A friend of a friend recently asked me excitedly about having chickens, and it was only after a few minutes of complaining about my really loud, annoying chicken that I realized I was probably turning her off of having chickens of her own. “Err.. but the other five are great. And the eggs… Yay?” And really, for the most part, having chickens has been easy. We’ve been lucky not to deal with predators, we get more eggs than we can eat, even their poop is composting down to add to our garden this year. But man. That chicken.

Or rather, this chicken.

Now, some chicken noise is to be expected. Clucking, chattering, talking chickens. Right after they lay an egg it’s not unusual for them to do the “Dinner’s ready!” call, but otherwise, their noise is background sound. But this hen has taken it upon herself to be the rooster in the absence of an actual rooster, and … well, listen.

She doesn’t stop all.day.long. She screams at dawn, she screams at noon, she screams at dusk. I turned to the chicken forums a while ago to ask about it, and everyone agreed: either get a rooster, or make soup. In one older thread someone recommended segregating her and giving her a week to break, so today Tom and I broke out the old brooder and threw her in there alone. Chicken jail, for unruly behavior. The next step if she’s still screaming will be to offer her on craigslist, and then, if all else fails, we have a traffic cone. Dun dun dunnnnnnn.

The fact that, when Ella walked in and saw this going on, her first reaction was to laugh until she couldn’t breathe, and then grab my camera and take pictures. That’s my girl.

So not only do I have to share my mat with these two, and this one, but now also Lily. Or maybe I should just start locking the door.

A January carrot harvest.

I had grand plans last fall to grow a winter crop of garlic in our raised beds, but never got beyond buying the seed garlic. In fact, I barely touched the garden after I pulled out the largest and most obviously dead plants. I didn’t turn in compost, I didn’t lay down any mulch, I didn’t grow clover or winter wheat to add nutrients back to the soil. By the time the first frost hit, I had used up all my gardening energy for the year.

A few months off and I’v been recharged. We have plans to build three more beds this spring, as well as a bean trellis, and hopefully planting a few fruit trees in the front. I have a week by week plan of attack on what to start indoors, when to plant outside, when things should be ready to harvest. And of course I have charts. I’ll share these things soon. I went out to turn the soil and clear out the debris this week, and was pleasantly surprised by a few lbs of carrots in one bed, their tops pecked away by chickens, as well as a few green onions that had survived the snow.

Sometimes I get the feeling my garden is growing in spite of my lack of green thumbs, not because of them.

DITL: Day in the Life. Carry around a camera all day and record the mundane, because someday it will be significant. A history of our DITL’s can be found here.

The girls wake me up much too early, and we watch Sesame Street and try to wake up. Becky is still sleeping, so I can chug coffee, thank goodness.

Once I can finally see straight, I make breakfast. Er, cereal.

I drink more coffee and mess around on facebook. Mornings are rough, and I do what i can to make them less screamy. Don’t judge.

Oh goood it’s Saturday. I frantically search the house for Ella’s ballet stuff, wake up Tom to watch the little girls, and get there just in time. Ella dances in circles as I try to get her shoes on. She finally stands still long enough and I get a break to read. And drink coffee.

Ella got a happy face sticker for following directions, and saved it for me. Is there any more tangible evidence of a 5 year old’s love than a happy face sticker they have saved for you?

Home again, home again, jiggity jig. The girls are begging to “do school”, so I break out their field journals to record the weather.

Alice draws “A”‘s all over her page, and Ella draws a series of snowmen in regal costumes. Such is the weather in our house today.

A favorite coloring book in our house is the doodle book, so we pull them out and find a page for each girl. Ella is drawing and sounding out what all she would put into a magic potion, and Alice is drawing eggs in a nest.

I nurse the Becks,

and then plop her under the table so i can do some more focused work with the girls.

Ella is into classifications of animals lately, and has asked to learn about sharks, so we look them up in our encyclopedias and zoobooks, google videos, and each girl draws her favorite shark. Ella prefers the whale shark, but Alice is all about the hammerhead.

Alice needs some mama time, so Ella plays with the baby.

Alice begs “Pleaaaaaase mama, can we play starfall?” so we do.

Ella moves on to feeding Bearby, so Becks comes to yell at my feet.

The girls make a snack,

And I nurse Becky down for a nap. Amazingly, she stays asleep after I put her in the baby cage.

The girls go downstairs to play while Becks sleeps, so I do dishes, straighten up the house, and (let’s face it) play on facebook. Becky is awake 45 minutes later. I realize I am two weeks late taking her nine month picture, so I take a quick one on the couch.

Becky decides to show off, and stands for nearly a minute while I take pictures.

Then she crawls away, because mama is boring, and those sisters have to be here somewhere.

We have lunch (but lose the camera), and then go outside to play with the chickens for a while.

And just in case you were wondering where Tom was all day: He was in the ceiling wiring a new dining room light.

We come inside, have another snack, and Becks plays in the jumper while I get us ready to go to Grandpa’s for dinner.

The girls play connect the dots on the ipod, and ignore me the first 3469376 times I ask them to come put on their shoes.

Beckers nurses, and we sing songs. I am the last one in the car.

Then we are at my father-in-law’s, where he immediately puts on a movie for the girls, and hands me a white Russian. I threaten never to leave.

There is much white-board drawing, baby loving, and beekeeper-talk going on.

Somewhere past bedtime we get home, and Tom puts the girls to bed while I scrounge around in the freezer and find the necessary ingredients for my very own white russian. I watch half of a romantic comedy, and then fall asleep on the couch before getting 1/4 of the way into my drink.

Tom wakes me up enough to lead me to bed, and then takes baby duty for the first part of the night (aka he does what he can to get her to go back to sleep without nursing. It’s a losing game). Around midnight he rolls her to my half of the bed and she nurses on and off all night.

Okay Lily. This makes up for the barking fits at 3am.

One of the things that enticed me into moving back to the little house was that it was a fresh start – a chance for us to make our home our own, rather than a mishmash of random furniture generous family members had pawned off on us. Slowly, room by room, I’m feeling like our space reflects who we are. It’s messy, it’s busy, it’s all going to change when this or that construction project is finished (built in bookcases please!), but it ours. And it smells like oranges.

Dining room before (as a living room): In 2005 (when we lived here the first time), last fall when we kicked the stoners out, the room empty, the room full.

Dining room after:

And the best part:

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The office before (as a series of bedrooms): Our room (2005, with bonus greenhouse), dirty boy room last fall, the girls’ room recently.

The office after:

And behind an unassuming closet door, is what is left of my craft room:

It’s really a marvel of organization, and I’m loving having everything out of boxes for the first time in a year and a half. It really exemplifies one of my main goals with this renovation/move/downsize/simplification/whatever: A place for everything, and everything in its place. Including us.

Meet Lily!

When Ella and I went to meet her the other night, I walked away conflicted. We had arrived right as her owner was getting home from work, so Ellie (now Lily) had been in her crate for 8 hours and she was understandably keyed up, not only to be out, but to have visitors. She was sweet… but she jumped. She was smart… but she jumped. She was housetrained… but she jumped. She was good with other animals and has been around strangers, kids, and strange kids… but she jumped. She was trained in all the basic commands… but she jumped. She was oh so playful… but she jumped.

When on her hind feet she is as tall as Ella, so jumping was not just annoying, but also scary for Ella, and potentially dangerous. I came home unsure, and spent the evening googling “How to stop a dog from jumping”. Tom suggested we meet up with them in the morning and see her when she had had a chance to get her wiggles out, and I sent off an email, and told myself I would sleep on it and let my brain work on it.

I obviously woke up with doggie fever, convinced that we should give her a try. And, luckily, I was right. She’s been here all day and the only time she has jumped was when Ella invited her to. (… Really Ella? Why?) We will need to continue to work with her on it, especially when friends and littles come over, but I’m 92% positive she can learn quickly. I really, really like her. She is a whippet/terrier mix, which makes her a lurcher. It also makes her high energy, which is what we were looking for, but she’s also pretty relaxed, sitting under my desk while the baby sleeps and the girls play dressup downstairs.

And before anyone writes to tell me the obvious: We’re not leaving her alone with the kids until we know all her ins and outs, and the kids are trained on how to handle her. Also, we’re not letting her play downstairs until she is trained for family life, so the girls have somewhere to go when they have had enough of the dog (and she has her crate for that reason as well). I’m not ignorant of the hassles or hardships of dog ownership; for me the pros just outweigh the cons. Kind of like having 3 kids in 5 years – it’s not for the weak of heart, but I’m signing up willingly and joyfully.

A word about her name: after Tom and I had decided we wanted this dog (but before we had met her or told the girls anything about her) I asked Facebook what I we should change her name to to avoid Ellie/Ella confusion. My initial suggestion was Lily, but after my sister suggested Petey I was sold. Petey! I love Petey! She totally looks like a Petey! That night at dinner Tom casually asked Ella “So, if we got a dog, what would you name her?” and without missing a beat, Ella said “Lily. Lily or John are the only dog names I like,” and went back to eating.

So, Lily it is.

Top ten reasons I want a dog:

1) They eat all the stuff the kids drop from the table, saving me at least a half hour a day of fishing crumbs I missed out of Becky’s mouth.

2) Running with a dog is awesome. I will be a lot more motivated to put on my shoes and go in the morning if I know my running partner is enjoying it as much as I am.

3) Hobbes. You have to be a friend from “back in the day” to know Hobbes, but he came with an ex-boyfriend, and was really the ideal dog. Protective but not aggressive, playful but also laidback, happy to pull a sled of groceries or keep your feet warm at night when the heat gets turned off. After D and I broke up Hobbes went to live with D’s grandmother, but I’ve always regretted not finding a way to keep Hobbes. I think all future dogs will have a high bar to live up to.

(Seen here in one of a string of cheap studio apartments we lived in during college. The bathroom was across the hall, the lock on both the outside door and inside door were busted off, and there was a meth lab a block away. And an elementary school across the street. Awesome!)

4) I feel safer in a house with a dog. I don’t expect my dog to be a ferocious guard dog, but a loyal dog protects it’s pack, and in the case of a break-in, just having a dog in the house gives someone pause. Amy’s experience a few months ago has been on my mind quite a bit, and Ginger’s makes my hands shake even now, nine months later. Closer to home, Sarah, who lives a block from me, has had her garage and cars broken into twice recently. In general I am not someone who thinks kowtowing to the bad guys and hiding inside our homes with the shades drawn is a logical response… but getting a dog is, even if it’s just so I can sleep easier at night.

5) Dogs are easier than babies, and we’re not having a baby this year. Hear that universe? NO BABIES. Dogs poop outside, dogs don’t ask to be carried around, and dogs don’t have to be sent to college.

6) I’ve been asking for a dog since the first time we lived in this house, before Ella was born. See? I’ve been pretty patient. Itotallydeserveadognowthankyou.

7) Alice and Becky are both standoffish about dogs right now, and I want them to grow up knowing how great dogs are, not just being scared of them (though, when they yawn, they are a little intimidating when your head is smaller than their mouth). The first few weeks may be rough, but we’re calling it immersion therapy.

8 ) Everyone else I know has a dog.  *Kicks the air*

9) Ever since we had to put Bubba down in November, we’ve been on the lookout for a new pet. We have fish and chickens, but the girls have tried to cuddle both and were left wanting. I’ve kept my eye on petfinder, which lists all of the adoptable pets at our local shelters, but rarely found a dog that looked like a fit for our family (and when I did, they were often adopted before I could pick up the phone). We haven’t made it easy on ourselves, since we want a young, medium sized, good tempered, cute dog, which is what everyone wants.

10) But, despite the odds, I found a sweet little dog that I am going to go meet tonight. She’s young, she has been through obedience school, she is spayed, vaxed and micro-chipped. Her current owners are moving, and have been picky about who will adopt her, but think our family (our loud, active, big backyard and lots of kids family) will be perfect for her. I really, really hope so.

Today I found Ella in the kitchen drawing a still life of fruit. First each piece individually, then a crayon sketch, and then she asked me for the water colors. I had planned for us to get out of the house and walk to Mindful Mamas, so I hesitated. “Mom, please, I have a great idea and I just want to try?”

(Her photo of the bowl of fruit (and a sweet potato) from her POV)

This lateral thinking, of “How many ways can I look at this one thing?” is something I feel like we lose as we get older, as we are educated to the “right” way to interpret the world. The apple is not a house, the bowl is not a rainbow, the day is slipping away and we have thing to accomplish. Perhaps it’s the season, my age, or the lack of sleep, but I have reached a point lately where I just want things they way I want them, and when things invariably go another direction, I dig my feet down and refuse to move. Sometimes the hardest thing is to say “Yes” and see the opportunities, not the obstacles; to roll up the rug and paint instead of forcing everyone to go in my direction.

Luckily, I have some very wise little teachers.

(Alice: “My fruit is all yucky! Squish squish, smelly fruit!”)

Tom and I had a laid back day planned today – a lazy breakfast, a few more boxes from the garage to go through, maybe a trip to the grocery store – but who were we kidding? At 11am we were both bored out of gourds, and decided that the dining room must be painted. Today. A quick trip to the paint store and a few hours later, we are 86% of the way finished, and I can’t wait to share it with you tomorrow after we finish up a few small projects. Like, for example, the fireplace.

Bwahahaha.