Holiday Silliness.

It is that time again where the silliness ensues.  I have composed some new songs for the season from a slightly poultry point of view:

O Come All Ye Chickens

Oh, come all ye Chickens

Flying, Running , Flapping

Oh Come ye 

Oh come ye to e-eat your scratch

Come and enjoy it

Eat until your crop is full

Oh Come peck up the kernels

Oh Come peck up the kernels

Oh Come peck up the kernels

And don't forget your grit

Oh come all ye Chickens

Squawking, crowing, clucking

Oh Come and lay eggs for me

So I may hatch them

We will have more birds

Little fluffy chickies

Oh come let us hold them

Oh come let us watch them

Oh come and make me just another

Chicken addict!

A challenge was put to me, so I answered the call:

Ava Maria, you say?
My hen's version-

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawk
Baaaaawk BawkBawk Baaaaaawwwk BawkBawk

Baaaawk Bawk Bawk Bawk Bawk Bawk
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawk Bawk Bawk Bawk Bawk Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwk Bawk
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawk Bawk Bawk Bawk Bawk Ba-gawk

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawk Bawk Bawk Bawk Bawk Ba-gawk  Ba-gawk
Baaaaaaaaaaa-gaaaaaaaaawk   Ba-ba-ba gaaaaaaaaaaaaawk
Bawk bu-bu-bu-bu-ba-gawwwwwwk


I need her to work on the rest, it is such a long song for such a small chicken.

Rudolph the Naked Neck Rooster

Rudolph the Naked Neck Rooster

Had a very cozy scarf

And if you ever saw him

You would even say he crows

All of the other roosters

Used to laugh and peck his head

They never let poor Rudolph

Try to breed any of their hens.

Then one windy Autumn eve

Farmer came to say

Roosters who like to peck and fight

Go to freezer camp tonight

The how the hens all loved him

As they clucked around with glee

Rudolph the Naked Neck Rooster

Should change his name to Mr. Lucky!

(Along the lines of Silent Night)

Silent Night Chicken Style

Leg-horn White
Gold-en Se-bright

All the hens
In their pens
Coo-ing sounds com-ing
from their roost
Eggs come pop-ping out
In their nests

In the morning Ome-lets we'll enjoy
My pet makes my break-fast

A-mer-au-cana
Black Ja-va

Eggs in Blue
Green ones too
Brown and White, and Speckled ones too
Large and small and Jum-bo too
All my hens are so haaaaa-ppy
Nest-led all in their coop

Leghorn Whiiiiiiiiite
Golden Se-briiiiiiight

Check Your Nest (to the sound of Deck the Halls)

Check your nests or you'll be sorry
Cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck

Frozen eggs bring you no glory
Cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck

Heat your nests or collect them often
Cluck cluck cluck
Cluck cluck cluck
Cluck
Cluck
Cluck

Snatch them up put 'em in the bator
Cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck

Chicken Wonderland

Roosters crow

Are ya listening

In the coop

Where their scratching

They're singing their song

As hens cluck along

Crowing in a winter wonderland

In the meadow we can throw some corn seed

and the Crows will come and chow it down

Bald Eagles with come and circle 'round here

Until the Crows all mob and chase them around

Later on, they'll puff their feathers

To fight off

The cold weather

Dreaming of lawns

As the night lingers on

Crowing in the winter wonderland

Crowing in the winter

Snowing in the winter

Crowing in the winter

Won-der-land

If you can escape them, you start to think like them.

Know they enemy!

Okay, my chickens are not my enemy, I love each and every one of them.  Some I love with dumplings more than in the coop, but I do love them.

The new house is getting closer and closer to being done and I have it almost half full now.  The birdies are appreciating not having to huddle and roost in the portable pens that set on the ground.  They are in deep shavings and out of the wind, or at least the ones that are smart enough to sleep in the back of the pen away from the windows.  Some are just not smart.  Yes, it is true, chickens are not the brightest of the bunch.  I felt terrible for my one Minorca boy, he is already showing signs of frostbite.  It is the downside of having birds with such large combs in this cold climate.  I have read that putting Vaseline or Bag Balm on them helps.  I will have to find me a can and give it a try.  Poor guys.

Even with the extended fall, I wasn't able to get all the preparations done that I needed to for winter, but I  got my snow pants and heavy work jacket, several pairs of gloves and hats to help me continue my quest.  I finally got all the wire on the outdoor runs the first day we really started accumulating snow.  It was tough trying to tack up the wire at the 6-foot level and having to look up into the clumping snowflakes to do it and having them going in my eyes.  I was glad I forgot to wear my glasses that day, it would have been no help if I had.

It has been a cold last couple of days and tomorrow is supposed to be the worst yet for this time around, a high of 14 and the low nearing zero.  Ouch!  I can't say as I like the sounds of that.  In this old house, we feel the cold a bit when it gets like that.  I can't wait until next year when we are supposed to be tearing this old house down and putting up a new, very efficient and comfortable in-ground dome structure.  (Look them up on wwwformworksbuilding.com).  It makes more sense than trying to fix all the problems this 100+-year old house has.  This week it was a drain/septic issue.  We are just praying that it doesn't all give out on us before spring.  I told Husband that I don't think we should hedge on things working through the winter, but we still have not come to a decision on whether or not we should do something different right now.  It all cost $$ and sometimes you just feel like you are throwing it away in these cases to band-aid fix something that is going to be all taken out in the not so distant future.  Decisions.  Decisions. Decisions.

Someone is happy the snow has come though.  Middle.

He has been just chomping at the bit to have snow.  He wants to go snowboarding tomorrow after school.  I hate to break it to him, but in addition to it being colder that a witches nose, he has a bedroom that needs cleaning AND he has been having problems with his back for a few weeks from an injury during soccer season.  I had him in the chiropractor yesterday and have had him in there several time before that to help get over this problem.  We did find out a couple of weeks ago, the boy's feet are as flat as a ducks!  We wondered why it sounded like duck feet slapping down the hall when he would go to the bathroom.  Now we know.

I had suspected this a long time ago and had him show me his feet, but I went about it wrong.  I had him lift his foot to show me the bottoms, to examine the arches.  Well, when you lift your feet it pulls the arch up, therefore appearing normal.  So, this guy we see had him stand with his feet on the floor with no shoes and he has NO arch.  Add that to the almost half inch difference in his leg length, and no wonder he has some issues with standing up straight.  It is hard to get it through a 13-year old, stubborn boy's head that jumping on his snowboard and going up and down hills is probably not the best thing for him to be doing right now.  Any bet on how big of a hissy fit he throws when I tell him he can't go?

Well, the sun is out and there is much to be done.

Let the silliness continue, if for no other reason but to help deal with Old Man Winter's extended visit which has only just begun.

In case I don't get back to say it,

HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND MAY YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!!!

CC

Once Upon a Time

There was a very tired and stressed out mother/wife who just wanted there to be not so much work all of the time.  She wanted to go with her family on a vacation somewhere where they could all relax and have fun together, instead of always working to get this project done or that project done.  She was saddened by the thought of her children growing up and going off into the world and that they would never be able to take that time to get away and just be a family for a while without all the rest of life's baloney.

Okay, I am awake now.  Must have been dreaming again.
I do look forward to hubby and I taking the kids and going to do something fun away from all that we have going on here, while the kids are still kids.  It has seemed like we would still have so much time, but it has flown passed so quickly, and before we know it, Eldest is going to be done with high school and off to college.

Today was spent first running Middle to the chiropractor to get his back adjusted and get my spine in line too.  I wish he lived next door so I didn't have to spend 2-hours running to get that done every time, which is 2-3 times a week now since Middle hurt himself during soccer season.  Then I got back to work on the chicken house (outdoor runs) some more.  I was sure we would get them all up and ready to put wire on before it got too dark, but Daughter had dance and Eldest had work and Hubby had to take them while I kept plugging away.  Then Middle needed help carrying rabbit cages that he was cleaning and I just ran out of daylight for getting the frame done.  Now tomorrow is supposed to be rainy turning to snow and then we are supposed to get 4-6 inches of the white stuff tomorrow night.

How pleasant.

Middle is just chomping at the bit to go snowboarding, so he is yelling "Bring on the snow!"  While I am saying, "Can we just skip winter this year?  Please?"  We have been quite lucky so far though, this fall has been warm and dry and good for getting projects worked on out there when I do have the time away from the family/parental obligations.

When I was a kid, we always had a trip that Mom and Dad took us on in the summer and we ALWAYS went to Florida for 2-weeks.  My grandparents had a house down there and my dad hated being up north all winter.  So, when I was 2, we started going to Florida every year in February for 2-weeks.  The last time I made that trip with my parents, I think I was 13 or 14.  After that, I got to stay home and do chores with my older siblings.  I was glad then that I didn't have to go.  I liked going to Florida, but who wants to go with their parents to a small town that wasn't close to anything to spend 2-weeks?  I did enjoy my grandmother's company though.  We sat almost every night playing cards and laughing about some stupid things, listening to stories of mischief and mayhem.  My Gram was quite the hell-raiser when she was young.  Then she had 11 children and 44 grandchildren to tell stories about.  She was definitely NOT a dull person to be with.  I sure loved that lady.

One summer when I was 7, whole family, minus 2 brothers, went on a trip "Out West".  We loaded up a motor home, towing a pullout camper on the back, and we went from Buffalo, NY to Billings, Montana.  My father had a cousin of some kind out there, so we went on a loooooong trip out there.  There were 13 of us because my grandparents went along too.  Being that I was only 7, I don't remember a whole lot.  We almost always stopped at a KOA Campground that had a swimming pool.  One night, it was near the Badlands in South Dakota, there was a huge thunderstorm and we couldn't stop where there was a pool, and I just couldn't understand why not.  Well, being the hopeful child I was that Mother Nature would surely see I need to take a dip, I believed that once we found the one with the pool, the rain would stop and we could all go swim.  Of course, I was a knucklehead for not realizing that that was no way going to be the case, and we went to a place without a pool.  Funny thing is, I don't remember anything else about that night.
I do remember, most of our trip was a lot of flat plains with nothing to look at.  We listened to George Jones and Dolly Parton a lot on the old 8 Tracks.  There was other country music too, but those are the ones that stick out in my mind that always make me think of our trip "Out West".  There were things that were easy to remember, like this huge game reserve park with bears all over that we drove through.  Those are the places that have the signs that tell stupid people who don't have enough brains in their heads to NOT FEED THE BEARS.  Yes, some other knuckleheads would always come in thinking that these were the real Yogi Bears and they would just steal your pickanick baskets and run.  Let's see....does your pickanick basket include your arm?  Maybe just a hand?  How anyone could be so stupid as to ignore warnings, I just don't know.  But there were plenty of stories that told of how someone would be that stupid.
Probably the most beautiful memory of that trip was the morning we reached the top of a mountain somewhere in the Rockies, and you could smell the flowers and hear the water running off the snow cap that was still there on the mountain tops regardless of the fact that we were WELL into summer.  There was a beautiful lake and it was just so serene.  In fact, when I hear or read the word serene, that is the picture that comes to mind for me.
It was a bit scary though.  We had this big motor home and looking out the windows, everything was straight down.  As we wound our way up and around mountain roads, there was a shear drop on the one side all the way up and all the way down.  I recall being scared half to death that we were going to slide off the side of the mountain.  My grandfather HAD to sit in the front seat next to the window all the way there and back, and when we were going on those snaking mountain roads, you could see the terror on his face.  It is a wonder he didn't have a heart attack on that trip.  He was going through nitro like they were Tic Tacs.
The lucky ones to get to sleep in the pull out camper were my grandparents and 3 of my siblings.  One night, all the rest of us were in bed in the camper (or on the floor in sleeping bags as it were for some), and we heard all kinds of noise coming from the camper.  We had all assumed it was Grandpa telling stories again went to sleep.  The next morning, we found out it wasn't the laughter of Grandpa's storytelling.  Every night the camper had to be hooked back onto the motor home for stability.  We had probably unhooked it to service the motor home or go to a restaurant or something, but it didn't get hooked up again.  My grandparents outweighed my siblings by enough that it had tipped up and my siblings rolled over onto our grandparents and they were screaming and laughing and couldn't get themselves righted.  Grandpa was really in need of his pills then!  The next morning they found Grandma's teeth in someone's shoe and Grandpa finally did find his pills somewhere in the mess.  I am certain that no one forgot to hook up the camper after that.
There was one place that had a fishing pond.  It was a fun for us kids, it was almost guaranteed that you would catch something it was so stocked.  When we ran out of bait and Mom and Dad said no to getting more, we started throwing Cheetos to the fish.  BOY, did they love those!!  We should have used that for bait, but we already turned in our rods for the day.  So, it was just about as much fun watching them go after the Cheetos as it was catching them, and not nearly as messy.  Then the owner/manager/whoever was in charge came out and yelled at us and talked to our parents so we couldn't do that any more.  They were mad because our feeding the fish the Cheetos was making them too full and they wouldn't bite for anyone else.  I think we all spent the rest of the day plotting our revenge for them having spoiled our fun.

There was stop we made along a river where there was a public beach and 'watering hole'.  We got to go in swimming and it was a nice way to cool off in the hot summer sun.  There were a lot of local kids there.  There was a group of teenagers off in a spot down the river a little, and they had some inner tubes to float on.  One girl went floating out into a spot that had a hard current and was a bit deeper than the rest.  A smart aleck boy went and pulled the tube out from under her and she started flailing because she couldn't swim.  A bunch of her friends came to her rescue while that boy dragged the tube up the beach. My grandmother was just livid.  She got up and went over to that boy and was determined she was going to take that tube away from him after that stupid stunt, and she did.  He even tried taking it back and dragged her down the beach a little, but she did not give in.  I think he learned a lesson about how stubborn and strong some grandmothers are.  It was a funny sight to see though as a little kid, your grandmother with her arms wrapped around an inner tube and a teenage boy pulling like they were in a game of tug-of-war.

So, as I spend my days building chicken houses and pens, and cleaning up the yard and cleaning out our closets and picking up clutter inside and out, along with running kids to and from their things they have going on, I think about how it would be so nice to get away.  I think about how nice it will be if we can go on a trip that will give my children stories to tell about the trip they took with their family and the things they remember.  In all the things that I have always thought my parents didn't do right, that was one that they did do that I will always be glad for, the trips we took.  Not all the trips were the best time ever, I can't say as any of them were that great, but I have memories of things that will be with me my whole life.  Some make me laugh still, 38-years later.  That is what I hope we don't put off until it is too late.


CC

Heartbeat

Tonight I was watching Grey's Anatomy with my kids.  We don't get regular/cable/dish television, but we do stream from Netflix, so it wasn't the most current episode.  That doesn't matter though.  The story included one of the cast being pregnant and being freaked out that she was going to lose the pregnancy.  So, the 'doctor' on the case rolls in this 'special' ultrasound unit to find the heartbeat of the baby/fetus/whatever you want to call it at 8 weeks.  They hear the heartbeat and everyone is teary eyed.  When I say everyone, I mean me too.  Yeah, sappy, I know.  But it wasn't that the characters on the show had brought this on.  No, it became a wonderful memory awakener for me.  When I was pregnant with Eldest, we were getting ready to move and I was all nervous - typical first time mommy jitters.  I went in for my first ob/gyn visit, and just for fun they put on an ultrasound.  I was 10-weeks.  At this point in the pregnancy, the baby-to-be looks similar to a kidney bean, but Eldest was a kidney bean with a heartbeat.  It was a little thing and barely visible, but it was a heartbeat that fluttered very quickly compared to the heart of an adult.  At that point, if it hadn't been real to me yet, it became very real right then.  It is an amazing feeling that I think only a first time parent can really understand - that first moment when the realization of a little baby inside of you becomes very, very real.

Now, 16 years later, I think back to that day, that moment like it was just last week.  So much has happened since then.  He has grown into a young man, not quite an adult, but right on the edge of being one.  He is a royal pain in the rear sometimes, but overall, I couldn't be more proud of the young man I have raised with my husband.  A friend told me today that her son who has Downs' Syndrome comes home from school every day and talks about my son and just thinks the world of him.  They have choir together every day, so there is daily contact.  It made me feel very good to hear her say that.  He is an Honors student and in the top 10 in his class.  He has had a job since he turned 14, starting as a volunteer and working into a paid position.  He is well-liked by most every teacher/staff person in the school, adults in our County 4-H too.  What is there to not be proud of?  And to think, it all started as a little fluttering heartbeat.  I look forward to watching him grow more and become a wonderful man, because that is what I know he will be.  Just don't tell him I told all of you so ; )

CC

The Quiet

I love nighttime the best.  I always have for various reasons in my life.  When I was a kid, it was the time the house was quiet and everyone in their bedrooms.  In a family with 11 kids, that is saying something.  Then again, I never had my own room until I was about 12 or 13.  I do remember the only sounds after about 9:00 were the creaking of the boards in the hall when someone was going to the bathroom.  You would have thought there would have been a line, like they used to show on TV shows like the Brady Bunch, but no, it was more like someone in need of using the bathroom would bang on the door and yell, "Hurry up!"  That was about the extent of that.
Then when I was a teenager, I like the night when I could be in my room, listen to my own brand of music and read or do homework.  It was MY place.
When I became a young adult, it was about going out and having fun, followed by going to bed late with ringing in my ears from the night of loud musice, then by getting up much too early and wishing I hadn't stayed out so late the night before.
When we were newlyweds, it was our time (if we were both off work) to watch a movie or television and eat popcorn and split a Coke while lounging on the sofa.
When the kids were little and went to bed all at the same time (8:00), I would pay bills and balance the checkbook, clean up from the day, run the vacuum (since children sleep through white noise once they are asleep, or at least mine did), fold the day's laundry, then read a bit before going to bed.  Occasionally, I would do a project then, like lay new tile or the like, but it was a nice quiet when I knew they were in bed and asleep after mommy sang a little and gave everyone their smooch for the night.
Now, it seems they never go to bed.  Each has a separate bed time, so that is a little crazy, but you can't expect a 15 year old to have to go to bed at the same time as his 9-year old sister.  The ME time has been shortened significantly, and by the time all is quiet, I don't feel much like doing laundry and dishes and vacuuming (which now wakes the beasts rather than soothing them to sleep).  So, it is time when I check out what my friends are doing, via Facebook.  I look at what is new on Craigslist.  I check out what is on BYC, if there are any good auctions ( not that I am hatching at this time) and to see if there is something new I can learn and apply to my flock.  Sometimes it is just fun to see what people need and if I can lend any helpful tidbits.  There is always the game of "What breed am I" or "Am I a boy or a girl"  that people are stumped by, but that is a game that is getting old.
Nighttime is when my brain gets creative and I draw/design new chicken coops or gardens or what I want my new house to look like.  I come up with 101 ideas for our 4-H club to try.  I practice piano a little too, even though I stopped lessons 6-months ago.  I do enjoy actually making music and seeing how much more used to the keys my hands have gotten.  I will never even dream that I could be a concert pianist, it just isn't in the cards, but I like the music I am able to play.

My husband has never bought into the thought that people are morning people or night owls.  Can you guess?  He, of course, is a morning person.  He wakes up on the weekends a picks up a book and reads for an hour.  If I even thought about reading when I woke up, I would just fall right back to sleep.  Then again, I don't have to think about reading to fall back asleep, I just close my eyes and viola!  I'm asleep.  He doesn't get it.  If he is woken up after having fallen asleep, he lays awake for hours.  Me, I crash again, real quick.  It makes him mad too that I can do that.  However, last night Daughter came in at 1:00am.  She could not sleep.  Some kids at school were telling her some stupid story about "Bloody Mary" and if you look in the mirror at night when all is dark and the doors and windows are locked, she will come to get you through your mirror.  Gee, let's see, Halloween is next week.  I asked her if she didn't think it a little coincidental that she is hearing stories like this at this time of year?  Mind you, she is a pretty smart cookie, top of her class, but this thing has got her in a mess.  She woke me up to tell me she can't sleep and she is scared and so on and so forth.  I, of course, being the sweet mommy I am, told her she could sleep with me since daddy was gone overnight for work.  Well, 30 minutes after coming in, she is over there sawing logs and I am wide awake and cannot sleep.  What the heck???  I can almost always sleep anytime, anywhere.  Nope, I was up for 4 hours!!!  Yeah, nighttime is usually a great time for me, but there are exceptions.

CC

Running Short

Short of...

Daylight.  There is no longer long, leisurely days of enjoying the sun and green of summer.  The days are getting short, the nights are cold and the leaves are nearly all on the ground.  That doesn't change anything about the amount of work that still needs to get done.  It actually increases it.  Now, on top of all the regular chores, there is the fall clean-up and preparing for winter to do.

Two days ago Husband started the annual "Planting of the Garlic".  Actually, last year the "annual" part was interrupted and we had to buy new seed stock this year.  My father-in-law had cancer and passed away at the time we should have been planting.  It was more sad to lose him, of course, but not having our 8-years' work of seed stock gone was very sad too.  Life is unpredictable that way though.  But the garlic is nearly done, and then he can get back out to help me finish my chicken house and get the birds in so they can be warm and cozy again.  Okay, so maybe they won't be that cozy since it has 4 big windows that will remain open all winter.  They will be healthier for it though, I am certain.

The garden did not get the attention needed to produce a harvest.  In other words, I grew a great weed patch this summer.  My chickens and ducks are really enjoying the 5-foot tall grass that has grown up all over in there.  I sent Middle in today to collect all the supports and cages I put in when I planted last spring.  I sure hope next year is better.  It couldn't get any worse.  I will say though, Sunflowers did wonderfully this year.  That is probably because they grew anywhere from 7 to 12-feet tall and were way above the weeds.

Daughter is pressing us to have our traditional leaf ride for her.  Every year except last year since we have lived here, we have collect leaves on a huge tarp and pulled the kids around on it with the lawn tractor.  The boys have outgrown it, but Daughter is still trying to hold onto those things we have done with them as little kids.  The tough things about doing this leaf ride is that 1.)  they are Silver Maples, so the leaves, if we use the mower, just disintegrate; and 2.) the wind has already blown most of the leaves away.  Let's not forget to mention the 70 asparagus plants and the 2 huge raised beds of garlic that now take up half the front lawn that used to be where we pulled the leaf tarp.  Just one more thing for her to be disappointed about.  It makes me feel bad, but at the same time. there has been a lot going on in the way of work and projects this year.

As much as I want to keep rambling, I will have to pick up with a second part next time.  The day has ended for me, and still I could fill the night with work as well, but that just wouldn't be a good thing.

CC

Back in the Saddle

Oh, I suppose it is time I post something again.  This crazy summer has been so busy, busy, busy!  I spent the last two days taking Middle to State Fair with his market ducks.  Wednesday was entry day and yesterday the show.  I took Daughter along yesterday and had to listen to complaints of aching feet.  What did she think?  I was going to carry her?  Ha Ha!  She did ask, but I pointed out that I would have croaked trying to carry her all the way.  Had to walk to the dorm where Middle was staying so he could change after he showed.  He was holding one drake and I the other, when his decided to poop all down his pant leg.  I laughed, mostly to myself so as to not make him feel any worse about it.  I set mine on the floor for a bit (they are not lightweight birds!) and while he was standing there, he did his business on the floor.  I still came away from the whole thing smelling like a wet duck.  YUCK!  I prefer chicken poop, it isn't as runny and messy, usually anyway.
He did well.  He got called back for the final judging of market ducks, but there were two outstanding pens that were obvious winners.  He would have come close if there were more placings, I think.  Some of the birds in the class were quite small compared to his.  Surely, Middle's were not as old as some of the others and if they had been, I think he would have been more in contention.  As it is though, it has been a good experience for him, I believe.  I heard a lot of complaining yesterday, but I think he was very tired and not feeling the greatest.  The show, which was supposed to run from 1pm to 5:30pm, didn't end until 10:45.  I am glad I didn't stay until the end.  OH MY!  That was a long day for those kids!  Middle opted to go back to the dorm early and go to bed, which was about the wisest decision I have seen him make in a while ; )

I did partake of the yummy fair fare.  I had a frybread taco, which I have been looking forward to for some time now.  Of course, Daughter and I shared an order of curds, a lemonade, and then we had ice cream from Bridgeman's.  MMM!

We had to check out her posters in the poultry and the rabbit departments.  She got a blue ribbon on her rabbit poster.  The poultry ones had not been judged yet.  I am hopeful that she did well with it.  She has some good ideas and we are working on some for next year.

Hubby has been working on my chicken house.  Bless his heart.  I have been off running around while he works.  He is doing a wonderful job.  I may have my birds in it by next week if all goes well.  Then I can dismantle some of my portable pens until next year, maybe.

I would love to post more pictures with this, but my camera I took yesterday stopped working, and my laptop which contains about 5,000 pictures crashed and I have it in the shop for repairs.  I may have lost everything, but I am still hoping the second diagnostic it is running through is able to extract the info.  Otherwise, I may cry!  I was told that I could send it off to pay a few hundred dollars to have it all recovered, but I am so hoping it doesn't come to that.

Well, much work is waiting for me, and I better do something to catch up from my absence.  I am really hoping to get Middle's bedroom cleaned while he is away too and get rid of all the junk he has kicking around in there.  That boy is a pack rat!

Til Late.
CC

Baby Steps

Yes, baby steps.  It is what I feel like I am taking toward getting projects done here.  Alas, there are steps at least.  I did get some boards cut tonight.  I will get more tomorrow so that I can get the pens in the big chicken house done and get my birds in there to live.  Then there is the painting of the
 boards, and there is the laying of the linoleum.  Then building of the nest boxes and the doors for the chickens to go in and out.  Really exciting stuff, huh?

I started letting my juvenile birds, almost grown and the girls almost to breeding age, out onto pasture this week.  They love it, of course.  There is room to flap and run and plenty of grass to peck and bugs to eat.  Who or what wouldn't enjoy that kind of freedom after being cooped up the first few months of their life?  I hate penning them, it seems sad, but it is not to be mean or anything of the sort.  It is for their protection from things that would eat them for a late night snack.  So, after their romping around, they go back into the pen at night and get locked in for the night.

I have this one very tiny pullet (girl chicken under 1 year of age, ask Daughter, she can quote it to me ;) ).  This pullet is a Bantam Modern Game chicken.  She is the cutest little thing, but is about the size of a Robin with extra long legs.  I didn't intend to get this breed, but as luck would have it, I got her with a mix of chicks that I needed to keep a lone hatcher company last winter.  Of course, being tiny, and sweet and cute, and the only one of her kind in the flock, everyone loves her.  Her name is Birchy, so called because her color (or variety) is Birchen - black body with yellow/gold around her neck.  She really is funny to comprehend as being a chicken.  She spends most of her time in the feed can or on top of waterer.  I got out to check on things or feed them and she is right there cheaping away.  She doesn't even sound like a chicken.

I had to smile, a big mommy, warmed my heart kind of smile the other day, or should I say about 3 weeks ago?  Daughter had to go out and play with the momma broody hen and her little chicks.  We had to pull them from the pen with the other adult birds because they were pecking at the poor little chickies.  We started her in a fold-up puppy pen
 where she bawked, and clucked, and showed them how to drink and scratch and peck around in the grass and dirt.  I looked out from the kitchen window to see... me?  No, but I immediately thought, she is just like me when I was her age:  In her boots, blue jeans, sitting in the pen with baby animals.  It is so funny how in an instance you can get flung back 36-years to "when".  Wow! 

At night we put Momma and babies into the cage on the right and set them in the garage for safe keeping.  I finally decided it was time the chicks joined the others their age and Momma did the same.  She probably won't lay eggs for a little while yet, but she is back to being a grown up.  Does that make her and  empty nester?

We picked out the birds the kids are going to take to the fair, or intend to take.  I don't know, some don't have feathers yet in places they should.  We had to get them later than intended due to incubation difficulties.  They have something to take, we just aren't expecting Grand Champion this year.

So, it is late once again.  The house is quiet where I am the last to head to bed.  It is my favorite part of the day.  I must rest though, tomorrow is building of chicken domiciles and information booth for the fair.  Since it is to rain the following day, or so I see online, I better get things done outside tomorrow, or is it today?  Yikes, 1 A.M.

I bid you ado.

CC

Too Much Too Little

Too Much

Isn't it true for most of us, there is always too much to do?  My kids went to camp this week, Eldest for the straight 2 weeks for a leadership group, Middle and Daughter are both in resident camp for 6-days, will come home tomorrow evening, then go back on Sunday.  Daughter goes back for horse camp, which she is upset about and doesn't understand 'why did you sign me up for that?'.  Well, first of all, she will most likely come home afterward and ask if we can get a horse or two or three, to which the answer will be a firm NO!  Not that I don't like them, but we don't have the space a horse needs or that is needed to grow the food to feed it.  My hubby and I don't believe in just having pasture pets that would create such an ecological footprint, especially when all its food would need to be purchased.  Eventually, most horses get neglected and are not properly ridden or exercised, which is not very humane in my book.  The reason that we are sending her to that camp is for a new experience.  That is also why Middle is going back to do the sailing camp.  Neither of them may want to have anything to do with those activities when they leave, but they got the chance to try it out.  Eldest had a royal fit about having to go, even though last year when we picked them up, they all wanted to go back for the rest of the summer, and he wanted to go back to work in becoming a counselor.  So, we will see what he says when we pick him up next weekend.
But where the Too Much comes in, is there is just too much that I wanted so desperately to get done while they are gone.  Here I am down to one day left until their return for the weekend, and I have barely scratched the surface of projects I have on my list.  Our downstairs bathroom is half demolished since the chain of events that began with a toilet that wouldn't stop running, which had to be broken to move it out and be replaced, which resulted in also removing the rotting floor underneath, which also lead to tearing out the old broken tiles around the toilet, which turned into a full out demo for Eldest when we thought giving him a good, tough job would teach him about how hard it is to get everything done.  Well, here we are, I think it has been 3 months since that one began, and it is still in the demo stage due to the 101 other things that are constantly popping up to be done.
I did manage to start getting dividers in the new chicken condo yesterday.  Why is that important?  Well, because that is where I need to move many of the birds that are living in my garage in brooders at present.  I am tired of building new, portable pens when I have a new building sitting there for them but needs to get the finishing details done to it.  Arg!  It gets overwhelming sometimes.

Too Little

There is too little time in a day to get everything done that one wants to.  Again, here is no exception.  We have been trying to plan the huge project of tearing down our house to build a new one.  It seems like we barely have time to get the day to day things done around here, much less tackle the monstrous project of what we speak.  I am sure it didn't help that I got rabbits for the kids that turned into a rabbit breeding and raising hobby.  It didn't help that we had puppies last summer that took up a tremendous amount of time.  It didn't help that I started this endeavor of having a small chicken hatchery either.  But in my defense, I have been a stay-at-home mom for 15-years and I need more than cleaning house and raising kids.  I need to do things that interest and inspire me.  I love the way you can breed animals and then compare their offspring to their parents and see the different genetic differences that pop up because of genetic crossings for color and size and temperament and all that neat stuff.  As crazy as it sounds, my animals bring me the kind of joy I used to feel when my kids were little and everything was new with them.  Not that I am tired of my kids, though they make me VERY tired of late.  It has changed.  They are their own persons, and it is not an adventure for them the way it was when they were little.   The amazement of every little thing is gone for them.  When they are little even a bug or a blade of grass can be a treasure and something to investigate.  Now, they squash the bugs and complain if they have to even think about anything to do with grass. (because it usually involves mowing or raking it).

Ah, what is that?  The chickens are calling again.  They say, "Bring us more food and water, please."  and it is a call I must heed.


CC

From One Extreme to Another

On Monday, it was 102˚F here in Southeast Minnesota.  The heat wouldn't have been as bad had it not been for the high humidity to go with it.  It was what my husband calls a 'Survival Day'.  We just do whatever we can to survive on those ones short of stripping down naked and running through the sprinkler in the yard.  I am sure someone would call the police if that happened, probably my kids for scarring them for life! 
Then, Tuesday was 101˚F with a hard wind that made it a little more bearable, but it was still classified as a Survival Day here.  Luckily, the town swimming pool opened on Monday and we partook of its coolness.
The next day, Wednesday, was about 85˚F according to my van's thermometer.
Yesterday was mid 60's.
Today we won't get out of the 50's.
Anyone who wants to debate on if the climate is changing, step right up.

I just had a little message exchange from a fellow native New Yorker.  He lives about 30 miles south of where I grew up.  That is what got me thinking about this weather thing.  "Back home" it never got so hot or so cold as it does here.  I have learned to love it here, but it sure is a beautiful part of the country back there.

So, I have gotten my duckies in their new home and built another duck house for the Pekin meat ducks as well.  I still have a long way to go before all the poultry housing is done.  This week I am working on getting my garden in, finally.  I have never planted the garden this late before.  I wasn't even going to have a garden because of all the other projects I have to finish, but I just have to grow things.  So, the tomatoes and peppers, sunflower, carrots, some of the onions, and sweet corn are in the ground.  Well, most anyway, I bought more pepper and tomato plants yesterday.  I said I wasn't going to do a huge garden, but here I am....

I got my 50 Cornish Rock cross chicks yesterday.  I am hoping by next year or the one after at least, I can start having just my own meat birds that I am working on from crossbreeding.  I know that I will never get those 6-pound breasts on my own birds (yes, I am exaggerating), but I like a chicken that acts like a chicken and is evenly developed.  It is funny how much more I like dark meat now that I am raising my own chicken.

The kids have been out of school for a week.  It hasn't been as hard as I had anticipated.  There hasn't been nearly the fighting that we have had in the past few months.  I think it is a matter of keeping them busy and apart.  Now, if I can just get them to go to bed and get up on a routine schedule, it would be good.  Eldest has a job at the library, so he is there now and will be tomorrow.  He doesn't start very early, but it has just been a week.  He is starting French Horn lessons too, that will have to be earlier than we have been rolling out.  He has been taking trumpet for four years, skipped this year though.  Now, he wants to get back in band and they need horns, so he is stepping in, or should I say stepping up?

Speaking of stepping up, I need to get up and get more of my projects worked on.  My garden is getting dug and pecked over by my free rangers, so I better get that fence up.

CC

I'm Getting Closer

I did manage to get out and work on my duck hutch more today, despite the cool weather that rolled in for a couple of days.  I would have had the roof done except that my metal blade on my circular saw was worn down too much.  So, tomorrow after Daughters soccer game (and I must mention Eldest co-coaches), I will have to go to the hardware store for a new blade.  Then I will be back to making progress.
My husband came over from his lawn mowing to see how I was doing and snapped a shot.  He just loves his new iPhone.
I had a heck of a time putting the vinyl flooring on the inside.  I was going to just lay it on the floor and flange it up the sides for 6".  That was crazy to try doing since I didn't make it exactly square (never claimed to be a professional).  So, I ended up putting it on the floor and the piecing it onto the sides too.  Then I used quarter-round on the corners and bottom edges with caulk to seal any cracks and keep it from ruining what is underneath.  I must admit, I am terrible at caulking, and it shows.  I have the siding on 3 sides, and I still need to make the doors, but I will get there.  Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be crappy, so I may not finish until Sunday.  My ducks are growing like crazy and need to get out of the garage!
I will be the proud owner of new baby bunnies by morning, I think.  One of the girls pulled a load of fur and made a nest for doing so, so I hope she completes her task by morn.  She sure was looking a bit uncomforable this evening.  I will have to go out and check on her before I turn in.
Middle is learning to do laundry.  It is part of his Home Ec assignment this week.  Now I am going to start making him do his own every week.  This is ridiculous that I have to do so much of it.  I am so glad the teacher assigns this to them.  They have made  her classes so big now, she isn't able to have the kids do the cooking and sewing projects that she used to.  It is sad.  So, as I dropped off Middle this morning (he had a track meet and didn't get to bed until late, so getting up was a bit difficult), I popped into the Home Ec room and got directions for him to make the pillow case that they would normally be doing in there.  Eldest did his with Owls on it, and it is a very nice one, and unique.  Then I bought this guitar fabric last year for a different project Middle had to do, and thought I could buy a couple of different kinds and he could make his pillow case out of it.  He still can and should.  Besides, what else am I going to do with guitar fabric?  I would like to make a quilt for him, but he will probably have kids before I have time to do that.
Maybe tomorrow is the day that I clip Zeke.  That poor boy is beyond shaggy and needs it bad.
Well, I guess I have enough to keep  me busy over the weekend.
Til next time....

CC

I Am Getting There

I have been working on my duck hutch for 3 days now.  Well, really about 1 1/2 because they were only half days.  I have it close.  I have to put siding on three sides still and put the purlins and the roof on, and make the two doors.  It rained a little today while I was working, but not enough to send me packing up my tools.
It is so funny, but this is a duck hutch, and the chickens are all over it!  They love to roost on the frame, I can't blame them, it is a good vantage point for them to watch things.  My big rooster, Dumbledore (soon to be Dinner) watches from a safe distance.  He is such a booger.  He comes charging up behind me when I am carrying out feed to them, and ducks under the bucket, bumping my leg, then wants to challenge me.  He must have never heard that old saying, "Never attack the human who feeds you."  or something like that ; )  Especially while she feeds you.  Daughter has to carry a stick with her when she goes out or he comes after her.  I told her to not be afraid of hurting him, he is tough.  I may have to put him in chicken jail and let him chill out.
The weather is sweltering.  The kids were complaining that 'We HAVE  to get A/C."  Well, I lived my entire childhood without it, so I think they can last one more summer.  I would love to have air and humidity control in the house, but it is just wishful thinking at the moment.  One day we will have something better.
My doggies need baths and to be clipped once again.  Now that the weather is getting warm, so are they, and Zeke still had his winter coat on.  They must be bathed first, and that may happen when I get done here.
My other dogs (feet) are tired and need a good soaking.  Maybe tomorrow will be the day the duckies get to move outside for good.

CC

What the hell happened?

So, last week, we were getting snow flurries in the morning.  Today it was 86˚F and the humidity was up in the 70% range.  Give me a break.  We were starting to get Spring, and then we took a jump to this!  No fair!  I want Spring! 
Global Warming?  Maybe, or maybe just some crazy phase the Earth is going through.  Does it matter, I am tired of it at the moment.
Oh well, I will survive it.

My poor chicks and ducks and bunnies on the other hand....
I have two momma bunnies that should be having their babies tomorrow.  The poor things having to go through that in this steam.  Wait, I had to go through having babies twice when it was hot and steamy.  I just wasn't wearing a fur coat while I did it.  When I gave birth to Eldest, it was 99˚ and we were in Virginia in May.  When Second was born, it was 98˚ and it was August on the north side of Minneapolis.  Daughter came during an ice storm in March.  I guess hers made up for the heat of the other two.  :)


I better get to bed soon, I know half the night will be spent laying under the ceiling fan thinking about how much better our new house is going to be when we build it, and we have it climate controlled.

CC

Winding Down the Year

We are in the last month of school for the year here in Minnesota.  The kids didn't have too many snow days, so they won't add any on this time around.  The kids are getting a little anxious, and with tomorrow's summer like weather projections, I think they all will be just giddy and fidgety and some fit to be tied.  I can't say as it makes me too happy though.  I have been getting tired of the cold and all, but to jump from snow last week in the mornings to 85˚ tomorrow is just plain crazy.  Who ordered this weather?
Actually, I am going to be glad it is not cold tomorrow so that I don't have to carry jackets all day on the field trip with my daughter's third grade class.  I am so lucky to be able to chaperone. :\  It is not that I don't like going on these things, it is just that I have a million other things to get done.  I understand why they have their big trips at the end of the year, as it brings to a pinnacle the learning from the year.  But spring is a time for much outside work for us rural folks with furry and feathered critters.
I think I have easily passed the 200 mark for poultry, and I have had a couple of litters kindled in the rabbit cages.  Yes, kindled is the term used when a rabbit births its young.  I have two more that I think are due tomorrow if they are pregnant.  They are tricky little buggers, and not as easy to proliferate as most people believe.  "They breed like rabbits." is an expression used by those who have  never tried breeding rabbits.  I have had one doe I could not get 'in the mood' until it was 85˚.  Hey, maybe tomorrow is her day for nookie!  Seriously, I think I have her re-bred after giving birth to a stillborn litter the other day.  This is only her second litter ever and the first one was such an awful experience for her.  She is a small rabbit, a Netherland Dwarf, and they only are supposed to be 2- 2 1/2 pounds.  She had 4 kits the first time around and they were not so small as to pass easily and ended up losing all of them after it took 3 days to have them.  The poor girl was in such a state, I could not breed her again for a while.  But, rabbits can be re-bred almost right away.  It depends on your prespective.  Some people go right ahead and breed the same day they kindle if the litter is lost.  I like to give them at least a couple of days.  But I would only do that one time and then give them a while to rest up and get back into shape, even if the second litter were lost.  I just can't see asking one to go 3 rounds of being pregnant right after the other, that would be just too much.  And it does depend on the condition of the doe as to whether I would breed again the second time anyway.  You have to use your senses.
So, I will have a few cages full again by next month at this rate.
Have I mentioned anywhere that I am now the proud 'Momma' of 23 ducks?  Yes, I am so entirely, undoubtedly, certifiably insane.  I know this and can admit it, so I must be on the path of recovery, which is to expand my poultry dwellings to accommodate all my poultry.  Easy peasy.

I went to a friend's house who has all sorts of poultry: ducks, chickens, geese, turkeys and lots of them!  I wanted to see about getting a few for my kids to show at the fair this summer.  The boys said they would show meat ducks, and since Daughter is too small to handle carrying big old meat ducks, I got her some little, cute as a button Call Ducks.  They are so stinking sweet!
 
Now a week and a half later, they are about 3 times this size.  The Pekins are getting to be a handful already, though they still have their fluffy down and will have for a while yet. 
But you know what happened?  I took Middle to a farm and fleet store with me on Wednesday, and they had newly arrived, baby ducklings!  Yaaaaayyyyy!  So, he looks at me with his sweetest little boy look and says, "Oh, Mom, pleeeeease?"  I couldn't say no.  We came home with 3 Swedish Harlequins and 5 Khaki Campbells. God, I must be crazy.  To top it off, I have duck eggs in the incubator!  I still have 4 Call eggs and 3 or 4 Crested duck eggs too.   Let's not forget a couple of turkey eggs too.

So, as my kids and their school year are winding down, I am just cranking it up.  We will have plenty to keep them busy over the summer months.  But how is it I know I will still hear them saying, "I'm bored."?

CC

Constitutional rights

I read a thread today on my favorite backyard chickens forum (backyardchickens.com) that this veteran in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania got some chickens that help him deal with having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  His idiot neighbor protested him having them because his coop was 4 inches too close to the property line.  Give me a break!  4 inches?!?!  Here vets are coming home from these damn wars going on over in no man's land, and they are messed up to the nth degree.  One of them finds comfort and peace from all the baggage they are left to deal with by keeping a few chickens, and his dumb ass neighbor has the balls to complain about it????  I apologize for the language, but really????
So, a fellow veteran and his wife hear about this and build him a chicken tractor (portable coop to you non-chicken folks) and now he can keep his chickens.  Thank Goodness!  Isn't that just awesome that someone would do that for him?
I am confused, I understand why we have laws regulating the keeping of animals in towns.  But I don't understand the restriction of keeping chickens in your backyard within a reasonable number, of course.  What happened to our Constitutional right of pursuit of happiness?  To some people like this one vet, it is truly about the pursuit of happiness.  It seems like more an more the government is taking away the rights of people to actually pursue happiness.  There are extremely stringent laws on how dairy products are handled for raw sale and consumption, like just because we don't want to go cook I mean, pasteurize all the goodness out of our milk to then fortify it to return the goodness back into it that was there naturally in the first place that was killed in the heating process, that raw milk is all bad and carries e-coli.  There was a farmer who was selling raw dairy to consumers here in my own state, who was blamed as part of a small e-coli outbreak because someone he sold to got e-coli.  Uh, there were other people in that same outbreak who had never had any of his products, so how can it be his fault?  I am confused.  So, something like that comes up and the first people to get blamed are the ones doing it raw or natural or organically.  That is proposterous!  The fact is, that our food that we buy in our grocery stores is mostly shipped from over 1,000 miles away at a minimum, and it isn't all that fresh either.  SO, isn't it just possible that the really bad food stuffs are not from the local farmer trying to sell good, wholesome (key work WHOLE) and fresh foods is the one to maybe NOT worry so much about.  But, oh yeah, the neighbor selling the raw milk isn't to one lining the pockets of the lobbyists so that bills can get passed to help out those big guys who cook the milk and spray our fruits and veggies so they can ship them across continents and across the country, so they can arrive in our grocery stores nice and fresh(?).
I know, how did I go from a rant about chickens to this?  Well, it all goes together.  This is getting insane.  Like someone has to legislate what we can and cannot buy to eat because we are too stupid to decide what is good for us?  Is that what this is about?  I don't think so.  I think it is more about  money and the little people trying to do what is good and what is good for us trying to eek out a living by doing so, getting in the way of big food corporations that won't stand for some little guy getting in their way of monopolizing the supply of food. 
What is next?  Am I going to be breaking the law if I plant my own vegetable garden?  Are my chickens going to be taken away?  What?  I don't understand how the lawmakers use the Constitution to tell us what we can and cannot do, but they blatantly disregard the rights that same document gives each and every one of us to make our own choices.
It just doesn't seem right.

A Fool Waits...

And I am that fool today.  I don't think I have ever waited until April 15th to get our taxes done, but I did this year.  I just couldn't bring myself around to getting them done until I finally looked at the calendar and said, "Holy Crap!".  So, because of my procrastination, I am now sitting here with my stomach hurting and churning and gurgling, because I probably put myself under more stress in the last 6 hours than my kids have put me under in the last month.  That is really saying something too, by the way.
I swore, I was not going to do this this year.  So, what happened?  You don't want to hear every excuse why, lame or valid either one.
BUT I wasn't the only one waiting until D-day.  My husband is trustee over his parents estates/trusts that now have to be enacted and distributed and taxes done.  We sent everything off to the lawyer/tax man a few weeks ago, but we didn't receive any of the paperwork until today, well yesterday now.  Even the pros wait until the last minute sometimes, I guess.

CC

The Grass Woke Up

  We got a big storm on Saturday night.  I didn't really hear it, I sleep like a rock almost every night.  When we woke up in the morning though, things were blown all over and needed to be picked up.  The other thing we saw though, was that the grass had woken up from its winter slumber.  Green began peaking out and the ground isn't brown all over any more.  The tulip and daffodil leaves are poking out now too.  Someone mentioned mowing lawn, and I hope it is a while before we have to do that!

Every spring, along with more sunshine and rain and things turning green, I always manage to get a cold.  Well, mine arrived a little early this year and I felt like a truck was running me over about 7:00 last night.  I turned in before the kids for the first time in a while, and that wasn't enough, I slept in this morning too while my husband got the kids off to school.  I spent the day dragging and feeling like my head has been in a fog.  I hate colds.  I tried to practice the two songs I have for my piano lesson, and it was hopeless.  Then I realized, I don't even have a lesson this week because I will be gone.  Had to tell the teacher that.  I did see her when my two kiddos had their lessons tonight and told her the story.

What is the story?  Well, I am going to a class 3-hours away, so I can get certified to blood test poultry.  Anyone who is 'into' poultry would know what that means.  However, tonight while waiting for my darling daughter to finish her dance class, I saw my BFF.  When I said I wouldn't be around the next 2 days, she said, "Where are you going?"  to which I replied, "A class on testing chickens."  She burst out laughing at me.  She knows I am all into my chickens, though  I am certain she doesn't understand how one could be that thrilled with them.  Shall I explain, that a responsible chicken owner/breeder (which I am aspiring to be) should have their flock tested to make sure it isn't carrying diseases?  It is the equivalent of a dog or cat owner taking their pet to the vet to get tested or immunized, right?  So, why does it seem absurd to a non-chicken person to do the same with poultry?  Or maybe it is just funny to her that it is ME going to this class?  Perhaps.

Tax day is nearly here, and do I have ours done?  NO.  I am panicking now because since I am feeling this way, I am just not sure what kind of job I am going to do at getting it all done.  I told myself this winter that I would not be putting it off until the last minute.  But here I am again.  I have been doing our taxes every year since we were married.  It isn't like we have a gazillion things we need to itemize, but it is still a tedious thing to do.  I always hate it too that we never get back as much as we think we should.

My husband came back from 2 weeks in California doing some training for work.  I wish I could have been excited and jumped up and down when he walked in the door, but I couldn't muster the energy for that.  A simple hug and I missed you was about all we exchanged.  He deserves better than that, but it was not my choice to feel this way.

I guess I should go and sleep some more and in the morning I may be up to finishing taxes and getting things set for me to be gone a day and a half.  You wouldn't think it would be that big of a deal, but trust me, it is.

CC

When I Was Their Ages

I have had reason to reflect on my younger years lately.  My children come to me and share their thoughts and disappointments and worries, and it sort of makes me laugh because they have so much life left to live, yet they are so worried that there is not.  My daughter, for instance, is all upset lately that she is never going to fit in.  She is in 3rd grade.  Sadly, the cliques and name calling and being mean because you aren't perfect (like kids this age know anything about perfect) has all begun.  "I don't want to be your friend because you don't where the same cool shoes I do."  It is so trivial and so immature, but that is her little social world.  Then I remember when I was her age.  We moved the summer before I started 3rd grade.  We had gone to a Catholic school with about 15 kids per grade to a public school that had 25 kids in each class, and my grade for the district had over 300 kids in it.  Talk about culture shock.  You want to talk about feeling out of place.  But I managed to make some friends that year.  Of course, I had the mean teacher who had every student believing that she had a belt in the bathroom where she took kids who were bad and spanked them.  I would like to see how that kind of discipline would fly these days.  I don't think she really did that, and I was a good little girl and kept out of trouble anyway.  There were a couple of boys though who went to the bathroom almost daily.
I think about those days and can't believe it was so long ago. 

My younger son is 12 1/2 and in 7th grade.  He is in the middle of a dilemma of trying to fit in, but trying to be an individual.  At that age, it is near impossible to do both at the same time.  He has those days of being glum and sad about his life, but then he has those days of being happy to be who he is.  I think about 7th grade and my best friend Debi.  I remember a boy laughing at me one day in class because I had a close fitting t-shirt on and you could see the seams going horizontally on my bra cup.  It was a 'training' bra, and they weren't very flattering to begin with, but he had to point it out loud enough so several people could hear.  Well, if that didn't just make me feel like a freak.  It was in Social Studies class with Miss B.  She was quite a woman.  She would get talking so fast that she would have drool coming down out of the corners of her mouth.  NO KIDDING!  She also taught French to those who chose to for their free period.  I was thinking study hall would have been a better choice after the 10 weeks we had that going on.  Socially, I started feeling like I fit somewhere.  Debi and I became best friends and we spent a lot of time together.   So, I am hoping for my son that someone comes into his life soon that will be his best buddy and he can feel more like he belongs somewhere.

My eldest.  Nearly 15 and wanting to drive every time we have to go somewhere.  Driving for him until his birthday means backing out of the parking spot and driving down our long driveway.  I let him drive a couple of miles yesterday when we went to our friends' house to pick something up.  It was just on the back dirt roads for about 2 miles, if even that far.  He was all nervous and being overly careful.  I must admit, I was not such a good passenger, but we made it there.  I let him drive just as far back and took over the wheel just as we got to the paved road.  He got a taste of driving at least.  Now, I can hold it over his head about getting his permit if he doesn't straighten up his act!  Yes, 14 going on 24.  He knows everything.  We (his parents) are stupid.  Sound familiar?  If you have ever raised teenagers, I am sure it does.  One minute he is the mature, helpful, hard-working young man.  The next minute, he is the bratty, mouthy, selfish, self-righteous adolescent.  I don't know how their switches change so quick, but he surely has a switch that flips in a heartbeat sometimes.  Is it hormones?  Is it stress?  Is it lack of sleep?  I have no idea, but there are times when I look in his eyes and I just have to relax and let him blow up, then send him to his room, and hope he will sleep it off before I have to deal with him the next day.
Was I like that?  I am sure there were times when I was his age that I got just as angry at my parents.  Just as angry with my younger sister as he does his brother.  I felt just as enraged at times too.  I worked hard and did my best at school.  It is a sucky age though, being a teenager.  You are no longer a child, but you are not an adult yet either.  You want to be grown up, but you don't really want to let go of those little perks of being a kid.  I remember oh too well how all that felt, and I can empathize.
One time, my brother and I and some friends bought tickets to go to a concert.  It turned out that it became so foggy that to try driving 35-miles to get to the concert was just stupid.  I was still determined that we should go, in fact, I was sure my brother and our friend ditched me to go to it (and they might have and I never knew about it).  I went across the street from our house and tried calling them on the pay phone and my father came over and dragged me home, well, I wasn't really dragged.  He told me I was a fool and no one was going anywhere in that fog.  I was so mad and I went in my room and cried.  It was so unfair, and I had paid for my own ticket too.  Well, in hindsight (years later) I thought back to that night and realized what a dumb ass I was being.  I would tie my kids up to keep them off the road on a night like that.  I was just so young and ignorant and selfish about the whole thing, but it took years to be able to see that.

My husband and I have three wonderful kids.  They are good hearted, strong willed and they can make things happen for themselves.  I know these times they are going through are just part of growing.  I wish I could make them see that this is all just a short part of their lives and they will get through it, that there is so much life beyond their school years.  But I can't.  They have to live through this and like me they have to find out for themselves what is really important, what really matters, and what really doesn't.  So, for now, I can hug away the tears and hurt feelings a little and give them words of encouragement and support.  I can tell them over and over and over and over that this too shall pass.  One day, I am sure they will come back and say, "Mom, you were right."  And of course I am, I am the Mom.

I have been there and done that and I survived, and so will they.

CC

Scratching That Itch

I was all a twitter this morning, I had 3 new baby chicks in the incubator and more of them pipping open their shells! 
Yes, crazy things like this get me excited.  Then, I get on my favorite chicken forum and find a young person has posted that his father, in a bout of mid-life crisis mayhem, bought 5 chicks and brought them home.  HA HA!  If this is mid-life crisis, I say, "BRING IT ON!"  I hope my hubby catches it too!
I have one incubator full of eggs hatching this week and the other one due in a week or so and more going in this week.  I also got a batch from a hatchery (MM) of 32 chicks, who are now residing in my basement until the garage brooder is up and running and then they will move outside in a matter of a couple of weeks after that.
So, yes, I am crazy.
Ah, Spring is surely coming in.  We are moving up in temps this week and the snow is melting, chicks are hatching, birds are singing, maple sap is running, Second starts track this week, Easter candy is on all the shelves at the stores, I can see little spears of green poking up ever so slightly in a couple of places.  I am ready.  Oops, maybe not completely, I need to inventory my seeds for the garden.  It is almost time to start those, isn't it?  About another week or two and it will be though.  I will get there.
Maybe I will even get that cleaning fever?  Hmm, that is a shaky one though.  : )
Okay, so it is time to go crank up the housecleaning playlist on my iPod and get to it.
I hope people everywhere are enjoying the change in the weather!

Oops again,

I almost forgot to mention a milestone in my chicken raising...I got my first fart egg. 
Yeah, you read it right, a FART egg.  They are the little tiny eggs usually laid by pullets just starting out laying and they have no yolk.  I got the first one yesterday and my kids and I had fun guessing if it had anything in it or not, and then we broke it to see.  No yolk.


CC

I Hate To Rush

I do, I hate to be rushed and I hate for things to move along too quickly.  Winter this year is an exception, I am SO ready for it to be over with.  The sad thing is this: We want the season to end, which if it happens quickly means that the perception of time is speeding up.  A second is still a second and a minute is still 60 seconds and so, but how we perceive the passage of time speeds up as we get older.  Mind you, I do NOT want to go back in time to when I was a kid or a teenage (insert a scream here), or even a young adult (had so much to learn about life then).  But time does seem to pass by quicker and quicker as we age, and especially so when we have kids.  Funny though, we say things like, "God, I can't wait until he gets through this phase!", or "I sure hope this passes quickly."  But do we?  I am not enjoying some of the uglier sides of Eldest being a teenager, but I look at what a good person he is becoming otherwise and I don't want that to walk out the door and into adulthood too fast, do I?    I want to savor the good things about being a mom while they are still here, to enjoy some laughter and fun and seeing them learn and grow before my eyes.  I know that soon it will be gone, or perceivably soon.  So, really, I don't want the season to hurry up and end because I know it will mean that I am one season older and my children are one season closer to leaving the nest.  It means that I am one season closer to getting off this ride called life, and I don't want to rush that.  When we are kids life seems like such a long, long road and we can't wait to grow up and do this that or the other thing.  But the truth is, once we get to be a grown up, it all goes way too fast.
So, I hate to rush.  I want to savor life and not just work through it.  I want to laugh and smell flowers and taste chocolate and have long kisses with the man I love.  I want to sit and hold my children in my arms and remember the way they smelled and felt when they were babies.  I want to watch the grass grow and flowers bloom and baby chicks and bunnies and puppies be born and grow and play.  I don't want to rush my life by and in the end look back and think, "It all happened so fast, I wish I would have...".

CC

Hear a Cheep!

This used to be the time of year when all I could think about was my garden: cataloging seeds, draw up a detailed maps of where to plant what, ordering seeds and plants if I needed them.  I would comb over my seed catalogs, usually Seed Savers Exchange, Seeds of Change and Burpee.  Don't get me wrong, I still am thinking about my garden and have not thrown away any catalogs, but I am way behind now that I have got the chicken hatchin' fever.

Last year was my first time as an adult at hatching eggs.  I started with a my first batch, a dozen Silkies.
 (see picture to the left), and 3 eggs from my own hens that were crossbreeds (Dark Cornish and Easter Egger), and 10 Cayuga Duck eggs from my neighbor's flock.  This was my test run, and my results were 4 Silkies, 2 ducks and all 3 of my own eggs hatched.  This was SO exciting for me!  Here I am a year and 7 hatches later and I am still just as excited about my eggs and chicks as I was  then.  I feel like a child in the candy store when I start pouring over ads for hatching eggs and chicks and looking on hatchery websites and at their catalogs.  Seriously now, I am a grown woman!  But I see it as a simple joy to help bring something into this world and nurture it along until one day, it provides me with something good to eat, whether it be eggs or their carcass.

I was quite saddened with my first hatch this year though.  I set 34 eggs and ended up with just 1 little White Silkie chick. 1 chick!  That is terrible!!!  But, the eggs had been shipped through the mail which causes some damage to them.  Then I had trouble getting my incubator to hold its temp and humidity.  All in all, though I was disappointed, I was not surprised.  So, I had to get some friends for my lone little chicky, and bought 10 more from a breeder (when I got 4 dozen more eggs to put in the incubator).  However, so far, I have lost 4 of those chicks and I don't know why :(  It makes me so sad to lose them like that and not know why.

But to make myself feel better, I got more eggs!  I must stop after this though, I think I have used up my budget for buying eggs this year.  I have about 60 in right now and it looks like about 50 of those are certainly growing some little wannabe chicks in them.   Since my first batch failed so epically, I had to order more Silkies, and then I found a breed I have been hunting for, Standard Buff Brahmas!!  I thought for sure I would be outbid on the auction, but I got them!  Now to get them to hatch when they get here.  That is the trick, isn't it?

Today when I went out to do chores, I opened the door from the outside of one of the coops to collect eggs, and one of my Easter Egger hens that I hatched from my own flock (one of the 3 in the first batch) was laying her first egg of the spring.  How did I know that it was her first one?  Because I haven't gotten an almost olive green egg yet this year, just bluish green ones.  She was obviously pushing to get that little prize out of her butt, so I gave her a couple of minutes.  Lo and behold, there is came, a perfectly beautiful green egg!  What did I do?  Ran it in the house and stuck it in the incubator, of course!  I want more green egg layers!  My neighbor's friend wants some too, so I might as well hatch away for her too.


So, I hear not only A cheep, but lots of cheeps and will be hearing them more and more and more and more and more.  They should have a hatchers/chickens anonymous, but I would hate to turn myself in because the first thing they would want to do is take away all my incubators and chickens.  I think I will be happy with my addiciton.

CC

Silly Silly Featherheads

I just went out to see what the heck the birds were chasing each other for.   I saw one of the Splash girls running with something in her beak, but I could not tell what it was.   Now, mind you, the only things out there are snow, straw and mash, plus whatever shavings haven't been poopified yet.    I was worried someone was eating a fresh laid egg.  I got out there and the chase was over. 
But as I rounded the corner of the brooder house, I caught a glance of the hole in the corner of the plastic tub I keep the grit in.  I had accidentally hit it with the snowblower earlier this week and it just broke all to pieces on that corner.  Lo and behold, a little tan egg was sitting in there!    It was smaller than my Silkie eggs but larger than my Sebrights.  Who it could be?  There are about 25 girls out there, so it could have been one of a few who I know had not begun laying last fall.  It is the cutest, purtiest egg, and it was still warm! 

Those silly, silly pullets.  She has much to learn about finding a soft, warm place to set her bum to lay an egg.

The end.

So Sad

This weekend was my first hatch for chickens for 2011.  I set 34 eggs and got 1 chick.  How depressing!  The worst part was the chicks that got as far as pipping - when they crack a hole in the shell so they can start coming out - then died.  I had 3 of them do that!  It is heartbreaking.  I can only hope my future hatches will have better results.  Being the first hatch of the year, my incubators probably weren't running their best.  One of them stinks where I had an egg explode in it last summer when it was sweltering hot here.  Yes, it was immensely gross!  Since the incubator is made out of styrofoam, it didn't all come out, even after using bleach.  Yuck!  I am hoping it doesn't effect future hatches.

The other thing that happened that saddens me is that I lost my beautiful little castor doe.  She was a Mini Rex rabbit and very soft and lovely.  She was about 7-years old, and I think her age and maybe an infection were her cause of death.  She had some bad thing going on with her eyes this last week and I ordered meds and vetted her, but it wasn't enough.  I went out to do chores last night and I knew she would not make it until morning.  I picked her up and she did not struggle, just cuddled up in my arms.

Spring is on its way and I hope that with that I have better luck with all my critters.  My they be fruitful and multiply, but not toooooo fast ; )


CC

Cars

An old friend of mine told me that I should write about my first car.  She probably remembers more stories about when I had that thing than I do, it was so long ago.  But, my first car was a 1976 Chevy Nova.  There is nothing wrong with that, but the fact that it was a total rust bucket and was pumpkin orange, well, that gave it all the reason to remember it.  I bought it for $500 cash from the county health and welfare office.  The seats were as lovely as the outside, black and white houndstooth patterned.  The crazy thing burned as much oil as gas, and leaked oil too until I found out it had a bad head gasket.  With the help of my brother, I fixed that problem AND patched the gaping hole under the foot pedal with a piece of sheet metal.  For the first winter, there was slush and mud getting thrown up by my feet until he helped me bandage it.  But hey, that car ran for me for 2 1/2 years, then I sold it to some crazy kids for $200 and they used it as a field car.  I think I got my $500 worth out of it.
My friend Anne and I always talked about going to a Halloween parade with that car and making a stem to go on top.  It didn't always stay just plain orange though.  It got so rusted up that the latches on the driver's side seized up and I had to replace the whole door.  Then, it was a pumpkin orange and maroon colored car.  The interior of the door was white, when the rest of the interior was black with the ever so lovely houndstooth.  Ah, they just don't make them like that any more.  And Thank Goodness!

I have driven a few other cars since then: 1974 Dodge Dart sedan (and ugly 4-door grandma car that the frame broke on it just a year or so after I bought it); 1973 Chevy Nova with a V8 327(I think?), that I had glass pack mufflers on it when I was stationed in California to make it sound cooooool.  I loved that car and always have wished I would have just put the  money into it to get it fixed right.  It only had an AM/FM radio in it that hardly worked, but it got me across the US when I got out of boot camp and went to my first duty station.  It was a light metallic green with a dark green vinyl roof, and the interior was this shiny green fabric.  I really liked that car.  When it was getting to a point where it was in need of some costly repairs, I was just a few months away from transferring overseas, so I sold it and borrowed my brother's car that he wasn't using.  Oh My God, was that a mistake.  He had this car in storage for quite some time.  It was in nice condition, a 1980 Red Dodge Mirada (I think they only made them one year).  It was the cool car my older brother bought brand new when he was still in high school.  It was the car we would go out with our friends in on the weekends with a really cool 8-track stereo in it.  When I borrowed it from him, it still had the case of 8-tracks in it.  But, since he just let it sit, little did we know, the fuel line was trashed.  I found this out when I left Denver to drive back to San Diego.  I got to New Mexico and started having some problems.  By the time I got to Gallup, it died.  I found a repair shop and they pulled the gas tank off and it was full of sediment and rust.  They didn't have one to replace it with and it would take days to get a new one, but I only had two days and I had to be back or be UA (Unauthorized Absence-same as AWOL).  So, the shop cleaned it best they could and we put fresh gas in and I headed out.  I made it back to San Diego, barely.  It was still giving me problems once I got to SD.  I had a friend from work who worked on cars for people, so I took it to him.  We ended up running all new fuel lines in that damn thing before it ran right.  I was so glad to take it back to my brother when I was ready to transfer.  In the end, I would have spent half the money to fix the Nova as I ended up spending on plane tickets and repairs to that Mirada.

My next vehicle was a brand new 1992 Chevy S-10 Maxi Cab pick-up truck.  It was Frost White and I loved my little truck.  It was perfect for me with it's 5-speed manual transmission, stereo with cassette player, the nice cargo space behind my seats to put things like groceries, a bed to haul bigger things like furniture.  Ah, life was good with that truck.  I never would have gotten rid of it except I was expecting our second child and the little jump seats in the back didn't work for car seats.  So, on with the soccer mom vehicle, a 1995 Dodge Caravan.  It was used, but ran well.  It was good for a small  but growing famiy.  The only problem we had with it the first couple of years was that the floor was always freezing cold in the winter, no matter how high the heat was cranking.  It wasn't until I took it in for an oil change one time and told them I wanted the heat checked on it.  We found out then that the lines/tubes that ran the heat to the back were rotted out and all the outside air was being driven into the car floor space.  NO WONDER my feet froze the time I road in the back!  My kids were lucky enough that they were still up on car seats and bundled up pretty good.

Buy like every vehicle, it had its day where it needed to be upgraded.  I then thought I needed and SUV.  I traded in the van for a 1997 Chevy Suburban.  Huge, ginormous mistake.  First of all, climbing up into that thing to get kids in and out was a hassle.  I had two preschoolers and a baby, and getting all three in and out....not fun.  There is loads of space and it drives smoothly and I did like many things about it.  Then there was the gas bill.  Again, Oh My God!  Top that off with the fact that trying to park that thing anywhere was hell.  Six months later, I bought my present 2003 Chrysler Town and Country mini van.  I now have about 105,000 miles on it and it still is running quite well.  It has some wear on it, and scratches and a couple of dents, but it has been a great vehicle.  However, now my lifestyle has changed once more, and I think I will be getting myself a truck again this summer.

So, there it is, the story of my cars.  Anne, I am sorry if it isn't all as exciting as you remember it.  The 'good ol' days' are a bit fuzzy for me now that my life is so much different than it was back then.  And 'then' is 30-years ago.  I have traveled many, many, many, many, many miles since then.

It is time for me to go fire up the mini van now that it has warmed up to 0˚F from last night's -15˚F.  I need to run my errands for the day.

CC