Emotional Support Chicken – Yarn, Books & Roses

The Emotional Support Chicken Story, Continued…

Last year, right about at this time, I blogged about my nephew, my sister, and the Emotional Support chickens that I had knitted for them. You can read that blog post here, if you wish. Here is the very short version of that post: my sister asked for support chickens when she learned that her son was suffering from terminal liver failure. After his death the chicken that I sent her became a lifeline as she slept with it, took it to her son’s memorial services, and then to his interment of ashes. That knitted chicken, a small thing, became an important symbol of love and support in a time of grief.

Here’s the chicken, looking sassy, on the morning that I sent her off to my sister.

The chicken moved on with her when she moved to Cody, Wyoming. It was with her, in her bedroom on Monday, June 16th when she took a bad fall getting out of bed that resulted in a broken leg and a serious cut. The chicken was left behind as she was rushed to the nearest hospital.

Thus began a sad, long list of problems and complications as my sister was stabilized, taken to surgery, moved to the cardiac unit, and then scheduled for more surgery. My cat went down a few days into this downward spiral of medical disasters, and by the time I got him home from the Vet Saturday night it was clear that my sister was in trouble. Sunday, we learned that she was being transported to another medical facility in Montana that was better equipped to treat her. Her daughter in California grabbed the first available flight to join her mother and her sister at the new hospital. Somewhere within this time frame the emotional support chicken caught up with her.

Here she is, ready to go to work, in the waiting room of that Montana hospital.

And that was it, the beginning of the end. My sister was moved to hospice care, and her last days and hours were as peaceful as the staff could make them. To the end, the chicken was with her, hard at work, a surrogate for me at her side.

Do you see the chicken tail sticking up out of the covers? That quilt is one that I sewed her years ago to be a cheerful addition to her hospital bed when she got a hip replacement.

Tuesday morning my sister slipped away, with her daughters by her side: it was exactly one year and one month after the death of her son.

Emotional support chickens are just… cute little knitted chicken shaped pillows to hug. They are also symbols of love and support when you need those things desperately. They are something to cling to in bad times. Sometimes they are all a knitter can do for another person in need, and sometimes they are just what that person needed.

It’s just a little chicken. It can be everything.

Knit on, my friends, knit on!

My snarky, supersmart, indominable sister Selma. Gone too soon, part of me forever.

Hannah and the CoalBear: Shipwrecked (on Sea Glass Island)

Hi. I’m Hannah,

It has been a long time since I’ve given an update on the Mother of Cats. I know, I know… things have been going on that are hard to explain, and the Mother of Cats hasn’t been fun AT ALL lately. Let’s start with the strange things…

The house got painted! There was complete chaos around our house that went on for days! Do you see my expression when I saw one of the worker men in the window? They put plastic over all of the window, and there were all of these bumps and strange noises, and I totally was exhausted keeping the CoalBear calm through all of it. Whew. Then the painters finally went away, and the next problem became apparent…

THE CATIO WAS GONE!!!!!!

A cat tantrum is an ugly thing. Mateo is just a little cat, but he can be a little heartbreaking too when he doesn’t get his way.

She works really slowly, but the Mother of Cats has been constructing a new Catio for us. I keep urging her to work faster, but does she listen to me? She takes a day off for every day she works, and at the rate that she is making progress, it will be snowing before this gets done. The baby bunnies will be grown up and gone. The baby robins will be grandparents. I will be too old to appreciate my days out in the sun…

Mateo really, really wants to go outside to have a chat with this baby bunny…

With all of the outside work going on the Mother of Cats hasn’t been knitting very much. She did manage to get one pair of socks done, and then she made a new chicken that she took away with her on one of her trips to the doctors. Here’s the chicken.

The chicken and a couple of the babies went to the Pulmonary Function Testing lady to use with her patients. Mateo wanted to keep it for us, and I did mention that it would be kind of nice if she stuffed the little chickee with catnip, but did she listen to me? No. No, she did not! They went out to the car with her, and they stayed with the PFT lady. I sure hope that those silly patients appreciate the chickens, and if they throw the little one around that would be great! I’m pretty sure that they would like catnip, too.

So, that’s what’s been going on. NOT MUCH KNITTING! The Mother of Cats is still unable to cast on her new sweater, and while she spends time moving yarn around into interesting combinations, she hasn’t cast on her sweater. Shipwrecked. She is shipwrecked. When she isn’t fussing around outside (and we’re stuck INSIDE looking at her through a window) she is laying around with a heating pad on her knees and braces on her wrists, dreaming about prednisone, and looking at yarn to buy online. Shipwrecked. She isn’t even using her knitting machines, which at least was a little fun. This is so bad even I’m dreaming of yarn. And tuna.

This is Hannah, signing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

Yep. My hands are total crap at the moment. My rheumatologist ordered some x-rays and the word “severe” appeared several times in the report. My wrists are the worst.

My knees aren’t doing very well, either, and my rheumatologist is exploring options with me. MORE DRUGS!!!! I’m a fan right now. Hannah wasn’t kidding when she said I was dreaming of prednisone. Steroids injected into my knee sound really good right now. The good news is that my lungs continue to improve, and the red flags that were raised at the time of the car wreck CT scan in December have resolved in favor of nothing serious. Yay! The changes in my lungs have disappeared, and the growing “mass” in my thyroid turned out to be a cyst. The bad news is that the follow-up CT scan in March showed that my broken ribs and sternum (fractured after all… not a shock) were struggling to heal, and I was told to lay off the knitting (and especially the knitting machine) FOR A FEW MONTHS!!!! Obviously, these medical professionals don’t understand that I need these things for my mental health. Sigh. Mateo isn’t the only one wanting to throw a tantrum lately. I don’t think that my doctors would be happy about the catio construction effort, but it is kind of an emergency!

The emotional support chicken was a huge hit at Kaiser pulmonology, and they will let me know if I need to supply them with more of the little chickees. My pulmonologist mentioned that the kids with asthma who come in for testing would love a little chickee… heal faster ribs!!! The chest pain has stopped even though I have been swinging a hammer this week, so I’m pretty sure that knitting again is right around the corner.

So… I can cast on Sea Glass, right?

<Hannah: send tuna!!>

Hannah and the CoalBear: We Have New Beds!

Hi. I’m Hannah.

Hey, do you see that little gnome? I bet I can snag it with my claws and then Mateo and I can HAVE SOME FUN!!!

This has been kind of a busy week already. The Mother of Cats cleaned out her yarn stash (I helped, like… a lot!!) and then she cleaned out her quilting projects and put most of them into a big box that she mailed off to a cousin. Bye quilts. She has been doing a lot of cleaning and stuff, which is kind of fun for Mateo and me. We love the chaos!! We love all of the yarn moving around. We love our new cat beds!!!

My favorite bed is the one that looks like a giant TUNA CAN!!! Can you believe it? I can snooze in a cozy little ~~tuna can~~ bed that even has a cover on it while I dream of tuna. How cool it that? Mateo kind of tries to sneak into my bed when I’m not looking, and he even messes with me sometimes while I’m asleep, so the Mother of Cats bought him a second bed that looks like a bowl of ramen. Does he sleep in his bed? Yes!!! Yes, he does. We are two happy cats at the moment since it is cold and windy outside, and we have to stay in because the wind is kind of scary and we don’t like the sounds that it makes. Besides, all of the bunnies are hiding too, so it is kind of boring…

The Mother of Cats also got some knitting done. Here is her first sock!

The Mother of Cats says that this is a scrunch sock.

Doesn’t that sock look warm? The Mother of Cats is slowly knitting away on the second sock and hopes to have the pair done before the end of the week. She is kind of anxious to have it done because she is all motivated to make more socks after cleaning up her yarn stash because… she found some mini skein yarn sets for fun socks!

Here is one of the yarn kits with the new book that she bought along with our fun cat beds.

She says that she is going to make doodle socks. What? Seriously, do socks sound fun to you? She should knit me some doodle mice to play with. Maybe a little doodle sweater to put on MATEO because he will hate it and that will be seriously funny. He deserves to have that happen to him because last night the Mother of Cats glanced over at him just in time to see him ripping the comb off the head of MY CHICKEN that she gave me to groom. What is up with that little idiot cat?!!! He had pulled lots of yarn pieces out and was clearly trying to rip the chicken open. What is wrong with him… does he think that he can actually eat the chicken? Sigh. The Mother of Cats took it away last night and put it on a high shelf where he can’t get it.

Bye chicken. I will miss you so much. Good thing I have a tuna bed to sleep in.

This is Hannah, signing off.

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The socks are Scrunch Socks.
I have three mini-skein sock kits from Moonglow to knit. Yay. Lots of doodling ahead! I’m chomping at the bit to start designing some socks, and I can see some posts ahead.
The cat beds are from Amazon. Here is the link.
I have also been working with the indoor garden and there is another post in there, too. What will I be writing about? Well… pruning geraniums, battling aphids, and an unhappy lavender plant. That’s just the upstairs plants! Who knew indoor gardening was so much work?
Because I have been down with tendon issues I have been clearing some books from my reading list. Oh. Another post.
Are you sensing a theme here? I also am waiting for the results of my heart monitor test and MY KNEES ARE KILLING ME. You already know about the bad boy wrists. I have a scleroderma post slowly brewing too. It is hard for me to type because… bad boy wrists… but I’m getting there. Hopefully there will be some more writing in the near future.

I just love the color of this rose! Oh. Do you see the aphids?

The Scleroderma Chronicles: True North

It has been quite a week. Something happened that put me into a snit that made me think about priorities all week long. Actually, several things are happening all at once and it has taken me days to sort things out. Let’s start with the snit, okay?

These are the chicken sisters, and even though they are really cute, they are the focal point of the snit that has made me rethink my priorities.

I started making emotional support chickens to give to people who needed… well… emotional support. People who are dealing with grief, or anxiety, or an uncertain future, or struggling with medical challenges. I want to send something to people like me who are dealing with something significant and life-altering that is also mostly invisible to other people. The chicken says (Ba-BOK!!!) I see you… I am here for you… give me a hug. That is the mission. It falls under the overarching mission of Knit Out the Yarn Stash Before I Die. Hey, I have a lot of yarn, so there is a sense of urgency there for me.

Well, the day I took a chicken to my knitting group seeking to enroll others to knit chickens things kind of backfired. As in, people begged me to make them chickens. Ugh. I couldn’t say no, because all of these ladies are making/giving things for others in the same circumstances as the people I gift the chickens to. I signed on to knit 5 chickens with the understanding that each chicken would require a cash donation to Frayed Knots. I knit some chickens, posted the pictures, and it was a chicken free-for-all as people reserved the chicken that they wanted.

Here they are, the first chickens looking for a new home.

Four chickens were grabbed right away. Then the problem arrived. One of the members of the board wanted the little raspberry and grey chickens, even though they were already adopted out. The words “those chickens are gone” did not work. She absolutely had to have those chickens. It was a close thing, but I did have enough yarn left over to make the two new chickens.

When I sent her the pictures of the finished chickens and told her they were done she was greatly disappointed that I hadn’t also made a black chicken that we had mentioned while she was debating her options. (Listen, she decided on the two chickens instead of that black hen, so this was a shock!) I told her that I didn’t have the yarn to make that chicken in the stash. She told me that she would buy the yarn. I was like… NO!!! Please do not buy me any yarn!

Overarching mission: Knit Out the Yarn Stash Before I Die

Which has kind of been on my mind since my heart is kind of acting up right now. I am having sudden attacks of extreme breathlessness with chest pressure and dizziness. My oxygen levels seem to be okay, but my Fitbit has been sending me alarms when it happens. My fatigue has gotten much worse and it kind of hurts to breath sometimes.

The really crazy Fitbit shot with lots of peaks happened when I tried to knit a chemo hat on my little knitting machine. I mean, making hats while trying to control the cats is stressful enough, but the constant Fitbit alerts are just piling on at this point!

See the quality help that I’m getting while making the hats?

I seem to do much better if I wear oxygen while working with the machines, and I get fewer alerts while working on the smaller knitting machine making fingerless mitts.

So, it was a week of internal conflict. The lady who wants a black chicken is still not happy. My heart is not happy. My yarn stash is not shrinking, and somehow the joy of knitting chickens is gone when I have to make them in the exact colors that other people want. It is a chore when I don’t get to be creative, especially when I know that the chicken is going to someone who just wants a chicken, as opposed to someone who needs a chicken.

Hannah: On Friday the Mother of Cats pulled herself together, reset her priorities, and took some action!

Friday morning, I woke up, made my latte, sat outside with the cats, and decided to push the tiller over and return to a course of true north. I will remember my overarching mission statement, and I will do the things that help other people like me: people with chronic conditions that are isolating and mostly invisible to others. I will spend my time doing the things that feed my own creative spirit and my need for a sense of purpose.

I emailed my rheumatologist to ask if she would like fingerless mitts to give to other rheumatology patients. The answer came back in less than an hour: Yes, please!!!! I have my purpose again, and knitting out the yarn stash is back in business.
I emailed my cardiologist to let him know what was happening and attached the Fitbit pictures.
I took down a sweater (La Prairie) that has been languishing for months and started in on finishing the first sleeve. Gosh, it is going to be cute. Time to knit for me again!
I packed up the chickens to deliver to Frayed Knots. Those chickens are the last ones that I will knit for people who want chickens.
Saturday, I handed the chickens over to the head of Frayed Knots and asked her to please explain to the lady who desperately needs a black chicken that I’m done knitting them. The words I used were, “I’m not in the chicken knitting business, I’m in the emotional support business.”
I then sat with another member of the group and helped her knit her way through her first chicken. Suddenly, two other people wanted to learn. Yay! I am there for them!! Eventually, I am going to get some chickens into infusion centers for the patients!!

I have two little bracelets on my wrist with the Fitbit.

What was it that helped me pull things together Friday morning while drinking my morning latte? Those two little bracelets on my wrist in scleroderma teal. The little silver spoon was given to me by another patient, and it symbolizes the balancing act scleroderma people go through to manage our fatigue. We are “spoonies”. I need to remember to be ruthless about managing my own energy and resources. The teal beaded bracelet has a silver strip that says, “Remember Who the Fuck You Are“. Yes. I need to remember to not let other people run me over with their needs, because… limited resources. I need to set my own priorities with my limitations and needs in mind. I also need to remember to be brave, to face down the monsters, and to let my doctors know when new symptoms appear.

Just like that, I found my way again.

True North.

Hannah and the CoalBear: Days of Bugs and Yarn

Hi. I’m Mateo.

Life has been crazy here. The Mother of Cats spends all of her time playing with yarn while listening to audiobooks, which is…BORING!! So boring. It’s all fine for Hannah because she likes to hang out with the knitting machine while the Mother of Cats works on it, but I need action! I need excitement! I need BUGS!!!

See what I’m talking about? They can do this for hours at a time!

I like to go upstairs to bite on Hannah at least twice an hour to make sure they don’t forget about me, because… did I mention that I have needs? All of this out-of-control knitting is making me go crazy. I seriously need a trip out to the catio and a bug hunt EVERY SINGLE HOUR!!!

Especially after dark, because that’s when the really interesting bugs come out. I like to catch these guys and then I take them inside to play with them. So much fun… until the Mother of Cats catches me and takes my bug back outside. Why is she so mean to me? I worked hard to catch that bug, and then she just takes it away? Does that sound fair to you?

Luckily, she has discovered these treats that she gives us when we came back in at night. These treats are so good it is almost worth leaving all the bugs outside!!

Anyway, let’s talk about the yarn and the knitting. Seriously, I think that we need an intervention!! She has three of the cranking knitting machines now, and she has been steadily producing hats and fingerless mitts every single day.

Do you see this? She now has 34 pairs of fingerless mitts, and 41 hats. All of these knitted things go to her community knitting non-profit next week, and then she will be starting all over again. She is so excited about all the knits and keeps talking about reducing the stash, but this is just CRAZY, right? I think that maybe she should take the knitting machine outside. I need bugs. I need bunnies (don’t you think that the bunnies want to play with me? I’m a good boy. I would never ~~eat~~ hurt one of the bunnies…) There is always lots of fun things to see outside!

Then there are the chickens!! She knitted four more chickens this month (that haven’t been sewn up and stuffed yet), and she mailed away two.

This hen was mailed out Thursday. Why does it have a crown? WHERE IS MY CROWN???

Okay, I guess that is all for now. I feel a lot better for having gotten this off my chest. I’m going to go hunt down Hannah and see if I can get her to chase me around the house for a while.

Hannah: That would be a big NOPE, little guy.

This is Mateo, the CoalBear, signing off.

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

To be fair to Mateo, there has been a lot of interesting action out in the yard lately. The bird feeder is drawing lots of action with a constant parade of squirrels and birds stopping by. The bunnies travel right along the catio as they transit to the front yard, and you already heard about the bugs. This week Mateo was transmitting extreme concern about something in the back tree, and when I walked out to see what it was, a huge bird erupted out in a crazy swirling tumble of flapping wings and vanished from view as it crossed my yard. Like, maybe it was an eagle? A golden eagle? Did it grab one of the big fat doves at my feeder? I’ve seen them in the neighborhood, but how crazy to have one in my tree!

I’m suddenly unable to watch television but listening to audiobooks while cranking out hats and fingerless mitts on the knitting machines is working great. I’m totally reveling in the constantly growing pile of hats and the obvious dent in the yarn stash. By using the machines for the hats and mitts I’m able to get the chickens knitted without hurting my wrists and hands too much. That chicken pattern is the Emotional Support Chicken, and the chicken in the picture is my 24th one. I found the pattern for the little crown here.

I learned how to make fingerless mitts on the knitting machine, which involves making a thumb hole while the knitting is on the machine. That new skill set off a whole new stack of knitted goods. I’m thinking about another post showing how I do it.

Hannah and the CoalBear: Has it only been a week?

Hi. I’m Hannah.

Do you like my trout? It is stuffed with catnip.

Things have been just crazy here at Casa Mother of Cats. Like, it has been the week from hell and I haven’t been getting as many outings (and cookies) as usual. It suddenly got really hot again. There is smoke in the air and the Mother of Cats won’t let us go out in the daytime. It is so hot it is hard to sleep! The Mother of Cats has been making lots of trips out of the house, and when she gets home, she just lays around and refuses to play with us. Sometimes she plays with her knitting machine, but I can tell that her heart isn’t in it. She just reads books, knits, and watches the Olympics. Fabulous. Mateo is driving me crazy because he wants to go outside all of the time, but the Mother of Cats is like… NO!!

We do get to go out in the late afternoon or after dark and then we chase bugs in the dark. The Mother of Cats likes to eat her dinner outside, and it is usually cooler then.

Mateo goes crazy when he finally gets to go out. All those bugs!!! He wants to chase all of them, and I think that maybe he has been watching the Olympics with The Mother of Cats because this happened:

Yeah. That is a pretty high jump that he made. The Mother of Cats measured it, and he made a diagonal 6-foot jump to get up there, and then he jumped straight down 8 feet when the Mother of Cats tried to safely recover him. She thinks that he was trying to get into the tree, which isn’t a very good idea because…

This guy has been hanging out in the tree! The Mother of Cats thinks that this is a Sharp-shinned Hawk.

Anyway, since The Mother of Cats has been watching the Olympics, she thought that this would put everything into perspective about how high Mateo was when he jumped up to the top of the catio supports:

That boy can jump!! He’s not in the run for a medal, but he did pretty well in the dismount, and he did stick his landing!

Today the smoke is better, and it isn’t quite as hot as it was last week. The Mother of Cats worked on finishing up all the hats that she made in the hot indoor days, and here they are all packed away where I can’t mess with them.

This is 23 hats all finished up and ready to go to Frayed Knots. I helped with all of the sewing!! That knitting machine has made the Mother of Cats hugely productive!

Now she is back to knitting chickens again. I love chicken knitting!!

She mailed this chicken away last week to a lady who is having surgery in a couple of days.

So that’s all the news of the last crazy week.

That’s right. It is raining outside. Yay. The house will cool down and we can all go outside now.

Bug Chase Time!!!!!

This is Hannah, signing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

This has been the longest week ever.
I saw my doctors at the end of July, and they ordered a lot of tests and procedures. I’ve had a steroid injection into my bad-boy hip, X-rays and MRIs of my knees, bloodwork done, and tomorrow I go for an echocardiogram. Six trips in all. Every single trip out of the house puts me back into the heat and smoke, which isn’t good because… you know, crappy heart and lungs. There was a lot of smoke last week because Colorado experienced an outbreak of wildfires among the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and all that smoke headed east towards my area of the world.
Late Thursday night (like near midnight) I opened the doors to let cool air into the house. I locked the screen door for safety and THE KEY GOT STUCK!! The front door couldn’t close with the key in the lock of the screen door, the house was filling with smoke for some reason, and there were sirens sounding nearby making me wonder if we had ANOTHER fire. After using lubricant on the lock, consulting YouTube videos, and then finally resorting to a hammer, I got the key out. Exhausted, the cats and I went to bed in a hot smokey house. How hot? 85 degrees Fahrenheit hot.
After that adventure I’m back on oxygen 24/7.
I met a lady getting ready for major surgery on one of my trips; that chicken got shipped off to her. It was another trip out of the house, but totally worth it.
The hats on the knitting machine are the simplest ever: 120 rounds of knitting, and then gather up both ends and secure them together which produces a doubled knitted fabric like a Musselburgh hat.
I bought ANOTHER KNITTING MACHINE that is perfect for knitting wristers with lighter weight yarn. I don’t have a problem. Really, I don’t.
I just found out that I can knit an OCTOPUS with my knitting machines!

My cardiologist wants me to wear compression stockings now. Look at these cuties!!

Hannah and the CoalBear: Life Behind the Wire

Hi. I’m the CoalBear.

It has been really, really hot here. The poor Mother of Cats woke up on a Monday and… she couldn’t stand. Like, her knees didn’t want to work. It took her WAY TOO LONG to get downstairs to give us our morning tuna, so it was kind of a hard start to the week for us, too. Here is what she thinks happened:

The air pressure in the Denver area dropped like a dead moth overnight, and for some reason that made her knees misbehave. She was very upset with the weather. Good thing the pressure came up again, but… it was hot. Really hot. Hannah and I do not like hot even a little bit. We slept all day, day after day, and we only went out on the deck in the mornings and evenings to look at what was going on in the yard.

The bunnies are always my favorite, but there have also been lots and lots of birds. The Mother of Cats saw an American goldfinch, and there were chickadees, blue jays, robins (lots and lots of robins!), and even tiny birds called bushtits. The Mother of Cats was so excited that she ordered a birdfeeder for the birds from Amazon and went out and bought some food from a store near me. A BIRD STORE!!!! Why didn’t she take me? I like birds… she never lets me ~~catch and eat~~ play with fun things.

Do you see what happened? The feeder is soooo cute because it has a cat face, but that didn’t stop the squirrel from moving in. He was so mean to the bird feeder (he knocked it down!!!) that the Mother of Cats had to make a move the feeder to a new place on a tree closer to the catio (which is a good idea in my opinion…) and put the food for the squirrel on a little platter for them. The food has special worms in it for the robins, but maybe the squirrel ate them too. Anyway, everything was going great until late one night…

Hannah: Ummm… is there something going on in the back yard????

Hannah and I rush downstairs to the big window down there to look out into the yard, and there was a big, fat raccoon climbing over the fence!!!

Now Hannah and I are really worried about going out onto the catio, and we will only do it if the Mother of Cats goes out with us. That raccoon looked mean! Really, really mean. I’m just a little fluffy cat…

So that’s all the news from around here. The Mother of Cats is still taking it really easy, and we take turns watching over her. She got some more chickens knitted up and they are kind of cute, but she put them into boxes and mailed them away this week. Bye, chickens! Watch out for the raccoons on your travels!!

That’s all for now. Hannah and I are watching the Mother of Cats while she types this, and after she finishes, I think that I will catch a little nap.

This is Mateo, signing off.

>^..^<

An Emotional Support Chicken Story

As some of you may have guessed by now, chickenitis is personal with me. Here’s our family story.

My nephew was a type 2 diabetic who had a rare, and very severe, reaction to the medication that he took to control his blood sugar last year. He sustained major organ damage at that time, the worst being to his kidneys and liver. He made lifestyle changes hoping that his liver would heal, but by this spring it became apparent that he would need a liver transplant. He broke the news to his extended family in a text message this April, and my sister requested that I make them all emotional support chickens. I pulled out some yarn and got to work.

Not long afterwards he went on a trip to Hawaii that was paid for through friends; the last picture I saw of him was a selfie taken while standing in the ocean.

A few days after that picture he was home again, returning early from the trip because his health was declining. Soon after his return he was in an emergency room, and two days later my sister let me know that his condition was critical and that he was nonresponsive. He did manage to rally and fought on for more days in the hospital, but when it became clear that his kidney function was too marginal to allow liver transplant surgery, he was moved to hospice care and arrangements were made to allow him to go home.

Shocked by the speed of his decline, horrified that the bottom had fallen out in the city of his mother’s birth, Honolulu, Hawaii, I bundled up the two emotional support chickens that I had ready to go and express shipped them to his home. I worried that they wouldn’t make it in time.

They did not make it. He died the afternoon before they arrived.

The next morning, I woke up to a text showing his swollen-eyed girlfriend hugging the chicken that I had knitted for him.

The emotional support chicken that I sent, hard at work.

It was heartbreaking, but I was grateful that the chicken had arrived for her right when she needed it, and happy to see she had claimed it. My sister kept the second chicken, the reddish-purple one knit from homespun, for herself. That chicken quickly became a true emotional support huggable. She took it with her for the memorial barbeque with his friends. She slept with it. The chicken traveled into the mountains on the day that they buried his ashes, along with those of a beloved dog, near a waterway where he used to camp. Raspberry brambles were planted on the site in living remembrance. In my mind, the color of the chicken is linked to the color of the future berries that will come from those plants. Bittersweet memories of a wonderful man gone too soon, a living memorial of berries, and a knitted chicken all somehow linked by the sorrow that has been placed to rest in the Cascade Mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

The chicken went to another memorial gathering yesterday in San Diego with my sister and niece.

My nephew and I dancing at his sister’s wedding in 2002.

Now you know why I will never, ever decline a request for an emotional support chicken. Two more requests came this week. I have a spreadsheet and everything. For these people, in the memory of my nephew, for my sister, I will knit every single one of them a chicken.

I invite you to join me.

Knit on, my friends. Knit on.

Hannah and the CoalBear: Chickenitis Explodes!!

Hi. I’m Hannah.

These big fat bumblebees have been coming to the little garden by the deck every single day this week. I just love them! They are so fat and slow. They are fuzzy and look just like a cat toy, right? They come right up to the wire to climb into the flowers, and I got my paw out and onto one of them this morning; he just bumbled off to another flower. These guys are awesome!!

The Mother of Cats is doing much better and hasn’t worn her wrist braces in days. She finished up the knitting on one of her Emotional Support Chickens (ESC) and then spent a couple of days sewing them up. One chicken was done Saturday morning, so she took it to her Frayed Knots knitting group to show it off to the other knitters.

Isn’t this kind of a sweet little chicken? Her colors look like the colors of the garden where the bumblebee hangs out.

The Mother of Cats wanted to show off the chicken because it has been a big hit with her scleroderma support group and at the Kaiser infusion center last month. Everyone wants a chicken!! Like… four of the members of her support group want one, and she figures that the infusion center should get a least a couple. The Mother of Cats is kind of thinking that lots of people who are having a hard time (like, the families at the Ronald McDonald House, or at other infusion centers) would like a chicken. Yeah. It was a good idea, but she lost control, and things went crazy really quickly… the chicken got passed around and people hugged it. And hugged it. One lady wanted to keep it. The Mother of Cats got requests for FIVE more chickens and was asked to think about teaching a chicken knitting class for some of the ladies. One of the ladies swore that she could get chickens sold at craft shows up north (in Boulder, Colorado) and the money could be used to buy items for the personal care packages that are created by the Frayed Knots volunteers. Another lady asked for the pattern so she could start knitting chickens too…

Yeah. A little out of control. The Mother of Cats now has a spreadsheet going with 17 chicken requests on it.

So, the Mother of Cats got cracking and sewed up two more chickens. Now she has three done and ready to go out the door. There are two more little ones knitted that need to be sewn up, but her wrist voted NO!

Today she wound up a lot of yarn (luckily, she had bought all the yarn earlier in the month…) and she is torn about what color to knit next. Maybe it is time to make a chicken that is knit in all solid colors. Should she use some fluffy alpaca? She still has some beads that can go onto another chicken. Whatever… she needs to just get to work knitting and somehow the chickens will all find a home, right? Obviously, the need for emotional support chickens is real.

Unless there are bumblebees. They are almost as good.

This is Hannah, signing off.

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

I woke up to a text this morning: another request for an ESC. A pink one, please.
The pattern is Emotional Support Chicken, and it can be found in knit or crochet versions on Ravelry.
Here are the official portraits of the three chickens. I have to send the pictures out to people so they can pick their chicken.

Hannah and the CoalBear: She bought all the yarn!!!

Hi. I’m Hannah.

The Mother of Cats brought me this wonderful new box this week. I love this box!!!

The Mother of Cats started out the week being really busy. She worked in her gardens, she knitted on her chickens, and she even did some yummy cooking. I know it was yummy because I dragged off some of her steak when she wasn’t looking. I mean, it was a big piece; if she shared more, I wouldn’t be forced to take matters into my own paws like that. After a couple of days of sun and knitting fun, though, everything came to a screeching halt.

The Mother of Cats hands got all puffy and she had to put on her braces. I hate the braces because it feels funny when she pets me. She also gets crabby when she is wearing the braces because she says everything hurts. Poor Mother of Cats.

I bet if she ate some tuna with avocado, she would feel better…

Anyway, after spending a whole day reading books and doing laundry, the Mother of Cats bounced back and headed out to the yarn store. I think it was a little crazy of her, but we couldn’t stop her. The yarn store had put some videos showing off the yarns on Facebook, and she pretty much lost all control.

Look at this yarn!!! She had to get teal colored yarn because it is scleroderma month, and the store chose teal as the color of the month (!). As she explained it to Mateo, when the universe puts teal yarn out on sale, you just do what the universe wants. She also got the pink/plum yarns because she loves them the most. I tried to sleep on the yarns, but she got a little cranky about that. Silly Mother of Cats. When is she going to learn to share? Anyway, she says that the yarn is for MORE CHICKENS!!!!! She is going to share this yarn with some people, so why not me too?

I do have to admit, I love my chicken. She is really nice to sleep with.

Just when I thought we had reached the height of ridiculousness, more yarn arrived in the mail. This yarn, evidently, just had to be bought because it is… ZEBRA yarn.

Behold the zebra yarn. It gets that name because the undyed yarn is white with black stripes.

So, I can truthfully say, the Mother of Cats seems to have bought all the yarn. It seems a little crazy for her to lose all control like this when SHE CAN’T EVEN KNIT right now, but that’s the Mother of Cats for you. She believes that the world needs more chickens, and she is going to get them knitted after a few more days of rest. In the meantime, she gets to read her books, play with us, and take pictures of her roses. More of her rose plants started blooming this week and they are looking pretty good.

Well, that’s about all that is going around here except for the really big news if you are a cat. IT IS MOTH SEASON!!!! That’s right those crazy miller moths are back, migrating through our back yard, and Mateo has been steadily catching them and bringing them into the house to play with. Then it is fun, fun, fun all night long!

The moths like to hide in the umbrella shade, and when the Mother of Cats opens it up, he grabs them. Then, when it is about time to go to bed… bazinga!!! There’s a moth for me to chase up on the ceiling. This is so much fun. The Mother of Cats isn’t completely on board with all of the moth fun, but I’m sure that if she ate more tuna (with avocado!) she’d be a better fan of moth-o-mania.

That’s all for now. I’m going to take a little cat bath and then it is time for a nap. Later on, around 2am, it will be Miller Moth Time!!!

This is Hannah, signing off.

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

I’ve had swelling and tendonitis like this before, and the only thing to do is to rest the tendons and wait it out.
The chicken pattern is the Emotional Support Chicken.
I have 4 more chickens knitted that I need to sew up.
My scleroderma support group met today and 4 people asked me for a chicken. Well, I did offer. There are days when you really, really need a chicken to hug.
My latest blood results are in, and I am finally back in the normal ranges for iron levels, and my anemia symptoms are better. I’m at the dead bottom, but I will take it! Still eating steak, tuna, peanut butter, and taking iron supplements. Did you know that there is iron in avocado?
The miller moths migrate west every year across the plains to the Rocky Mountains for the summer. My yard is on the flight path.
Almost all of that yarn came from Spun Right Round. I love the quality of the yarn, and you can see how wonderful the colors are!
I tried to knit while wearing the braces. Nope. Not happening.
The beautiful apricot rose is Easy Does It, and this is its second year in my yard. The pink rose is a mostly wild rose that I bought a looooong time ago at the hardware store, and the chicken is with the Princess Alexandra of Kent rose.