Brothers

Pollito

Call me crazy (CRAZY!!!), but we decided to try raising chickens this year. Actually, we decided to pay for some chicks, contribute to the feed, share the chores, and raise some chickens at our friends' house 30 minutes south of us. They have a coop and offered the space. I thought that it was a good way to try out chickens--see what their actual cost was, how much effort was involved (like I really know), and see if there was a real difference. We purchased 8 Cornish X Rocks (the mutant meat birds) and 4 Delawares (an heirloom dual purpose bird).

They arrived smaller than this, but quickly grew--especially the X Rocks. When we headed out to see them, S thought they were great. All 12 chickens were quickly named: "Peter Pan" and "Robin Hood." (Yep. Even the girls.)

They were cute, but this is what I've learned so far.

1. I don't like Cornish X Rocks. They are a mutant bird. They grow too quickly and their bodies can't really keep up with it. I know they make for a lot of meat quickly, but a bird that can't forage for itself is not a bird that I want to raise. If we do this again, I won't get these.

2. I can't really judge this experiment accurately because I am not really doing any of the work. I mean, yes, I helped prep the coop and stuff, and I'm contributing on the food and figuring out about processing, but with the birds 30 minutes away, it is really hard to feel like they are here and mine.

3. Birds die. I knew this going in to the experiment, but I figured that it would happen later on. I actually think my friend didn't really anticipate having an extra 26 birds (two friends' families with at least 12 birds each). As the birds were younger, the birds outgrew their space too quickly, leading to some possibly avoidable deaths. One of our Delawares died (drowning?), and a number of the X Rocks just died (smothered or their bodies gave out--remember they aren't natural). I feel like this is out of my control, so I can't say anything.

4. 30 minutes is farther than I think. Especially when I don't want to just show up at someone's home and hope it is okay to play with the chickens. If it were at a more neutral place, we might make it down more often, but as it is. We haven't made it down much at all.

This said, I need to contact my friend to make sure the boys and I can make a visit down to see the chickens. She has said that the male chickens--pre-pubescent roosters--have started strutting around as if they were the be all and end all.

Fishing, or something like unto it

One of S's friends from preschool talked about how his dad would take him fishing, so S and F decided that it would be worth a try. The only problem? We have nothing to go fishing with. So my dear sweet husband took an afternoon and made "fishing poles" out of an old garden pole and some fishing line (very useful for hanging mobiles above cribs). Then he took the boys fishing in the front yard. They caught all kinds of dangerous creatures--stone fish, sharks, etc.

In Process Fun

We are still working on getting our yard how we want it. We've had to fix some negative grades against the house, which meant pulling up old pavers and cement pads; we've put in a sandbox and pulled out some bushes. We are far from done, but our in-process jobs tend to enable the boys to have a wild time. For example, after pulling up pavers to repair a grade, the boys went crazy with a hole in the ground right underneath the water spigot. They were peacefully playing outside one moment, the next, I peaked out the sliding glass door and saw this.

Soaking wet chaos. They lasted for a good little while, and then I hosed them off and sent them inside to change.

Georgia on my mind

I hate to sound like a a license plate (tag), but we've had Georgia on our mind. So we decided to take a somewhat spontaneous trip to Georgia over spring break. We planned to visit friends, visit friends, visit friends, and maybe visit dissertation advisors. It was all we planned. Thanks to some wonderful friends (hi, guys) we were able to reconnect with most people we wanted to, and thanks to some wonderful advisors (don't worry, they aren't reading), I was able to get some ideas for the dissertation.

We took wonderful pictures, more than can be posted here, but I'll give it a shot.

(While the moms were downstairs talking, the children maintained silence while cleaning out a certain cedar closet.)

(Watching the "Beavers" movie. None of them lasted too long.)

(This was hilarious. The candy lollipops had "YES" stamped on this. Z kept saying, "Yes!"
and F kept retaliating, "No!")

The question . . .

How do you teach your children not to jump on the furniture when they can do this?

Even Superheroes Cry

We missed a birthday party for some friends the other week because the party was on Sunday, so we decided to throw the birthday boy an impromptu party at our house. I threw together some superhero capes for all the siblings (total 6), made cupcakes, and decided to have a ball. Superhero M (birthday boy, aged 4) wore blue and orange, Superhero W (older brother, aged 5) wore yellow and red, Superhero I (birthday girl, aged 2) wore pink and green,

Superhero F wore orange and green (he wanted to be like his friend),

Superhero S wore purple and yellow (he had insisted on me changing his cape around so that the purple would be on the outside, and then wore yellow on the outside the whole party so he could be like W),

and Superhero A wore green and red (because that is what F originally picked). Superhero A thought the cape was wonderful, even though he missed most of the party due to his afternoon nap.

I didn't take many pictures, and I didn't get the dream picture of all the children's backs in order (W, S, M, F, I, A), but I did get some.

The one thing I learned from this afternoon with superheroes, is that even superheroes cry.