The Chicken Whisperers

It all started about a month ago, when a visiting seven-year-old friend of ours walked around effortlessly picking up chickens without batting an eyelash. It was so cute! He would just walk up to one quietly, lean in, and pick her up, something we'd never thought possible with our skittish lovelies. His Mom whispered reverently as we watched, "we call him the chicken whisperer."

So that, of course, put the bug in Luke and Owen to be able to do the same thing.

I couldn't see it, especially with Owen who can't hardly stand still long enough to pick up a stick, never mind a chicken.

But after a few weeks of hard work, they are both picking up chickens! They do it the same way their friend taught them, and again it is so cute.

I don't have a pic of Owen, but here's one of Luke, with his fave chicken, Saphira:


(Thanks Erica, for this great shot :-)

And now, all is right with the world.

It Beats the Alternative

I'm thirty-nine years old today. Isn't that freaky? It's dangerously close to doddering old age, but I still love my birthday, the only day when I don't feel guilty eating a jar's worth of Nutella.

Here are some favorite pics from my thirty-eighth year, one of the best so far on this merry-go-round:


This was the year that the chickens came on the scene.


Ditto the Chicken Palace.


Last spring we went to Gettysburg, and I got extreme goosebumps watching Luke and Owen play in the woods where Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his 20th Maine fighters held the Rebels back, determining the course of history.


Old Sturbridge Village, a place where the boys visited for the first time just this past June, has become a constant source of interest and excitement.


My brother's wedding was a highlight, too; here is his bride with all four of her new nephews.

I've looked in on the adventures of my parents:


and learned to knit.


Best of all, I've gotten to enjoy my kids:














And just be in love with, and in awe of, my husband, the sane guy in our crazy madhouse.


Yeah, it's a damn good life.

The Chicken in Winter

I know I haven't written about them much recently, but the girls are a very large part of our lives. We've spent hours in the freezing cold hanging out, watching them poke around the semi-snowy yard, and collecting eggs from the nesting box.

They hate snow, so this last five weeks or so without it has been fun for the girls, who scratch around on the frozen grass and scrape into the pine needles behind their coop.

It sounds like their snow-free explorations will come to a halt, for a while at least, because we're expecting six inches or so in a few days. But they've had it good whether they know it or not.

You may remember, if you've been reading since we got them, that the chickens used to scare the bejabbers out of me. They don't anymore; when I am in the yard, lugging wood in for the stove or feeding them (or, more rarely, cleaning out their coop - which is SO not bad, Firefly Mom!), they follow me around and cluck adorably. The chickens just exude serenity, with their soft little voices and gentle mannerisms. We are so glad we added them to our family.

Soul Restoration, Part Two

Lately, my soul has been feeling kind of scraped up, as if it has taken a few punches. I think it started back in the spring, with the six weeks of rain; since then, every time the sky clouds over, I cringe and worry that it'll be December before we see the sun again.

And, I feel like I didn't get enough summer. I know that sounds whiny, but I find myself unwilling to put on socks, or dig out the winter clothes, or just give in already and let fall come. As if I could single-handedly keep fall at bay, through mental resistance. This is weird, too, because fall is usually my favorite season.

So, arguments with hubby have escalated, disputes with the kids end more often than not with me shouting as my eyes bug out of my head; everything seems a much bigger problem than it would, ordinarily.

And then, there's the food. We spent this summer in the grip of a huge tomato blight, and so many other locally grown favorites had trouble, too: the eggplant, the peppers, the strawberries, the cherry tomatoes, the tomatillos, the basil, the cilantro... and the list goes on.

So, that's been my underlying mindset - worrying, sadness, fear of what's happening to our corner of the world. My soul, the place inside me where joy and light live, has spent these last months with a shadow across it.

Until recently. I think it was right around my brother's wedding that I started feeling better. Also, each day brings rosier, more beautiful trees and weather that has cooled gradually; one week, I can still wear sandals, but I'd better find a sweatshirt. The next, we need another blanket on the bed. The next week, I actually want soup for dinner, with nice warm biscuits served alongside. It's like this gentle, lovely autumn is cosmically trying to make up for the recent abysmal spring.

And, because I am me, food plays a huge part in the restoration of my soul. Eggplant minestrone, our first soup of the fall, cheered me immensely, inside and out; here's the recipe, in case you want to try it.

When one of the hens started laying, that was a big strike against the shadow on my soul.

The egg from our girl is in the lower-left corner; in the House of Worrying, I fretted that the hens weren't getting enough time outside the coop, semi-free-ranging in their chicken tractor, but I don't worry about that now. The egg, alongside those we get from a local farm, is such a happy, bright orange color that it is clear it came from a happy, bright chicken. The shadow recedes a little more!

And, my friend Shannon loaned me the best book of bread-making ever, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I already loved baking bread, but this book makes it even more fun. My banner is the result of experimenting, with the book as a guide: Brioche au Chocolat, as good as you will ever get in a pastry shop (I know, tooting my own horn... it is THAT good.)

Candles help, too. What is it about candle flame that cheers me all the way through?

I think the shadow finally got gone this weekend, spent apple picking and corn-mazing with friends and relatives. Here are the boys and their cousins at a nearby farm, hamming it up for the camera:

So now, it is with a thankful heart and a restored soul that I look forward to autumn and winter, warmth and love... I hope you're having similar good thoughts and a nice fall, too.

We have an egg!

It doesn't seem that long ago that they looked like this:

And now, they are all grown up...

And somebody's even laying eggs!

It's the littlest one there, in the front of the carton. I guess we won't be buying too many more cartons of eggs!

Lazy, Hazy, Crazy

Well, I wish I could say that, during this recent little bloggy break, I'd been off ending world hunger or even doing productive work, like Topsy-Techie. But the truth is, Ben and I have been watching Battlestar Galactica, whose final season came out on DVD last Tuesday, and even when we weren't watching it, we were analyzing recent developments or endlessly predicting what was going to happen next. It's been difficult to remember that we have children to care for, jobs to get to, and vegetables to put up for winter, what with our obsession about this amazing show. Fortunately, we have watched the whole thing now and can get back to real life!

Even with all our watching of Battlestar, other things have been going on recently too. First, each boy spent a week being totally spoiled by their Grandma, going to favorite museums, eating dessert every night, and staying up late. Isn't that neat? (Thanks, Grandma!) It was kind of cool to have the other one at home with us all by himself, too, it gave us some rare one-on-one time. During Luke's visit to Camp Grandma (as we called it), Owen and I did little-boy stuff, like going to the zoo:

From summer 09

And during Owen's visit to Camp Grandma, Luke and I did bigger-boy - and more sedentary - things together, like reading:

From summer 09

Notice the tea-mug on the chair; I guess I've passed on my love for the combination of books and tea.

It was so nice to do things with each of them that we might not get to do with both of them.

Also, summer means birthdays in our house - first, Owen turned FIVE years old this year! How is it possible that my baby was born five years ago already?

From summer 09

At our favorite thrift shop, I found a Wilton kit for making super-hero birthday cakes, a boon in a year where Owen can't get enough super-hero play. Luke's obsession with dinosaurs endures, even into his ninth year:

From summer 09

Also, Ben got rolling (so to speak) on the chicken tractor:

From summer 09

So now our girls have a way to get out and see the world - our little corner of it, anyway.

Now, if you can imagine doing all these things in the real world, but never quite leaving the Battlestar Galactica universe, either, you will have my mindset over these last few weeks. It is such a great show, but I have to say: it's also nice to resume normal life again.

Top Five Things We Have Learned This Year: #4

Chickens are fun, and not scary.

From Spring 09

From Spring 09

From Spring 09

In the Chicken Palace

From Spring 09

Well, there it is! Truly armor-plated, sprouting locks from every possible vantage, it is a feat of Ben-gineering.

Want to see some pics of the girls?

From Spring 09

This is Saphira, always ready for her close-up.

From Spring 09

And here, on the left, we have Duchess (because of the golden ruff around her neck), Andy in the front center (yes, Owen named her after the boy from Toy Story), Hermione in the back, and Pippi, the leader of the pack, on the right.

From Spring 09

I just love the perch that Ben made them, and they do too:

From Spring 09

Not only does it provide them a place to sleep and hang in their cozy hen-house, when the windows are open (which is most of the time) they have a great view of the world.

From Spring 09

Tomorrow, once they have had four days to learn that the hen-house is their 'real' home, and they head back there each night, we can let them out into the bigger coop area. Judging by their attempts to jump out of the hen-house when we open the big door to give them food and water, they are really excited to explore their new home!

Cheeky Chicken

So, I went downstairs to check on the girls, and snapped this cute pic of them all:

From Spring 09

Then, I turned away and heard a distinctly odd sound, something scraping on hard plastic. I looked back at the girls, and found this:

From Spring 09

Pippi, so named because of her flair for adventure, had hopped up on top of their waterer!

From Spring 09

One more hop, and she'd be out of the brooder - so, now the whole thing is covered in netting with no way for her to escape. Cheeky girl.

Chicken Progress

From Spring 09

They're growing...

From Spring 09

From Spring 09

As is their coop! Ben has worked unceasingly on this all weekend, and so now the henhouse (where the boys are) is taking shape, as is the roof, and the door.

I love seeing the coop out there, and I think it won't be ready a moment too soon; our girls are growing bigger and more active by the minute.

Inertia

I miss winter's quiet, cozy, by-the-fire feeling, recently replaced with the constant need to be in motion. Around me, everything is singing the songs of spring - the garden! The chicks! The porch that needs refinishing! - and I'm still stuck in the Land of Wintertime Inertia.

Talking to a friend back in February, I referred to blogging as a winter luxury - come spring, I said, I'd be too busy to spend time writing long posts about education. While I don't think that will turn out to be true, I do think that more of the posts will be action-oriented, reflecting what's going on around here. (Until next winter, when I can go back to ranting about phonics, testing, and the lead law :-)

So, here are a few pics of what homeschooling looks like for us right now:

From Spring 09

The girls, in their brooder. They'll stay in here for three or four more weeks, where we can watch them grow and change.

From Spring 09

Here they are! Hermione, named after Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, is on the far left, soon to join her snuggling buddies and take a nap. Baby chicks, it turns out, do a lot of napping.

From Spring 09

Because of her curious, gotta-get-there-first-and-find-out-what's-going-on nature, Luke named this chick Pippi, after Pippi Longstocking. She was the first to eat out of our hands, the first to climb up onto our fingers, and frequently streaks around the brooder to find out what's going on over in that corner. She makes even me, who is chicken about chickens, smile.

From Spring 09

Here is the frame of their coop, which I've been calling the Chicken Palace. Ben will completely enclose this frame with 1/2-inch chicken wire, so no predators can get to our girls. Their actual coop - the small, wooden, locked-at-night part - will be on the upper left, giving them room to hang out under the coop and in the whole rest of the structure during the day, even when we can't let them out into the yard. In a word, it will be awesome.

From Spring 09

Our front garden. Remember when it looked like this? Here are a few more photos of the front:

From Spring 09

From Spring 09

I'm sure that the enthusiasm of all that is going on around me, from plants, humans, and chickens alike, will help me shake off the inertia, and boost me into spring. Looking at these pictures gives me hope that this will be true!