In Happier Chicken News

Our remaining hens are turning out to be exactly the kind of pets I was hoping for-- low maintenance, but still pretty fun for the kids!

Lucy Mack and Emma are quite content!

Ryder wishes he had the 3rd chicken to hold, but truthfully, he couldn't have caught that rooster anyway...

Kendra picking lettuce for our salad (while Lucy Mack is in the background eating bugs that might threaten our produce)

This is shaping up to be a lovely summer!  Now I can't wait until they start laying eggs!

Can You Keep a Secret?

We didn't have any luck finding a home for our rooster.  I tried Craig's list, Janna tried a friend near us who she thought wanted a Welsummer rooster.  No luck.  So there was really only one option left.  And we needed to hurry before he started crowing for real and a neighbor complained.  So Craig found a friend to help (who had been curious to try this) and I took the kids to that same friend's house to play with his kids while he was gone.  And the two of them went to work...

Our poor rooster wasn't quite full grown yet and makes for kind of a puny roast chicken.   Let's pretend he's a Cornish gaming hen instead, okay?  Now we sound sophisticated!

Anyway, we would like to raise broilers some day for real.  Which was why Craig was willing to go through with this now-- it was sort of a test drive.  But when we raise chickens with the (should I say pre-meditated?) plan to eat them, we won't let the kids name them and get attached.  Everyone will understand from the beginning what these chickens are for.  So this was totally following our long-term plan, it just wasn't following our short-term plan...

But for now, could you PLEASE not mention this to our kids?  I'm afraid Kendra might not take it well...

Aspects of Love

Back when the first Transformers movie came out, before Michael Bay was just a joke (the horny, gross, teenage boy of movie directors), it seemed that everyone we knew loved that movie.  The fact that the vast majority of the men we associate with here in Virginia are engineers and somewhat of the nerdy variety probably played into this, too.  I had played with the toys as a kid, though, so when it came to Redbox we had no qualms with plunking down our $1 to see it.  And as we sat there watching it, waiting for all the awesomeness we had been promised (and cringing at the stuff I found utterly distasteful), we finally got to the big, final, climactic battle sequence.  And Craig fell asleep.  He woke up long enough to stare blankly at the TV screen, ask, "Is this still going on?!?!!?  It's so boring..." and then he allowed himself to nod off once more.

I think I fell just a little bit more in love with Craig at that moment...

Anyway, I just saw this hysterical Honest Trailer (which does contain some PG-13 humor) for the 4th Transformers movie (Revenge of the Fallen), a movie I certainly will not be watching, and it reminded me of how lucky I am that I have a husband who can spot a lame-o franchise even in the first, generally well-received film.

He's got good taste, my Craig!

Limping Across the Finish Line

This is the last week of school.  And can I just say that I'm so relieved?  These last few weeks have been kicking my trash.

Craig has barely been home at all, which I hate.  I know, I know-- most of you women out there are awesome and do just fine when your husbands are gone.  Some of you even rise to the occasion by doing super fun things with your kids and generally just being awesome.  I seem to be incapable of doing that.  I hate having to do bedtime on my own, and I hate not having another grown-up around to talk to.  And quite frankly, I really like having Craig around.  He's awesome and fun and makes me happy.  So when he's gone, I don't do as well.  Life-- especially life with kids-- is a little bit more of a struggle.

So two weeks ago, Craig had something going on every night of the week: Monday was the Senior Slideshow, which he runs.  Tuesday he had class at GMU.  Wednesday was high council stuff.*  Thursday was back at GMU.  And Friday was the father-son campout.  Saturday he was home, but spent the whole evening writing a paper.  It was a pretty lame week.

But I knew it would be lame, and tried my best to make it work for me.  I wasn't thrilled with the situation, but I did what I could.  I did all super-easy non-cooking meals (lots of frozen pizza and mac'n'cheese).  I made plans to hang out with friends so I'd get some adult conversation time...  And I survived.  

After that week, I figured the next week wouldn't feel so bad, since Craig would only be gone a couple nights.

I was wrong.

Craig was around a little bit more.  But not a lot.  And my two little guys got completely sick.  It started Sunday night when Colton had a fever and some suspicious-looking spots on his feet.  The doctor said he had hand-foot-and-mouth disease and a double ear infection.  Poor Colton! 

In this picture he had also just bonked his forehead into the sharp part of the door jam.  It was so sad...

We started him on antibiotics and I considered ourselves quarantined.  No more grown-up conversation.  And no more happy kids who sleep through the night.  Because despite the antibiotics, Colton didn't seem to get any better.  And then Thursday morning Ryder woke up burning with a fever and proceeded to nap on the couch for half the afternoon and cry whenever he wasn't asleep or drugged with Tylenol.  And Colton refused to eat all day.  And I got very worried.

 

And meanwhile, in the rest of my family, my 99-year-old grandmother fell down and broke her hip (for the second time) and had surgery to fix it.  And my aunt managed to break a bone in her foot and is wearing a boot for it (in addition to being scheduled to have a scary, cancer lump removed next week).  So it's been a rough month for a lot of people I love.

Anyway, I made back-to-back appointments for both boys to see the doctor, and took them in Friday morning.  This time, Colton was diagnosed as having pneumonia, and Ryder had bronchitis.  They were supposed to start their antibiotics that day, but I misread the dosage and gave them a tenth of what they were supposed to be taking**, so they really started on Saturday. 

They both slept through the night last night, so I'm hopeful that that's a good sign for their recovery.  Bentley is now coughing a lot, but says he feels okay, so I'm praying that it doesn't develop into something worse for him.

And now here I am, Monday morning, staring down the last week of school.  And wondering if we can make it.




*Did I mention that Craig got put on the Stake high council?  He did.  He is officially old.  How did I wind up married to such an old person???  (If you're not Mormon and you want me to explain that, just ask and I'm happy to explain.  But for now I'm going to assume that all my readers either know this term or don't care enough for me to bother with a full-on explanation.)

**In my defense, extreme sleep deprivation.  Extreme.

Triumph

It was nearly five years ago that Craig completely remodeled our master bathroom.  And for the most part, we have LOVED our bathroom.  The heated floor, especially, was a lifesaver this very cold winter!  But then we began to gradually notice one major problem: the sink faucet was slowly no longer working.  When you turned the tap on all the way, the best you would get would be this tiny trickle of water.  Like this:

It was so wussy, it could barely clear the sink.  And sometimes it wouldn't, and you'd end up with a puddle of water around the base of the sink bowl.  But worse than that was the simple fact that there was barely enough water to wash your hands in.  And since the bowl of the sink is set back from the faucet a little, it was difficult to even fit your hands under that worthless little trickle of water.  It would take five minutes just to rinse all the soap off your hands, and ten minutes (literally!) if you wanted to give the water time to warm up.

Clearly, this wasn't going to work.

But that stupid faucet was on the expensive side, so we weren't super eager to just run out and buy a new one.  So Craig did what he does, and took the whole thing apart.  And, because he's awesome, he totally figured out how to fix it!

And now, the water comes gushing out.  Like this:

Really!  It gushes.  And it's beautiful.  And you can wash your hands so fast!  The water even gets hot after just a few seconds!  And it makes me happy every time I use it now.  Al Gore would probably not be pleased.  But Al Gore wasn't the one strategically trying to get his hands just right under that dumb trickle in hopes that he might be able to actually get his entire hand rinsed off or else be stuck walking around with sticky soap remnants all over his hands, so I don't really care if he wouldn't like it.  This new and improved sink is freaking awesome.

I'm back to loving my bathroom again.

Oh, Dear...

I went out in the yard for a moment just to see if the garden needed weeding.  It looked all right, so I was heading back inside when I heard this dreadful, prolonged honking noise.  My heart sank.  I've been worrying off and on for weeks now, but this seemed to confirm it: our Sophronia is a rooster.

He has since been renamed Cornelius, after the Corn Flakes mascot.

And I am looking for a place that wants him before that choking noise can blossom into full-blown crowing.  And, thence, before the neighbors start complaining!  (Although, honestly, who could hear him over the FOUR GREAT DANES just two houses down???)

It's really a shame, because these roosters are absolutely beautiful and quite frankly, much prettier than the hens of the same breed:

And those eggs!  The most scrumptious looking eggs come from welsummers!  I won't be getting any chocolate brown eggs that look like this:

{Sigh.}

But on the plus side-- this does make it more likely that I'll be getting more chicks next spring!



In the mean time, if you know anyone in search of an absolutely gorgeous, free-range rooster, you know where to find me!

Burning Question

I don't understand why my baby can figure how to do this:

And yet, he can't seem to figure out how to walk.  And not just that he can't walk very well, I mean, he will not take ONE SINGLE STEP unless he's got something to hold onto!

In the same vein, how can he can manage sneeze through a mouthful of food without spraying it all over me (a fact for which I am very grateful!), but still can't say any words?

They're a mystery, these babies!

Learning to Garden

Today and last Saturday we had absolutely PERFECT weather.  Mid-70s and very little humidity.  Seriously, it just can't get any better than that.  And I've managed to take advantage of it: both Saturdays I went running in the morning and then headed straight to the garden for some weeding.

I had no idea how happy those two things could make me.  Being outside in the sun and fresh air, letting the kids and the chickens run around me while I plucked tiny weeds out before they could damage my plants...  It was perfect.  It left me more satisfied than I ever could have imagined!  I'm converted to gardening.  I wish I had started doing this years before!

I did try to plant a garden once a few years ago, but I was woefully under-educated that time around.  My friend Anna had extra seed sprouts, so I took them off her hand and basically just threw them in the ground.  I didn't prepare the ground hardly at all, I didn't know what I was doing, and quite frankly, as soon as I was done, I wasn't really sure which plants were mine and which were just weeds.  And then halfway through the summer I completely forgot about it and stopped watering it.  So I counted myself lucky we got a few squash and zucchini at all!

But this time around, I've done things right and I'm really liking this garden we've got going.  The biggest change is that I put Craig in charge.  We had wanted to plant a square-foot garden, and he read my book very carefully (I skimmed it) and then he set to work: he built the garden box and mixed up the soil.  He put a cage around it to protect the plants.  He did all the heavy work.  I mapped out where we would plant everything.  I probably planted half of the seeds.  And now I'm weeding it.  So I am participating, but I definitely needed a little hand-holding from my capable husband.  Together, it's turning out pretty well.  My only complaint is that I wish we'd done a bigger one.  (That's a tough call-- everyone says to start small or else you'll just be overwhelmed.  And I get easily overwhelmed, so I'm sure this was good advice.  But now that things are sprouting and growing, I wish I had even more of everything!)  But that's the fun thing about this style of gardening-- we're already looking to figure out where we can put more boxes for next year!  And we both enjoy just sitting and looking at our growing plants and watching the chickens eat the ants out from between them.

Last week, I picked some lettuce leaves for our salad.  I wasn't sure what to expect from home grown lettuce-- would it taste different?  Not really.  But the leaves are much more delicate than anything you'd buy from the store, which made it more enjoyable to eat.  So I'm a fan.  We've got more of the same on the menu for tonight, this time carefully selected and snipped by Kendra.  She's very proud of herself, as she should be.

Anyway, here is what the garden is looking like right now:

I know that's a little small and hard to see.  But look anyway, just to make me happy, okay?  You can barely see the chives, because they look like grass.  Hopefully they are in fact chives and NOT grass.  And the potatoes haven't sprouted yet, but I planted them before the eyes had had a chance to grow at all and then squirrels dug them up, so I figure they're probably traumatized and taking their time.  (Traumatized Potatoes might be a good name for a band.)  And, in the interest of full disclosure, we did purchase the pepper plant from Lowe's.  That seed just never sprouted.  But now there's a little plant growing up next to that big one that I suspect might be my late bloomer of a pepper plant.  I'm waiting to see...  But all the other plants you're looking at have been grown from seeds by us.  Who knew we were capable of actually growing something?  I certainly didn't!

There are also a few stalks of corn that Craig just planted in the weeds and grass near the garden box, and a lovely tomato plant Craig's parents gave us, which we have hung upside-down.  That one already has a few flowers and Kendra is very excited to watch as those flowers grow tomatoes.

Seriously, why did it take us so long to finally do this?