Growing

The girls are growing. Now we have half-grown birds in a dog crate in the basement. While the girls are still small enough to all fit in there, the face remains that we have half-grown CHICKENS in our basement.

The other day, I was on craigslist, and I saw a piece of furniture called a "chicken hutch." Apparently, this item allows the homemaker to keep a chicken in the house. And it also provides storage.

For what it's worth, I bypassed on the hutch. After a month of chickens in the basement, I am ready for the girls to move out to their new digs.

Should I blow or should I go?

Nita has entered her annual spring allergy phase. This is always a tense time for me, as she does not like to blow her nose.

Today I was, ahem, discussing this issue with her, and I informed her that she was going to end up in the emergency room if she didn't start blowing her nose. She replied, "But I like going there--they give me popsicles."

I looked sharply at her. She laughed, pleased at her joke, and went off to dramatically blow her nose.

Nita was the one who was evaluated by the school and given an IQ of below 70. For her to joke is such a blessing, as joking requires an awareness of what is absurd, which requires an awareness of what is "normal." That, of course, requires a certain mental acuity.

While I never had any doubt that Nita had mental acuity, the school psychologist apparently did. (Of course, I suspected at the time that the school psychologist lacked a certain mental acuity and I also suspect that Nita noticed that lack in the psychologist herself, which is why she refused to do the evaluation to her best ability.) Anyway, Nita is funny, both intentionally and unintentionally.

Her latest foible was in the car. We were driving past some businesses, including a post office, a nursing home, a restaurant, a Tastee-Freeze, and Jardine's Funeral Home. Nita asked, "Mom, why don't we ever buy furniture there?"

"Where," I asked.

"Back there," she replied. "At the furniture store."

"What furniture store?"

"The one with the J."

"Jardine's?" I asked. She replied yes. "Honey, Jardine's is a funeral home."

"Oh," she said. "It is?" And after a second, she added. "I guess we wouldn't want the type of furniture they sold there."

Peeps

I cannot believe I haven't posted here in nearly two months. I have been attending to adding a second department to my supervision at work (suffice it to say that the new department lost their supervisor because of indiscrepancies in management, and there is now a situation where those who were not supervised are now supervised). The kids are having a lot of musical performances and school activities. I have been trying to write on the dissertation. I have been cleaning the house and trying to get things organized. And, we got chickens.

I have wanted chickens for a long time, and once I decided on the breed (Buckeyes, a heritage breed developed in Ohio), I searched for a person who bred the birds. Last weekend, after some preparation of EG's old music studio, we brought the babies home. Six girls--allegedly. From what I understand, chickens can be sexed at hatching, and then when they start to feather. There is a video on youtube which will show you how--please note that I did not avail myself of this opportunity yet.

Anyway, we already exist in zones in this house. The cats live upstairs with the girls (which, now that I think about it, may explain their apparent neuroses). The dogs live on the main level, except for Nash, who exists only in the eastern half. He is constantly tied because he is convinced that we have an infestation of cats which he could remedy in one assault. The cats come down at night while Nash is locked in the boy's room and Penny is crated. The rabbits live in the living room, and Nash is crated while we are out of the house because of his apparent interest in removing them from the house.

Of course, the Mom in me became concerned about the peeps being out behind the garage in the barn, so I opted to bring them to the basement. So we have a third tier in the animal kingdom--chick zone, aka "The Basement." Now everyone who goes downstairs has to remember to shut the door so the cats (if they get past Nash) don't get to the peeps.

I am enjoying watching the peeps--Buckeyes feather fast, apparently, as the girls already have wing feathers and are growing tail feathers. They have personality and are entertaining to watch and are remarkably low maintenance. However, as they grow, I can see that they will have to go out to the barn. For their sake as well as mine.

Decorator Icing

Recently, most likely as a stalling tactic to prevent me from doing work on the dissertation and avoidance of the hideousness of network television, I have started reading cooking blogs.

I visit one blog, written by a young woman who is apparently a lovely person who adores cooking--the blog intro has heart shaped cookies with the name of the blog emblazoned on them in decorator's frosting. The effect is quite charming, and I am impressed that anyone would, first, have the inclination to do such a thing and, second, be willing to spend the time. I guess that I am the type of person who gets in bed every night and grimly thinks, "Okay, one more day closer to death: exactly what did I accomplish today that was worthwhile?" Not to be cranky, but putting "Menopausal Mom" in icing on cookies would not make the top ten, not to mention the top 100 million, things I would want to have accomplished that day. Decorator icing is just that--something which is of little substance and is not intended to last.

Not that I mean to criticize. Nope, I won't go there. I do, after all, read the blog. And much like someone once said, I read the recipes and think, "Well, that's not going to happen." I do like to cook, but I don't see spending an inordinate amount of time on a meal which will be inhaled in ten minutes and will be referred to generically as "chicken" by Nita. I mean, when I'm gone, is anyone going to say, "Wow, could she bake." Or, worse, "What a great little housekeeper." Pardon me, but what a way to be remembered. I would rather have someone say something like, "Wow, was she fun." Especially if the someone was a twenty-something male, but I again digress. Where was I? Oh, yes. . . Anyway, I figure the house will be here long after I'm gone, so let someone else clean it then. I, on the other hand, would prefer to be someone who made a difference on the world, someone who brought about change, who showed kindness, who helped others, and who raised children who would carry on the tradition.

Year of the Rabbit

Over there on the right is a photo of my Pet Partner, Bob the Bunny. Bob and I have been visiting hospice patients for a couple years now.

I have recently found out from Bob's Facebook page that this is The Year of the Rabbit. Bob would think it was about time, as this is the first Year of the Rabbit in his short lifetime. From what I understand, this year is supposed to be quiet after the "ferocious" Year of the Tiger.

Well, so far, if this is quiet, I would hate to see ferocious.

Groundhog Day

I simply cannot believe that the last time I blogged, it was Christmas. The last six weeks or so have been a blur--someone at work quit, and I took over her responsibilities, including a fractured department. The kids need to be run here and there. It has been The Money Pit with the rental house. Nita was scheduled to go on a four-day campout with her class, so we had all the attendant leaving home drama, only to have the trip postponed; then we had leaving home drama intensified, as if Nita got better at it with practice. EG's car died on the way to work. One of the bunnies had to have surgery. And I have been trying to hold on by my fingernails.

One good thing happened during all this. For the last twelve years or so, Rocky has lied, more or less on general principles, but mostly to get out of trouble. The discussion then becomes long, involved, convoluted, and frustrating for both of us, as he tries to remember what he has said, and I try to trip him up. He always gets punished twice for lying if I can catch him up and get him to admit to lying, which is usually. Last week, I sat him down and asked him something, and I said, as usual, "Now think about whether you want to lie or tell the truth." For whatever reason, he decided to tell the truth straight out. I don't know who was more dumfounded--me, or him. However, I simply said, "Okay. Your punishment is yada yada yada." He said, "Wow. That was a whole lot easier than lying."

I looked for the aurora borealis or angels singing over the house. The next time he got in trouble for doing something wrong, he said, "I should have lied."

I guess we haven't made that much progress.

So here it is February already. We have our own resident groundhog here, by the name of Crusty, as he doesn't back down from a meeting with any of us. With the weather we have been having, I am sure poor ol' Crusty wasn't able to reach his egress to check for his shadow this morning. Consequently, I have no clue if we are going to have six more weeks of this. Hopefully not.

CSI: Christmas Scene Investigator

We had a peaceful Christmas morning, with a nut roll for breakfast, and our simple gifts to one another. EG gave me a copy of The Big Sleep, as I had mentioned I had never seen it and I love film noir. My cousins Ida and Sara gave Rocky The Book of Gross Stuff. Kiki gave Nita the exact Barbie doll she wanted. Kiki got the digital camera she asked for. And Rocky gave me a gift which made me laugh--bunny slippers.

For those of you who know me and our situation, you know that I have told Rocky from the gitgo that, if I had to go to the school for any disciplinary reasons, I was going in hair curlers, my bathrobe, and bunny slippers. Whenever Rocky starts acting goofy, his social studies teacher has mentioned to him, "I am looking forward to seeing your mom's bunny slippers." For Rocky to see the humor in the situation and give me bunny slippers as a gift tells me just how far he has come in his healing.

On a different note, we have been finding blood spatter on the hall and kitchen walls all week. Initially, I found myself thinking we had some kind of Amityville horror thing going on, as I was scrubbing the walls three or four times a day. I spent two days studying the direction of the blood spatter, the quantity, and the frequency, as well as what was going on during the time we found the spatter. We keep Nash tied in that area, so we next suspected that he was the culprit. So after the gift-giving this morning, I gave Nash a thorough vet exam, starting with cavity swabs, checking his ears, and checking his teeth. Nothing, except the realization that he needs a dental cleaning and Nash's dismay at this turn of events on a family holiday--can't blame the guy for that. As EG held on to his collar, Nash flipped over on his back, and EG rubbed his tummy. It was then that I realized that there was a wound on the very tip of his tail (I am, of course, referring to Nash and not EG), so when he wagged, he whacked the tail on the walls.

So I shaved the area, medicated the wound, and then taped the last three inches of the tail. Kiki said, "Nashie looks like "scorpion dog." And he does.