The Mystery of the Multiplying Caterpillar

If a man jogs all the way down the road and happens to see that his neighbors are home, he'll stop for an evening chat. If the discussion turns to wondering about the battalion of fascinating black caterpillars that are marching through their yard, he'll say he doesn't know what they are, but he knows someone who does. If he gently picks one up and safely carries it a full mile back the way he came, he'll deposit the bewildered spiky insect in his wife's hands. If she has never seen one before and hasn't got a clue what type of butterfly larva it is, she'll click around online. If she finds the perfect match, it will be a species that lives in Europe.

Europe?

Wrong answer.

But if the online images of that butterfly's wings look vaguely similar (in pattern, but not color) to one that does live on the windswept North American plains, all that sleuthing might not have been in vain. And if I'm fresh out of Snapdragons but the apparently somewhat-slightly-related European critter likes Nettles, you know I grabbed a scissors, a jar, and a flashlight, and ran straight out past the barn, through the corral, and behind one of the gardens to a big old patch of Stinging Nettle.

Not literally, I mean.

Don't run with scissors. Ever. Especially in the dark, when half-grown cats are liable to come creeping along the darkest shadows of the garden path and ambush innocent seekers of Stinging Nettle. Stranger things have happened, believe me.

If the caterpillar happily munches away on that nasty stuff, I might mutter "Homeostasis is at ninety-five percent".

If a Bio-Dome quote randomly surfaces, there must be a former Pauly Shore fan in the house.

If that's embarrassing, let's pretend it didn't happen.

The critter seemed happy enough so I tossed the jar on a shelf for a day or three.

Welcome to the The Old Nichols Farm... where the wackiness level fluctuates between "coconut" and "fruitcake" depending on whether we had oatmeal for breakfast, the Earth's geomagnetic activity (honestly - I've tracked it long enough to know), and how many fireflies are loose in the house.

Fruitcake:

I have no idea what that thing is. She found it in the yard. I caught her just in time to save a very trusting cat (please don't ask).

So I know you won't be surprised. In the least. I mean, I wasn't. What? When I casually mention that we popped the lid off that jar a perfectly responsible amount of time later (cough, cough) to give our captive some fresh food. We carefully dumped the jar upside down and found...

Two?

What? What!

Yes, in our jar.

Exactly identical.

What on earth!?



My first thought was that someone had played a great joke on us. However, my awareness of our household having entered The Fruitcake Zone told me that much more fantastic options had the possibility of being true. Anything, people. Anything is possible.

Sure enough, that patch of Stinging Nettle had been attacked. Eaten up. We found a swarm of spikey black caterpillars all over the remaining plants. I somehow managed to identify our caterpillar so perfectly that I had inadvertently collected another one a few nights prior. And strangely enough, as many times as we had inspected that jar we had only ever seen one.

If you tell me something that bizarre can happen in The Coconut Zone, I'll tell you you're crazy.

Fruitcake Queen. I'm putting it on my resume.

Not a unicorn

Accepting my fate of having lost my blogging mojo, with a stocking cap firmly on my head, unaware I was out of hot coca mix... I headed out the door determined to fill a bucket to the brim. Last time it was spinach. This time I was after the peas. A week ago I composed an Ode to the Glory of Home Grown Spinach in my head. But I dare not publish such a thing here lest it make me sound weird.

First, I managed to tangle myself in the no-chickens-allowed-on-the-greener-side fence. I mean like really, the toe of my rain boot got hopelessly caught in one of the square space thingies as I tried to step over it, and the whole wretched thing collapsed with me attached. I'm not a cowgirl (which I guess is obvious when I say "like really" and other hippie phrases) so I have to wear rain boots. But I did buy them from the farm store. So maybe I'm an imposter?

Anyway, that kind of fence doesn't stop adolescent cats. Well, no fence does. But that and the fact that the wild little beasties are almost as destructive in my garden as the goofy feathered rototillers are topics for another day. Okay. So I crashed to the ground, minus a boot (rain, not cow), and was instantly wearing a black and white cat on my hat.

Glory be. I had arrived.

There were the peas.

The belligerent things should have been ready to harvest weeks ago.



I found which way was up and extracted the cat from my head.

And a brisk forty-mile-an-hour fifty-degree North Dakota wind went straight down, as my little girl would say, "mine butt track".

Coincidentally, we washed sand out of hers yesterday.

Likely these new jeans don't fit me around the waist as well as I thought they did. The jeans that have these funny scratches on the thighs that made nervously interrogate the sales lady as to whether they were designed to fray, even though I already knew the answer. She looked me straight in the eye and lied to me. I bought them anyway because even once-a-year clothes shopping is complete ridiculousness and I'd had enough of it... and (I thought) they fit amazingly well - no small victory when you have the figure of Popeye's Olive Oyl.


From Wikipedia

However, that daring blast of wind proved it was much too miraculous to be true. I bet cowgirls don't wear their brand new jeans to the garden. They wear belts too. Don't they? To keep the wind and sand out?

The dog howled.

The cold wind blew.

The peas were harvested.

And then it happened...



Not a unicorn. Let me repeat. Not. A. Unicorn.

And don't any of you leave a comment saying, "Wow. A Monarch!". Not a Monarch. A Viceroy. They're a less celebrated butterfly designed to fool birds, kind of similar to how sales ladies are designed to tell customers exactly what they want to hear.

Now I'm going to make up a new batch of hot cocoa mix, because it's June in North Dakota and I'm cold. I'm going to outwit that sales lady and iron a patch onto the inside of my new Jeans, because I'm clever like that and not a bit stylish. And I'm going to insist the peas are delicious, but the spinach was better.

Love,
Olive

Three weeks

No, I did not give up blogging for Lent.

Three weeks, four doctor visits, five prescriptions, one birthday. A husband gone overseas and back home, and gone again but not that far away, and back home again to find us still utterly miserable. Really, I try my hardest to be sarcastically positive in this little online space, so instead of the unending seriously-nothing-can-go-even-remotely-right-around-here list, I will say this... Today was good. I did not wreck my car. I did not burn my house down. We are all still alive. These are basic things, you know, but they count. They do count. They must.

Because the first of us to get sick, treated and recover from this horrid stuff? Sick again. With the same thing.

I'm trying to find the light. I'm struggling to see it.



(comments closed)

Onward

Onward, because tomorrow is a new day (and I really have no other acceptable choice anyway).

Last weekend was fueled by a neglectful stupidity, the high-magnitude type that spirals from bad to worse in a particularly horrifying domino effect. When I looked back and realized that the moment the frazzled cashier cussed her computer out in front of my kids was actually one of the better moments, I had the choice to either sigh in defeat or laugh at the insanity of it all. Except by that point I was far too tired to laugh.

Driving onward, with lessons learned.



Those lessons will be useful, I suppose, the next time my husband is in The Netherlands and calls at 2am to calmly say that none of his credit cards are working. Because now I'll know that the bank that does the immediate Western Union money transfer doesn't have their lobby open on Saturdays, and they don't do that through the drive-through. I'll know not to attempt to purchase too much Western Union "Go Cash" at Family Dollar or the computer will lock up for an unspecified expanse of time while accusing me of fraud (and I'll even know the correct location of said dollar store - the only place in town that has it). I'll also know they only accept cold hard cash as payment. And I'll be certain that when it can't get any worse, it will. And no, really, you don't want to hear the other half of the story.

Tomorrow is a new day. Can I get an Amen?

Sheet metal

Me: "Can you get me some sheet metal for that frame?"

Him: "How about corrugated sheet metal?"

Me, frowning: "Oh, we do have that"

Him: "How about pounded flat corrugated sheet metal? How about smashed flat with the loader bucket corrugated sheet metal? How about driven flat with a truck corrugated sheet metal?

I might have looked like I was considering which of those clever options would work best, but I was too busy rolling my eyes.


{maybe he didn't appreciate this helpful subliminal message}

Him: "How about smashed flat, held down with a 2500 pound tractor and pulled out from beneath the loader bucket with the truck corrugated sheet metal?"

Me: "Can't you just get a piece at that place... at the mall?"

It's like buying a shiny poster-board, maybe with sharper edges though if I really think about it. Like buying fabric. You hand over the measurements, they cut the stuff out, and deliver the goods right back.

Him, suspicious: "What place at the mall?"

Me: "No. Not the mall. That place, the... hardware store. Where you can get sheets of glass cut."

He taps away at the keyboard, his best excuse for ignoring me because that's the way it always goes down when he's reading and I'm talking. Unless I say the word sex. That always gets his attention. Every time. Except, obviously, I don't mean it in these types of circumstances, dear. I just want to see if some primal part of you is still involved in this conversation. He can't read and listen at the same time. At least that's what I've been lead to believe.

Me, suddenly brilliant: "What about the duct-work that's frozen to the ground all over the yard?"

People, we do white trash pretty well around here, if I do say so myself.

Him, unimpresed: "It's frozen to the ground"

Me: "Oh. There probably isn't a piece big enough anyway"

Him: "There might be, but it will have a crease that needs to be hammered out... or flattened with something."

Me: "Hey! Wait a minute! Isn't there a dishwasher laying upside down right beside our back step! What about the door to that thing?"

His typing stopped. This, people, this could be it. The moment beams of sunshine strike the earth and angels sing in perfect harmony.

I eyeballed the empty space in my kitchen where the dishwasher used to be. Then I grabbed the frame (kicking strategically-placed Scrabble tiles left and right) and held it in front of that gaping hole, trying to size it up.

It was going to be close.

Friday in random

Beans in the crockpot.

Not The Bean. That would just be wrong.


{not winter - July}

Banana muffins in the oven. I set the temperature to 350 degrees and it bounces to 450 and then 225. It's a wonder I manage to successfully cook anything in there. I've generally stopped complaining about it because shopping for a new one will be painful.

Cats in a pile. This is what they do when it feels like winter. Just outside the barn, in the sun, out of the wind. I'll never get a good picture of it, because they scatter when they hear the door. When the cat-heater is involved, it's similar to this:


{imagine a couple more felines and you've got it}

Winter in North Dakota?

We've had days here and there that felt like winter, and most of one week with a couple inches of snow on the ground that looked like winter. Really, it's been a gorgeous November, December, and first part of January too. We've gone below zero (F) maybe twice. I finally gave up on my last mini-greenhousesometime in early December. Parsley, if you must know.

Overdressed in January:



Now that it finally feels to me that our unseasonably warm days might be over, and winter has possibly tried to settled in... this is still not bad for mid-January here. Not bad at all.



Selfish me wants to say, "We totally deserve this after the last three winters (and Spring flooding) we barely survived dealt with." But it's far from over yet. Or maybe the last few years have been so harsh that I've completely forgotten what winter can be like.

Internet in warp speed!

Last night we actually measured what we're getting with our Wildblue Satellite Internet. Yeah, that's right. I'm finally gonna come right out and say it. They're way over-subscribed and their service stinks. We should be getting 0.512 Mbps downloading and 0.128 Mbsp uploading. That's what we're paying for.

Guess what we actually have?

It doesn't matter if you don't even know what then numbers mean. It's still impressive. We measured at 0.17 Mbps downloading and 0.05 Mbps uploading. That's what we have.

But Monday! Oh, sweet Monday when our fiber optic is hooked up and we're set free from this pain... 20 Mbps glory that I can't even imagine!

Liar in confession...

Forgive me. I lied, and I'm pretty sure I knew it. This image is really my favorite of my best from last year.

Amazing Arnold

This is Arnold. He wants to join the circus and be a famous flying trapeze artist.



Does he seem a bit intimidating?

Sort of powerful?

Maybe like he thinks he's the man?

Don't be afraid. He's really just a harmless tiny little squirt.



Look! Clown feet!

He's ready for the circus!

One yellow claw on each foot!

An extra toe in the back instead of a sharp spur!

(The ladies will thank him later.)



I don't remember why Arnold was in the house that day. I'm sure it couldn't have been purely for entertainment purposes. Ahem. I mean, that never happens around here.

He came from an itty bitty egg. Remember these eggs that I asked permission to take only after I stole them?

I'm so classy.



All we managed to hatch out of those were four of the smallest small eggs. Two are (very) little red hens, one is a beautiful soft white hilarious Silkie hen, and one... well, one is Arnold.

The Silkie has blue earlobes. I loooooove her, but I can't tell you about her until she has a name. And don't beg. The stress of having to come up with a great name for sweet little thing that looks like she stuck her toe in a light socket... well, let's just say I have enough to deal with right now.

Arnold is a little bitty rooster. He can crow, and it's good for your health to hear Arnold crow. He's a little squeaky toy rooster. Imagine picking him up and squeezing him a few times. Yep. There you go.

When our big Red rooster crows, it echos off all the buildings and a quarter mile down the road.

Arnold's song may be a bit lacking, but besides being such a handsome guy, the bird does have another talent.

Are you ready?



People, if only I could post video.

Alas, my satellite internet majorly stinks.

Once upon a time Several weeks ago (yes, I've been holding out on you) I walked into the barn to put my birdies to bed for the night... although it seems to be entirely unnecessary because we have a gigantic Chesapeake Bay Retriever who has taken it upon herself to keep these chickens safe at any cost, and ride the school bus occasionally...

I opened the coop door and was surprised (to say the least) to find a chicken standing on top of the door. You know who it was. On top of the door. Not the door frame. Does this make sense? No. Not at all. They just, those birds can't... well, they just can't be there.

He looked at me like I'd really bothered him.

They can't be there.

It defied the Laws of Physics.

Not much truly surprises me around here. After all, this is a funny farm. But the Laws of Physics? They must not be defied. So I grabbed the video camera the next evening.

This time I looked before I opened the door. And see? He's levitating.



Notice the girl peeking at me from the roost. Obviously, something is up.

When I opened the door, it bumped the cord, which is normally up near the ceiling where electrical cords should be. The cord slid along the top of the door, and because I did it verrrrrrry slowly... Arnold didn't have to suddenly and silently jump from his electrical wire roost to the top of the door, which is what had me so confused then night before.

Because there is no way on earth a chicken (even a tiny one) could fly up and land on a cord that was (past tense) only inches from the ceiling, without pulling it out of the wall or causing all sorts of destruction. No way. Trust me.



And if he could do it, how could he ever find such a slippery swinging unstable sort of roost comfortable?





It's a good thing I took video too, because even though I can't share it with you, it turned out to be valuable because my husband would never have believed me otherwise. My only mistake was not continuing to shoot video as I attempted to close the coop door with Arnold still on the wire.

He ended up on top of the ladies on the roost. Briefly.

Just another chicken story

Another excuse, another chicken story...

Because of a temporary internet handicap, I'm only able to post words at the moment. No pictures.

I made the mistake of participating in a mini-workshop online a few days ago, which involved downloading a 43 page document and listening to a 40 minute audio recording. It might have been the best twenty-five dollars I ever spent, except that... well, this apparently shocking amount of online usage was enough to anger the gods of our satellite internet. They show no mercy, in case you were wondering. We've been soundly spanked and our internet speed reduced to a level that makes good old dial-up look even better than sliced bread.

Unfortunately, dial-up is not an option for us because our dog chewed the line in half.

And I'm not joking either.

Fingers crossed that I can actually upload a few lines of text while that shiny satellite gives me it's middle finger as it zooms past somewhere way up there...

My neighbor stopped by a couple weeks ago and found a random pile of fourteen eggs in my barn. Strange, because I'm in that barn at least twice a day and I had no clue they were there. Stranger still, the dog is in and out of that barn constantly, and she didn't know they were there either.

Today I saw a hen sneak around some scrap metal along the side of our garage. Guess, my friends. Just guess what she was up to? Ah, yes. There was another unauthorized pile of eggs. Eight. One of them was squishy.

A squishy egg. I can't even begin to describe how wrong it felt in my hand.

In the two and a half years I've had this flock, we've been lucky enough to witness some bizarre stuff in the egg-laying-department. We've seen two itty bitty little "fart" eggs, one of which was laid on Easter Sunday. I was nearly bombed by a hen who laid an egg in mid-air. The girls have laid at least two eggs without a shell, just that transparent outer membrane.

But a normal looking egg, the correct size and color and weight... and yet it squished and wiggled and wobbled under my fingers?

No lie.

I'm speechless.

Maybe the girls need a bit more Calcium in their diet?

When having chickens isn't glamorous

He launched himself off the bus and made it to the house in three monstrous leaps. He was out of breath. Not because the bus ride was so strenuous, but because he was so utterly overwhelmed and giddy about what he needed to say.

"Mom. (huge breath) I think I saw a (huge breath) big Barred Rock rooster (two huge breaths) and he ran (huge breath) across the road (huge breath) and into the (huge breath) tall grass!"





*crickets chirping*




"What?"

The floodgates broke and his words flew free: "abigblackBarredRockrooster andhe ranacrosstheroadrightbeside thebus".

There are no black roosters here.

"What? With feathers?"

"It looked like a Barred Rock Rooster and he ran across the road. With feathers."

Impossible.

"Are you sure it was feathers? Maybe it was fur. Was it a badger or a raccoon or a skunk?"

Because people mistake badgers for roosters all the time.

He cocked his head to the side, "I think maybe it was a turkey".

"Right", I agreed in complete disbelief, "a turkey".

The disastrous unending chaos that is our normal school-day afternoon and evening caused me to completely forget about that wacky conversation. After all, it was only one of many that fill my mommy-days. Like so many things that I want to remember, I promptly forgot about it.

Until.

Until the boys were in bed, The Bean ready to head to her bed, and a huge pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. Until I heard an unfamiliar noise. Until I looked out our back door and saw my husband with...





*wait for it*





With a very large annoyed black rooster in his arms.

Now honestly. What the heck is this.

I dropped my bedtime Bean and stepped out the back door to assess the situation. She took this as an opportunity to escape out the front door. It was a clever move on her part since a rogue rooster is more than enough to sufficiently distract her mother.


Bean exit stage left.


He hung onto that mythical Black Rooster just long enough for the boys to get a peek. They deserved a free pass out of bed to see this. The Older Brother had seen almost exactly what he thought he'd seen. Almost. It was no Barred Rock. But still.

I took a closer look.

Lord. Have. Mercy. He was infested with parasites. Just crawling with them. Many different kinds.

We figured chances were good he'd never last the night (coyotes and all), and let him go. He was gone. Fine with me because Lord knows I already have more on my hands than I can deal with.


Big Black Rooster exit stage right.


Nearly a full day later, guess who came marching straight through our yard like he owned the place. The second evening he magically appeared again. He wanted to stay. I watched through the window as he puttered around the yard, cautiously approaching my hens. I was certain he didn't belong to any of our neighbors.

Our dog wouldn't touch him because, well, it's a chicken. Around here, chickens are to be defended, not attacked. It's part of her job description. It seems I've trained her well.

My headache:

1. Would my very healthy flock now come down with all the yuck he'd exposed them to?
2. Could I catch him to medicate for all the filth he was carrying?
3. Would it even be possible to treat that severe level of disease?
4. Could he peacefully spend his days with a flock already ruled by a Red Rooster?
5. Would there be some serious rooster drama?
6. Would he attack my kids?
7. Would he refuse to go into the coop at night and freeze to death when our extreme cold arrives?
8. Either I keep him or I don't.
9. People who dump animals off in the country are cowards.
10. Where's a coyote when I really need one.

Option A:

"Shoot him", I muttered to my husband.

He laughed and walked out of the room, "You shoot him".

*sigh*

If it had been a badger or a raccoon or a skunk, I wouldn't hesitate to take care of business. I've done it before.

Option B:

I meandered my use-no-chemicals-attitude self through all five (or was it even that many?) "animal health" aisles of our local farm store. I couldn't find what I was looking for, and no one seemed interested in helping me. I didn't want to be there. I was sweaty. I was hungry. I was frustrated.

The item for "livestock and horse" was there.

The shelf that was supposed to hold the "poultry" version was empty.

Apparently it's a hot item.

I slammed my car door and headed across town to the other farm store. Aren't we lucky to have two? Maybe not. They had only one aisle for "animal health". None of the four items on the mostly bare shelves had anything even slightly to do with healthy or diseased chickens.

Vaguely recalling that chickens are officially classified as livestock, I found myself back at the first store. Funny it didn't occur to me to check the fine print on that label the first time. Sure enough, there it was: the "livestock and horse" version works just fine for chickens too.

All the miles home, with a few groceries and a can of chemicals in my back seat, I was still debating precisely what my plan of action would be. As I pulled into our yard, Big Black Roo was dancing up to the ladies whistling "Hey Baby!". Really? I was not amused. At all. And in that moment, I knew exactly what that shaker can of "livestock and horse dust" was going to be used for...

A confession and bad prints (scans?)

I already confessed mentioned that I shot my first roll of film with a real camera. I failed to mention confess that I took it to MalWart to be developed. I knew better. And I did it anyway.

I find it sort of satisfying to hate that big store.

Ah, MalWart, you met all my grand expectations once again. I know you have issues with printing digital pictures. I could talk about color casts and suffocatingly heavy contrast and blocked up blacks and details thrown away. But why bother? A consumer gets what they pay for. Every time. Most of us already know that.

That first roll turned out (mostly) very much as I expected. But then there were just a few pictures that turned out really dark. I mean like, really really something-is-wrong underexposed dark. I went back through all the settings I had used and it didn't make any sense to me.

Printing pictures is one thing. Developing film and scanning is another thing entirely.

Have no fear! MalWart to the rescue!

Exhibit A:
Why did this turn out so very dark? My settings should have been good. I don't get it.



Or maybe that's not what the image really looks like at all.

Exhibit B:
Digital scan MalWart sold me with that printed image. Still dark, but night and day from the print. Ummm... what?



Exhibit C:
The digital scan from image number three. The one where I laid the camera across my lap to take some notes and hit the shutter with my elbow while the lens was aimed at the sky. Oops. Nice, huh?

But look closer. Such quality!



Developing my own film with coffee?

Maybe next time.

And yes, you actually can.

A nut driver

This flat tire? It wasn't on my car.



Not merely hours after the man of the farm got into an airplane and flew off across the country. But it's no big deal, you know, because someone had the foresight to purchase a certain tool thingie... because the last three times our roads-which-are-in-perfect-condition (cough, cough) gave me a flat, it wasn't me who couldn't get the tire off the car.

And to quote The Bean, "It's tooooo tight!"

These boys of mine are just old enough to be dangerous.

"Just back the car up to the shop, Mom."

They thought they had it all under control.

"We'll just turn on the air compressor and use Daddy's nut driver."

I snorted.

"Daddy's what?"

Try not to laugh, people. It gets worse.

I knew that tool was in my trunk for this precise moment so I told the boys that, no, I was the one who had it all under control. After all, I am the mom. Then I opened the little black plastic tool case in the trunk and both boys gasped and jumped and squealed, "A NUT DRIVER!".

*angels singing*



Really.

Except it was a piece of JUNK!

"Don't say dat Mommy"



"Girl, where are your hair clips?"

Maybe it was a cheap piece of junk. Maybe I didn't know how to use it. Maybe I don't know how to do my little girl's hair. Maybe some weird you-get-what-you-pay-for combination of them all. But I'll tell you what... when somebody needs cupcakes to celebrate his birthday at preschool the very next day, and a horrid lapse in kitchen ingredient inventory caused by a thyroid medication mishap (that I really don't want to discuss) means that I haven't got a single drop of vegetable oil in my cupboards or butter in my fridge...

It is not ME who will find a way.



I am a nut driver. Yes I am. Thankyouverymuch.

(and it is also not me who's very third post on this blog was about a flat tire)

My little melons

Some of you have been asking about my tiny little melons. I need to say this: It feels kind of awkward and strange. I mean, do I really need to put my melons out there on public display?



Okay. So the truth is, objects may be smaller than they appear in that picture. And a little lopsided. And maybe I started to worry after my blogging friends (one after another) privately confided in me that they weren't at all satisfied with how their own little melons turned out.

These ones were developed in Minnesota. Literally, not figuratively. Minnesota is close by. Pretty close by. So I thought we should be good.

Still, I prepared the kids for the likely scenario that instead of juicy goodness, poo and filth might ooze out of them once we finally whacked one open.

If there is one thing from the garden I've been waiting for and dreaming of... One thing. Yeah, this would be it.

Hmmm...



Smells good enough.

But how would it taste?

I saved the seeds just in case we would want to plant acres and acres of them.



See. I told you they were small.

Being the sacrificial giving mother that I am, I signed myself up for the first taste. To save my kids. In case the melons were poisonous. Because that was a real possibility, you know.

Ready.

Set.

Go!



Ding! Ding! Ding! We HAVE a winner, folks!

The man of the house, the one who runs the tiller, and complains that I always plant everything way too close together, he had one suggestion:

"Maybe we should till up that whole area of alfalfa next year and grow melons instead"

He likes my melons.

The chickens got the peeling, and they agreed.



After that, I'm almost ready to declare the entire pathetic garden a roaring success this year. Almost.

Linking up with:
KinderGARDENS - almost done (the linky seems to have gone missing)
Selfie Magic

Confessions of a chicken snob

A few weeks ago, I drove down the road oblivious to the fact that I would have no defense for what I was about to see. I was going to do chores for a neighbor. Innocent enough, right?

Defenseless, I tell you.

My resolve had been broken slightly the week before, when I did chores for the other neighbor. I'm considering blaming this whole thing on them.

I didn't even see it the first time I walked in the door.

It was sitting in the corner. On the floor. Naked wings spread out trying to protect a runaway pile of eggs that a normal sized chicken could easily have covered. It avoided eye contact with me, because that is the best way to hide. Even my two-year-old Bean knows that much.

I picked it up by it's armpits. Do chickens have armpits?

It quivered and shook.

I aimed it at my husband and squealed, "What is this thing!?"



And then I fell in love with it's bald head...



and it's wings, which apparently used to have feathers...



and it's tiny feathered feet...



I wanted to take her home.

I'm a hypocrite of a chicken rancher.

There. I said it.

I agonized for months over what breed of chicken to order when I started my flock. Months? It was more like all winter. I had to have a heritage breed. It was the only thing that made sense to me. I wanted to have a hardy flock with real history, and a real future.

Well, that was all good until I couldn't decide between Barred Rocks or Buff Orpingtons. Both have a reputation for being remarkable birds. So I ordered both, thinking I would decide which I liked better and harvest the others when the time came.

The next Spring, since I had followed through with my plan so well (ahem), I ended up with mixed breed chicks. They were beautiful. I kept three and gave the others away. Then, quite by accident, I discovered that my particular mixed breed was actually one that is commonly sold.

I held my head sort of high once again.

You see how well this "heritage flock" thing is working out for me?

I wanted to take her home, you know.



But she doesn't belong in my barn.

So instead I took these. The most disorganized mixture of hilarious chickens-to-be you've ever seen.



I took them straight home to my barn, and tucked them underneath my own grumpy hen. Nine more days... and The Old Nichols Farm will have fugly chickens too.

They make me laugh. I'm pretty sure that's more important anyway.

But if I ever manage to bribe convince my husband to let me keep turkeys, let me tell you... I guarantee they're going to be the most beautiful, intelligent, personable, heritage breed Bourbon Red Turkeys you've ever laid your eyes on.

Peace in the flood

This morning I was boiling over with sarcastic joy for Spring.

It went something like this... Scrape a two-inch thick layer of ice and snow off my car. Bundle the kids up. Drive across this extremely safe-looking section of highway to take the Kindergartner to school.



The school bus couldn't get through. From the other direction, the direction behind where I stood to take that photo. Because a gigantic car-sized pothole opened up just a bit North of the exciting waterfall you see here, only hours after I drove across that very spot yesterday.

Knowing the road was closed in that direction was weirdly nostalgic for me. Should I have warm fuzzy feelings remembering being in labor and walking across a washed-away road on planks in my quest to get to the hospital in time? Maybe yes, if the story ended well.

So this has become our Spring these last few years.

The snow melts. The water rises. The Bean has her birthday. Our roads disappear.

Not necessarily in that order.

But, you know, a funny thing happened to my day. It warmed up enough to make the snow drip off the trees.

I found beauty in my flooded backyard.



Stillness and peace.



Amid the brown there was hope of green things to come.



Spring will arrive here, after all. Eventually it has to.

We may not drive on our roads confident that the road is actually beneath us. We may not have a County that has the resources to fix things properly the first time so they don't wash out again and again, however ridiculous that may be... but Spring will come.

You Capture "Spring"

That book

I love reading to my kids. What parent doesn't?

But we have one book in particular that causes me to cringe every time I see a small person toting it toward me. Truly, I mean that in the, ummm... nicest way possible. Tumble Bumbleis a great book. The animals are cute. The rhyme is clever. The illustrations are charming. Really.

The darn thing sure looks innocent enough.



It's just that... well, look carefully at this page.

It doesn't matter the time of day. It gets me every time. Every time.



Even as I'm typing, without looking at that picture... I am yawning. Just thinking about it is apparently enough.

Please tell me I'm not alone.

And if I've made it to that page, it means I've already managed to stay awake through this one. It's not a small victory either, believe me.



The main problem here, I think, is that I'm left zonked out in my comfy chair while my kiddos are piling more books up in my lap. I'd really like to read those books too. It's only fair that my kids should fall victim to this mysterious phenomenon as well.

If that were the case, we would read this fantastic book before our nap. Every. Single. Day.

And, if that were the case, you would not hear me complaining at all. Nope. Not one bit.