Anyone need some eggs?

That's two eggs short of eight and a half dozen. I'm sure there's some kind of crazy joke to be made in there, and I wouldn't begrudge you one little bit. I really wouldn't. Husband found the motherlode today, almost three dozen in a tipped over cardboard box out in the pole barn. I've seen that box I don't know how many times, but it never occured to me it would present itself as the Ideal Nestbox. Silly me.

Yeah, so hi! Hello, how are you! Um, I guess I don't have a good reason for not posting. Post partum derangement, perhaps? Yes! Why not? We've had two birthdays, not including Jabba's, a couple days where I sat for a friend's kids and had something crazy like eight preschoolers, toddlers, and babies in the house with just me in attendance*. If that ain't crazy, I don't know what is.

So, a roundup of our activities over the last few months (shameful!):
I flew with all three kids to my dad's place on the East Coast. By. my. self. And we were all unmedicated! I KNOW!

Actually, when it comes to flying, my kids are rock. stars. They kind of suck in the airport itself, but really, where would you rather have the good behavior? In a relatively small, exceptionally contained space, or a hundreds of thousands of square-feet facility with room to run? Yes, exactly.

We spent two weeks out east, with Husband coming out for the second half, which is when we turned it up a notch and dispatched 500 clams. Dude didn't have a chance to repeat his astonishing oysterfest, but he made do. We took a couple dozen out on the dock and tossed them in, hoping they might take a liking to the place and settle in for a stay. Who knows, it could work.

My folks and I took the kids to the beach for a foot-dip, but it was pretty windy and cold, and really too early in the season for a beach day. Perp was ecstatic about being able to stick her toes in the ocean, though. Dude managed to handle the wind pretty well; he HATES it when it blows in his ears, always has. Even as an infant, he'd burrow his face into my chest at the least sign of a breeze. Freak.

Unfortunately, we had a minor tragedy. Let me just say that a four-pound box of shortbread cookies and I cannot coexist in the same house together. Good thing I got the stomach flu yesterday and managed to unload a few pounds in the space of 16 hours. My pants almost fit again.

We all flew home togther and managed to survive the cancelled flight, reroute to Chicago (go see the dinosaur!) and late-night drive from Big City airport to our little burg. Instead of arriving home in time for a late-ish bedtime for the kids, we got home at about 2 am. But we still got home, so okay.

We got our first batches of birds last week, 25 turkeys (bronzes) and 25 meat birds. I have them all together in a wading pool, but they announced their displeasure with this setup by starting to pick at each other. I had to put three bandaids on the butt of one of the chickens. I'll try to get a shot of that, it's actually kinda cute.

So tomorrow, I'll move them out to the new old chicken coop, set up the lights, and let them have more room to roam. I think it'll do them a world of good and I bet the picking stops right away.

And! One of our hens hatched a chick! And she's raising it! For those of you what don't have chickens, this is a Big Deal. Most birds have had the setting/brooding instinct bred out of them, so the only way to increase your flock is to buy chicks or use an incubator/brooder setup. But I managed to score an excellent mama hen, who is doing a bang-up job, and I hope she'll hatch out a full clutch this summer. I suspect that any chicks she raises that have the least natural inclination to motherhood be more likely to get the job done. The other birds we've had who managed to set long enough to hatch eggs out were suckass mothers and smothered the hicks or abandoned them. This is too cool. Me, I'm remarkably easy to please. Cheap date!

So far, no indication that I'll get into school early --holy crap, it's POURING just now-- and frankly that's good since we have no childcare leads. Helps to look for some, I suppose..

And now, cute kid pics!





































*I don't mean eight of each, of course. That would be insane.

Gobble gobble

Today was the day of destiny for two of our turkeys. Husband dispatched, plucked, and cleaned them and now we let them sit until Thursday, when we will gorge ourselves silly and thank the turkeys for their ultimate sacrifice. I had really hoped to keep a pair of them as breeders but we still can't tell who's a hen and who's a tom, and my god they eat a lot, so all four (someone got the fifth last night, if you can believe it) are going to meet their maker.

I hope they're good. The chickens certainly have been, so I'm going to assume we're in for a treat come T-Day.

In other non-death related news:
Fat Baby is doing really well. Her jaundice is clearing up nicely, and she gained 6 oz between Tuesday and Friday. I expect she'll be back to her birth weight or better by her 2 week check on Tuesday. Two weeks! How the hell did that happen?

Perp and Dude continue to be fascinated, if a bit dangerous. They either don't get the concept of being gentle with her, or they are trying to off her in subtle ways. I really can't be sure which. Good thing babies are tougher than they look.

I can't get the kids to play outside, or even go for a walk. Christ, it's going to be a long winter.

FYI

I have a lot of stops to make today and each one is at the ass-end oposite side of town.

Watch me unspool.



... still relatively wound, and with new goodies like two kinds of apricot preserves, sour cherry preserves, loads of lucious darkdarkdark chocolate with various fruit essences, some Trader Joe's stuff (which I belatedly realized is simply other brands marketed under the TJ label but oh well), a gut full of FABULOUS dim sum at Mandarin Kitchen, and tasty pastries. All in all, a good day.

Now if I could just get Dude to pretend to sleep for a few hours.

On the road again

A) It is very odd to use a keyboard which has no visible a, s c, d, e or n keys. I mean, yeah, clearly they exist, but they're blank. Weird the things you get used to.

B) Dude and I are on the road to get my dad and stepmother at the airport tomorrow. We drove down to the teeming metropolis(es)(i?) of Minneapolis/St. Paul to stay overnight with my mom. Tomorrow we're going to gorge endlessly on what is widely reputed to be superlative dim sum in Richfield, of all places.

For those of you who have only managed to fly over this here fly-over country, Richfield is one of the first-ring suburbs of Minneapolis, a post-war subdivision probably like any other that sprang up to accommodate the returning GIs and their families. In other words: shithole.

BUT! Anyplace that has dim sum available all week long is just this side of heaven in my book. Husband doesn't yet know that we're packing up and moving immediately.