Silence of the Chickens

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine asked if we ever had cannibalism problems with our chickens. My darling chickens? Certainly not. I told her I had heard that chickens will go after another chicken if it's wounded, but I'd never seen our chickens do that. I should have knocked on her wood kitchen table - send a little anti-cannibalism ju-ju at my little feathered friends.

In the winter I normally just check on the chickens and gather their eggs during the nighttime feeding (of the horses). The morning after the cannibalism conversation, however, there were alarming noises coming from the hen house. Happy chickens sound like a roomful of women gabbing. (In fact, there is a large group of women that jog together past my house every day, and they sound like very happy chickens.) My chickens weren't happy. I would love to do an impression for you - I'm sure it would be terribly amusing. They sounded like a cross between someone learning to play the violin, demons scratching their way out of Hell, and, well, chickens. It was horrible.

I opened the door to see our brilliant White Leghorn rooster, Foghorn, doing a strangely slow strut around the coop. The bottom ridge of his comb was bleeding profusely and the blood had pooled up on the back of his neck and then run all down his back. All but one of the hens were following close behind him pecking at the blood if they got within range. The matriarch hen was perched up high in front of the laying boxes. I say perched but really she was bent forward with her head down as if she were a raptor ready to descend upon it's prey. She was making the loudest of the ungodly squawking shrieks I had heard from outside. I think I interrupted her attack when I came in. I tried to wash the blood off Foghorn which just made the chickens cackle all the more - they started drinking the bloody water as it ran down his feathers. The red heat lamp made the whole scene even creepier. It was like watching a chicken-horror flick. Needless to say I removed Foghorn from the coop. I put him safely at the top of the hay in the barn, even brought him little dishes of grain and water - which, as it turns out was more ridiculous than it seemed because he immediately flew down and booked it back over to the coop and paced outside while the hens continued to wail inside. "They want to eat you", I said. He didn't care. Chickens are stupid. (What a revelation, huh.)

Why do I continue to keep them, you ask.

This is why:

Beautiful fresh organic eggs. Aren't they pretty? The yolks are a deep, rich yellow - store bought eggs pale in comparison (literally). AND the custard these eggs make is nothing short of heavenly.

This time of year there is another reason to have chickens too.

A super fuzzy, adorable reason. Nothing heralds the coming of Spring like the cheep-cheep-cheeping of baby chicks.

Boys Will Be Boys

Being the only girl growing up I always kind of thought I knew everything about boys. (I also felt like I knew what it was to be an only child - just with more battle scars.) Turns out I was wrong on both fronts. I get new glimpses into the male psyche every day through the four male minds I am now surrounded by. Most of the time the glimpses I get are endearing, but some of them simply reaffirm how completely different our two genders are.

Glimpse #1 - Boys on Cleaning

Me- You know what I hate? (not waiting for an answer) Dirty dishes left in the sink.

Tyler- You know what I love? That this sink is big enough to hold so many dirty dishes.

Glimpse #2 (literally, ha, ha) - Little Boys on Hygiene

Upon walking into the bathroom I discovered an un-flushed toilet - apparently this is the final stage in potty training, even my oldest (not the grown-up boy, thankfully) forgets this all too important step! (Just let it go children!) HOWEVER, instead of being upset I was overjoyed at the fact that at least whomever forgot to flush, used toilet paper! Hooray for small miracles.

Glimpse #3 - Boys on Onomatopoeia

You know how little (and big) boys use sound effects for everything? Half of Nick's names for things when he first started talking were really just the sounds those things made. Now he's progressed enough to have the following one-sided conversation with me:

"Mom, dis so funny. Gaba Hud (Jabba the Hutt) is all 'Bwaa, uhh'. An den Wuke's yike 'Whaauun-Whaauun' (light saber noises, I think). Den Tooey's (Chewie) all 'Awgghh'. And Gaba goes 'Oooogh! phhhhh!'. and dat's so funny. He goes 'Phhhhh!' Yike dat."

And Mommy 'goes' "just smile and wave, boys, smile and wave", because if I hadn't seen whichever Star Wars movie that scene was from I SO wouldn't have known what that conversation meant. Any boy -Star Wars fan or not - would have.

Glimpse #4 - Boys on Hats

One 'boy' in our house who has great hair can hardly be without his precious baseball hat - ever. If he was having a 'bad hair day' I would cut him some slack. If he were balding I might understand. If he were heading off to, say, play a baseball game I would get it. But, seriously, he gets out of bed in the morning and the hat is on before his feet hit the floor. He's not dressed, why is the hat on? 'Going somewhere', I ask? 'Yeah, downstairs', he says. 'Pants?', I say. No,no, not necessary yet, but the hat is. Today I witnessed him putting the hat on when he was heading to the shower. I cocked my head like a confused hound dog. How does the shirt come off with the hat on? Seriously. He just smiled at me, took the hat off, took the shirt off, and put the hat back on. Is it some sort of grown-up-boy rebellion?

Glimpse #5 - Boys on Hampers

Clothes Hamper: convenient, tidy receptacle for dirty laundry. AND the clothes form a pile adjacent to said hamper. We put a laundry chute in our house thinking the little boys would have SO much fun throwing their dirty clothes down it I would never have to search out their dirty underwear again. That lasted about, mmm, three days. Action figures are much more likely to make the journey down than a pair of jeans. Max actually goes to the effort of shoving all his dirty clothes (except his socks which he shoots into various hidden nooks and crannies) behind the clean clothes hanging in his closet. My biggest boy puts his unmentionables in the hamper and lays the rest of his 'worn clothes' in a pile at the end of our bed because he might wear them again. . . I say (girls against sniffing out the dirty laundry unite!!!) if it's not clean enough to put back with the clean clothes. . . probably not clean enough to wear. Maybe that's just me...

Glimpse #6 - Little boys on Kissing

Even my little Nick now covers his eyes and says, "Ewww" any time anyone kisses in a movie.(Okay, so that's pretty much just Anakin and Padme. . . or, maybe a few others.) I'm quite sure all the little girls of the world just blush and giggle.

In 'real life' even kissing has to have some goal behind it, some undetectable prize. As any purpose for kissing is lost on the little ones Nick has remedied all kissing situations (such as goodnight kisses, owie kisses, etc.) by deciding it's a contest of sorts and pronouncing a winner each time. Don't know what the rules are. Doubt there is a system of points. All I know is that upon being kissed, or delivering a kiss he shoots his hands over his head and shouts, "I WON da KISSING!". Boys.

Glimpse #7 - Boys on Fun

Tyler used to always say "A dogs' happiness is directly related to how dirty they are". So true, and so true also for little boys. Holly and I took the boys with us to ride at the arena today. I planned for their warmth - coats, hats, gloves, and cocoa. I planned for their entertainment - backpacks full of toys / books / you name it. I planned for their tummies - they had cereal, grapefruit, and eggs before we left and three snacks for while we were there. I didn't plan for the dirt factor. Why? Because I'm a girl, and no matter how much time I spend around horses and horsie-places, I would never intentionally get down in the soft, stinky, manure filled dirt. Just wouldn't. Why would anyone. . .unless they were boys. You would think I would have learned by now. We had been riding for maybe ten minutes with the boys safely stowed on the bleachers when Grey called to me. I knew they had been running circles around the bleachers but was still surprised when I looked up to see him covered from head to toe in the extra filthy dirt of a riding arena. I'm not talking 'I got my boots. . . dusty' covered either. I'm talking I'm-not-sure-what-color-his-jeans-used-to-be, didn't-I-just-wash-that-coat, why-does-my-five-year-old-have-a-mustache covered. When I asked him why he was so dirty he simply said, (with an expression of bewildered innocence) "I was rolling". Yes, rolling. Like, 'duh, rolling, Mom'. Of course he's rolling - look at all the dirt! Later in the day he said it was his best day ever. I'm thinking it was the dirt. No wonder they don't like to clean.

All things said, I love my boys, all of them. I love that they are such boys. I love their funny boyish ways. I love that I can see my own ridiculous girlie habits and quirks more clearly through their eyes, and hope I am the better for it.

* photo courtesy Kiera Eve Photography

I'm not a feminist, but. . .

I am pro-woman, if that means anything at all. I love to be pampered and treated 'like a woman'. Sure, you can open my door for me, carry that heavy bag, pay for my dinner. . . (heh, heh). I don't get all the militant feminists insisting that they are the same as men, because I have one big, fat "does the word 'duh' mean anything to you?" for them on that one. Man - Woman. Pretty different, and it's not a bad thing. Women are entirely capable of most anything a man is, and then some. I do think we have to reserve a few things for each sex though. Men, you can have taking out the garbage and digging post holes. (On second thought, there are a lot of other things I would add to that list, but I don't have all night.) This woman (that's me.) would like to reserve not being the bread winner and all things mocha-flavored for herself. (Of course there's the obvious 'I can have a baby' thing lurking in the shadows, but I'm certainly not going to pull out that faulty card - we all know it takes two to tango.) Something I really have no patience for, however, is the assumption by any man that we women as a whole are a little lower on the intellectual ladder than men. It is astounding to me that this opinion really still exists. (It's really quite preposterous, if you ask me.) Seriously.
So, Saturday evening I was on my way home from the amazing massage my wonderful husband (not a chauvinist) had sent me to for my birthday. I had to stop for some fuel for the car - and I say fuel because I drive a diesel which, of course, doesn't run on 'gas'. There was a man filling up his minivan (who's the girl now, minivan guy?) on the other side of the pump I pulled up to. He was standing next to his car, so he both saw and heard me pull up. Diesel engines are not quiet even when they're little. As I filled up my car I noticed him watching me; looking at my little car, looking at the green diesel nozzle I was using, and looking at the dumb girl ruining her car by putting the wrong kind of fuel in it. Finally as he was driving away he decided it was time to put a stop to the madness.
MVG- Uh, you do know that's a diesel hose?
Me- Mm-huh. Sure do.
MVG- (staring) Uh, so, you can only use it in diesels.
Me- Yeah. Okay. Thanks. (Weird, You can only use diesel fuel in a diesel engine? That's just so unfair. Nobody told me!)
MVG- (Still staring - from the safety of his minivan) Uh, so is your car a diesel?
Me- Uh-huh. (No, actually I thought it might be fun to pay an extra fifty cents per gallon. It is my birthday, you know. I feel like splurging, and this seemed like the perfect way to do it! Dork.)
MVG- Oh, really, 'cause it's a car. Cars aren't usually diesels.
Me- Yep, it's a diesel. Promise. (What do you think these pumps are for, tractors?)
Mini-Van-Guy gave me one more suspicious look and drove s-l-o-w-l-y away. He was probably calling the diesel police. A.) If you don't know what you're talking about in the first place - don't talk. B.) It's a good thing it was my birthday or he would have really irritated me. (No one's allowed to tick me off on my birthday, it's my unwritten law. Deal with it. It should be an everyday law but sometimes I'm just too tired (ie:irritated) to enforce it.) C.) Minivans are stupid. Unless the doors open and shut by themselves, because that's pretty cool. BUT they'll never be pretty.
Oh yeah, and my point? There are a lot of less-than-smart people out there, I don't think one sex or the other really has dibs on having the majority.