Basically, Winter was Winter. We loved her as she was--quite seemingly dumb. This dumbness lead to many funny things, and a couple of dangerous ones. She was well--but different--the whole time we had her. Each hen has her own personality, and Winter was crabby toward the other hens. We don't cull because someone doesn't play well. Her body was very healthy the whole time we had her--up until the end. Because of the danger the "dumbness" got her into, we always expected her to be the next to go. She never was. We got most of our chickens as other people's cast-offs: old. Our flock is mostly 5-6 year olds. They were going to be food, but we took them and are allowing them to enjoy the rest of their existence. Winter was a little "stiff" in the mornings as old folks often are. I believe she was older than the other chickens, but she was not given to me directly by the people who had her. I have an Amish pen-pal, and wrote quite a lot about Winter in my letters questioning if it was age. My friend said it sounded most like she was quite old. I also checked with other chicken people, and researched in many books about her stiff gait in the morning. I figured it was stiffness because she wasn't like that all day--she had to warm up some. Our farmer neighbor thought she may be visually impaired because she had difficulty finding her way in at night. We had a couple of hens that liked to stay out late. Winter was the only one who had difficulty with orientation after dusk. She was well for 2 years. The last week and a half, there was a "change in status". She seemed tired. I watched her for a few of days like that, and she didn't deteriorate as such. One morning, another chicken went after her at the food trough, and she didn't look good to me that morning. I brought her inside, and started nursing her. She had 9-lives, so I figured I should feed her and try to bring her around. She rallied after a couple of days: standing up, eating, and pooping just right. She filled her crop up and everything. Great! I assumed she was on the mend, and we beat it. After a couple/few days of improvement, she took a turn, and I gave her a day to see if she would rally again. After a day like that (twirling, and responding to outside stimuli as if she were falling), I knew she was done. The farmer was unavailable that day, and took care of it the next. Time line: 2 years good. Some time as a stiff ol' girl that went away as the day passed, and a week and a half in "hospital" in my home. I am sorry I was unclear when I first posted, but I was so depressed my writing was confusing--I'll admit that. Having had 2 head injuries in my family, she seemed like something was wrong in the hind brain. I know that cannot be fixed, so we let her live her life as long as she got herself up, and ate, we didn't mind helping an ol' girl down out of her box each morning. She enjoyed being held and her time inside where it was warm. She never laid many eggs, and this summer it was only a couple--I think she was maybe 8 years old or something. I can say with confidence that it wasn't an organism. Nobody else has it, and it did not track as an invading organism. Also, had I continued to feed her--even in her dizzy state, I believe her body would have gone on, and on. She was physically sound. Her brain was out of order. Looking back, her stiffness may have been the beginnings of brain deterioration. Had a vet told me her brain was going months earlier, and said that she was otherwise sound, I still would have let her live as long as she was her crabby & dumb self. That was her "status". We use the dumb as a term of endearment believe it or not--that is why we can say it was amusing. I still would have let her live until such a time that the twirling came a long and her mind seemed completely gone. My time line may be of a day in either direction, but there was no cruelty or neglect. Our chickens are spoiled. Their house rarely even has an odor. Some of them step out of the flock and come to us when we call them by name. I do appreciate the input here that attempts to help find answers. I was wondering if this is something that occurs in chickens, or was specific to Winter either through stroke, injury, or old age. It would be nice if "exotic pets" covered chickens. It seems more to mean "tropical pets" rather than pets other than cats & dogs, and maybe the occasional bunny. As birds go, chickens are hardy, and you can work with them TO A POINT. Birds have a far more delicate constitution than dogs or cats, and (hyperbole here) if you look at them cross-eyed they can drop dead. If there were vets who would investigate chickens as pets, I believe the books on chickens would be much better. I hope everyone has a Happy New Year, and had a great Christmas. Robin

While I have a few moments, I want to wish ALL of you dear friends a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday time. We will have a white Christmas, also, as we received 14 inches of snow about 10 days ago. Right now we are expecting another freezing rain/sleet/snowstorm/blizzard from now til Saturday. Plans are on hold waiting to see what happens as far as any travel. Our son and daughter-in-law are to come this evening from St. Cloud, but time will tell. Twill be the first time we have seen them since their wedding in September. Melissa, we also got a new Lab. But HE is a baby. Weened and cute, cute, cute! HE(I have a hard time saying that since almost all of our pets have always been SHE)is a cross of lab and blue heeler. He is all black except his tummy and the tip of his tail is frosty-colored. She is a great companion for Lady our SHE dog. Can't decide whether to call him Tramp or Buddy.Finally a dog that will use a dog house! Maybe Lady will get the idea and start to use the other one. Lady refuses to use a doghouse, go in the garage, etc. Obviously something happened in her past that makes her afraid of those places. So she just lays out in the elements year-round. Hubs is cutting wood for the fireplace. I am baking and listening to Christmas music. What a life! ME

Laughing, because as an internet writer, I can attest that what Carol said is true. It starts out as an article that uses an authoritative source, such as UF/IFAS, then the facts just get reused over and over again in other articles. I can't tell you how many articles I've written with the same facts in them, just put into different context. It's like the old adage about there only being 7 stories in the world. There is only one way to do a lot of stuff in horticulture, and we writers try to change it up a little to get paid, like "How to Grow Hibiscus In Containers," or "How to Grow Hibiscus in Clay Soil," etc., etc., but no matter what we write, some facts about growing hibiscus never change, so all the articles start sounding alike. There is a plagiarism detector that looks for any four words in the exact same order in other articles online. It's almost impossible not to get at least one or two hits. I've become an expert at what I call "thesaurusing" articles so they don't get matches. Sometimes, people actually will pay writers to just rewrite an existing article so it passes the plagiarism checkers. In copyright circles, this is known as "repurposing" and you can get sued for it, but the thing is, if you're good enough so plagiarism checkers don't flag it, you'll never get caught.

My paternal grandfathers family traces back to the late 1600s. I gather they were quite a prominent family in Maine. I'm not as sure about the other branches of the family. A great-aunt on my mother's side seemed to revel in her Swedish heritage, and I think her parents (my great-great-grandparents) may have been born in Sweden. I think a great-grandfather (my father's mother's father) was born in the Netherlands. Certainly his given name was Dutch and not one I've heard elsewhere. He was active with the Holland Land Company that did a lot of land reclamation in the Sacramento River Delta. My ex-husband is Chinese-American, and branches of his family have been in the US for 5 generations. His grandmother, however, was born in China after her father traveled back to China from the US to find a wife. Thanks to the Chinese Exclusion Act, he was unable to return to the US immediately, and my ex's grandmother was not able to come to the US until she was 12 years old.