
- All the employees got the day off and I found out the morning of on my way there.
- I arrived 10 mins late and my plea of "I live in a village and this is a far ways go travel," did not melt the icy heart I faced.

Ergo, I went shopping, for food cause that's comforting and I wanted to make the trip worth something.

Then I got home from my long day: 1/2 at the Primaria and 1/2 in the city and realized it was too late to buy gas for my stove...
Then I had to get wood ready for warmth, and I got a nice deep splinter in the middle of my palm while trying to shove wood into the soba.

At that point, I realized I was having a bad day...and then I took a hot hot shower, and decided to just watch a movie and have a downkey evening,
then sleep.

Oh, and I was afraid that my chicken of 2 weeks old in the fridge would go bad, so I attempted to cook it and it wasn't charred black!! I was surprised, and so my 11pm snack was an okay ending to my day.

Animals of Romania...behavior and sights

So did you know people raise turkeys too? Did you know that turkeys like to sleep on top of dog houses?
This one does, my neighbor's turkey. It's 2 years old, and the only one left in her yard.

I also noticed one day that chickens sleep in trees. Can you see the chicken? I looked in up in wikipedia...and apparently "wild" chickens have a habit of seeking safety in trees at night.

Who is this white fluffball?? The neighbors call him: obraznic (brat) [oh-brah-z-nick] and pufalet (means: small puff or smal fluff) [poof-ah-lez]. He's grown and he's still super curious and a pig when it comes to food. He does eat too much, he tries to jump on my window sill like the other cats, but sometimes he misses and falls (cause he's fat).
So...while I was stalking out the chickens in the tree, he freaked me out by jumping onto my back and sat on me. ...obrazic!

Another time, I was in this tree picking apples to make an apple pie (picture at the end) and I saw chickens there in the tree with me, and then Bijou scared me again by tugging on my ankle!! in the tree!

He is cute and fluffy and soft though...

I was on my way to the city...in the taxi van and there was a herd of sheep in the next lane over.
Even though it was weird and touristy of me to pull out my camera...I had to, for your guys' sake. =)


MMmmmmMMmm. Receipe is in the Pofta buna book I have linked onto this blog. I didn't use nutmeg though. People said they loved it, if they really didn't, I don't care cause I do!

I have made 2 so far, using apples from my yard. They are soooo, excuse me, They WERE sooo yummy. I ate 3/4 of one in 36 hours, and 1 time I brought it to the mayor's office and I shared it.

Cultural experience at the supermarket

Today I went shopping at an Asian supermarket for food supplies for Chinese New Year. It was crowded, and it was early shopping too! With buying food stuff for Chinese New Year, the food has to be as fresh as possible, so you almost have to procrastinate for some items. I bought a whole chicken, a fish, flour, oil, candy, and more, for dinner on Thursday.

On this expedition:
-someone stole my cart! (yes! I turned around, luckily lifting my purse out of the cart first, to ask a shelver if they had more corn oil in stock, and I turned back around, and my cart was gone!) I was peeved. I peered left and right and couldn't find the culprit. Later as I was wandering about with all my new groceries in arms, I found my old groceries dumped out on a shelf. *garrrr that unkind shopper!* That person ruined the spirit of Chinese New Year! I know kindness and honesty may not be the first attributes that come to mind for Chinese New Year, but we should still continue practicing them.

-I helped an old lady, and she gave me her reject chicken. *glares*
A short old Chinese lady (shorter than I) wanted a chicken, but the guy didn't understand Chinese and her head was below the top of the meat cooler, so she was hard to see. Well, I got the guy's attention and pointed out the chicken that she wanted. He lifted out the chicken, wrapped it up and gave it to us. I told the lady that that was her chicken, and she pretended to not hear me or understand me!! She saw that he was looking at her now and asked for a different chicken. I didn't even see the chicken I ended up with, because what else was I supposed to do?! I took the reject chicken.

-I later got a basket to hold my stuff, and as I was in the middle of a long line, I remembered that I needed to get one more item, so I asked the guy in front of me to watch my stuff. He shrugged like "whatever" and when I came back, was I not surprised? to see my basket shoved off to the side no longer in line?

My calm place? mommy let me buy a whole pack of Chinese New Year candy for myself. Comfort food.

People often tell me that I'm too "white," and that I need to learn to be more "Asian" especially when shopping for groceries. Mostly by my mom and sister. I'm a little scared of Romanian grocery shopping now. I hope I'm not a pushover, but I also hope I'm not too overbearing. I'm having cultural problems in the states, there's less than 2 weeks until I leave.

I can be a better Asian shopper, I think. I just need practice. In my defense, there were no Asian supermarkets in SLO.