Rough Week

On Wednesday I really began earnestly trying to potty train Ryder.  I've been trying not so earnestly to do this since the beginning of the month, but there's always something going on to make it not happen-- I'm going visiting teaching, or shopping, or someone's coming over.  And because I hate potty training with the hatred of a thousand hot, sharp pointy needles, any excuse I can find to not potty train is a good excuse to me.  So it hadn't really been happening.

But on Wednesday I tried.  I really, really tried.  And after three accidents and Ryder somehow breaking the lid off a toilet, and then another incident where Colton managed to get into the bathroom with that broken toilet lid and splashed around in the exposed toilet (and all over himself and all over the adjoining hallway), I was ready to kill myself.  Or at the very least sell the house and move away from everything that had just been splashed in toilet water.  And then I found a very ominous brown mystery substance in the hallway and realized that Colton's diaper had leaked, too.

I spent WAY too much time dealing with disgusting stuff that day.  {Shudder.}

I wanted to give up, but figured one day was too soon to call it quits, so Thursday we began again.  And actually, Thursday was going much better.  Ryder even took a nap in his underwear and woke up dry, so that was a nice surprise.  And while he napped, I was able to shower and nap, which always makes me happy.

And then once we were all awake, I looked out the window, and noticed that I wasn't seeing our chickens anywhere.  I like to let them roam around the yard when we're home, and I have a pretty good idea of all their favorite places, and I wasn't seeing them in any of those spots which was strange.  But I did see something that looked terrifyingly like Emma, except all huddled in a ball and not right.  Not right at all.

I hurried out to investigate.  No chickens in any obvious places, but a very dead Emma lay in a mass of feathers.  More searching turned up a fox hurrying into the woods, and then I found Lucille, alive and clutching the top of our white picket fence for dear life.  I have no idea how she got up there.  I shooed her off the fence, and she ran to our sliding door.  I was going to keep shooing her towards the coop, but she wasn't budging from that "safe" place, so I finally just picked her up-- she didn't put up any fight at all-- and carried her to the coop.  As soon as I set her down, she ran inside the house and hasn't come out since.  It took a few more minutes of searching (still slightly hopeful that she'd managed to find a hiding place like Lucille) before I found a dead Sophie over by the fence near where I'd seen the fox.  Then I saw our neighbor's cat slinking away, too.  So who actually killed our little pets is a mystery.  I'm inclined to blame the cat, since I think the fox would have actually eaten his prey, not just left it there to go kill another one.  But I could be wrong about that.  I'm certainly no expert on the killing habits of foxes.


I felt so sad for my pretty little Emma (also known affectionately as Zippy).  She was such a pet and she was everyone's favorite.  And I loved the perfect little eggs she'd been laying for us.  Sophie was kind of annoying-- always making these sort of complaining noises about everything-- but she was a good layer and for that she will be missed.  Now we have one old chicken who is scared and lonely by herself (and I'm worried she's cold on her own, too, now that the weather has suddenly turned arctic), and doesn't lay eggs.  After some thinking, I've decided to give Lucille away to a good home and be chicken-free for the winter.  I'm not giving up on keeping chickens, but we'll take a hiatus, have this baby, give me a couple months to get used to having 5 kids, and start again with new chicks in the spring.  And we won't let them roam around outside their run unless we are outside with them to supervise.

I found one lone egg in the coop.  It nearly made me cry.

My poor little flock!  And my poor kids when I had to tell them the sad news! 

And, quite frankly, poor me having to get a shovel and get rid of their bodies before the kids came home from school.  Not a fun thing to do when I was feeling pretty sad myself, but it needed to be done and Craig wouldn't be home in time to do it so I couldn't pass this unpleasant task off on him.

It's been a rough week.  And Ryder is still nowhere near potty trained.