Hey Chick(en)((and ducks!))

Once we'd decided we were moving to the country I became slightly obsessed with the idea of owning chickens.  I have no idea why. I've never had pet chickens before but the idea that suddenly I would be able to ment that I HAD to.

So we ordered our chickens. While at Farm & Fleet ordering Rhode Island Reds (4 hens 1 rooster) I suddenly heard that dangerous little voice-that animal angle on my shoulder-whispering 'You need ducks too! And look, you can order them right here!'   Obviously it was a sign.

So about a month later I was the proud mama of 5 baby chicks and 5 baby ducks!
Fortunately if you get them together, and keep them together they like to stay together.
I don't know if the chicks thought they were ducks or the ducks thought that they
were chicks or what, but they all loved each other just the same.


Nikki was not bothered in the least when the chickens and ducks moved into the front room. (Fyi baby chicks & ducks need to be kept at 90 degrees F the first week they are born and then you decrease the temp 5 degrees a week until they're old enough to go out.)
He had a peek at them and meowed his unvexed sort of way and that was it.

Occasionally I'd catch him trying to take a swipe at one of them but I think it was more out of annoyance than instinct. Up until now, since Steve departed, the house had been fairly quiet. Now these 10 birds were here disturbing the peace. Nikki's an old soul and you could just see him roll his eyes and think  'noisy kids' to himself.

Now you'd think there wouldn't be a lot to say about chickens and ducks, but I'm only getting started!

One day I knew, as all mothers know, that it was time for the ducks to be introduced to the water.  Having researched my options it seemed apparent that the bath tub was the way to go. Oh my gosh! There's nothing so exciting as seeing a baby duck in the water for the first time! It was brilliant.  They loved the water! I could tell because they kept crapping everywhere-if this isn't a sign of duck excitement then I don't know what is!

At one point one of the little brown ducks(Rouens) figured out where the water came from, went over to the tap and started screaming in excitement at it!  It was brilliant!

So it was obvious that the ducks were smart. It was also very obvious that the chickens were stupid...

One chicken in particular thought that she was a parrot. While I'd be feeding or cleaning them out she'd hop up on my shoulder and stay there for EVER.  It got to the point where she was so insistent (and so darn cute about it)  I'd just let her stay there(though the whole time--and I know this makes me a bad chicken mama--I'd be thinking ''Please lord don't let this chicken crap on me!'' )

Aww.

Once we moved them outside it became even more apparent now NOT smart they were. For example:

The night one of the chickens got stuck up on the roof. I had my

first near death experience this night-trying to get her to come down.  I climbed up there and shot her with my child's nerf gun but she just yelled what I can only assume were 'chicken swear words' at me and then moved over a bit.  Eventually I got her down, and made a note to remember the chicken 

swear words in case I ever needed them myself in the future.

Then there was the chicken who found her favourite place

to sit,which just happened to never be occupied. If she only knew!!! 

And topping the list of stupid ideas would be the chicken who wanted to get to know the gun better!

Eventually the chickens were outside all of the time. They were NOT impressed and often tried to find ways back into the house.  For example one night I was washing dishes and this chicken thought she'd fly in through the (closed) window. Scared the bejeezus outta me! Of course she kept at it for about 30 minutes before I went out and squirted her with the hose just to distract her! 

But nothing tops the list of 'eerie chicken habits' like the following one. By now the chickens were quite upset with being thrown outside. They often protested in various ways about the lack of cable tv in the coop. For a while they'd hide their eggs around the yard. I'm telling you it was like Easter at my house every day!  

((Side note-the ducks would lay their eggs anywhere they happened to be. Often this was in the middle of the drive way.  When the ducks layed eggs you could tell they were freaked out.  They'd all start quacking like 'Look! That thing just dropped out of you! OMG!' and then the duck that happened to drop the egg would start freaking out saying things like 'Oh gosh! That looks important, somebody put it back in!' but they never managed to get it back in. So they'd all run away from it and avoid looking at it at all costs until one of us would remove it from their site.)

Anyway. The chickens hate being outside. Now they're used to it but they still like to voice their opinion on the matter. There is nothing so creepy as opening the front door when someone knocks only to find that it was the chickens knocking! No joke!

Have a look...

Ok, before I go there are a few things I need to say.

First of all the chickens names are : Chickens. That's what they like to be called.

Second, I've never had to use the chicken swear words that I learned, though on occasion-when they've been particularly naught, I will leave a bottle of 'BBQ' sauce in their coop just to remind them of their place. This seems to do the trick.

Third-many people don't understand eggs! A female chicken will lay an egg every day regardless of the presence of a Rooster.  Think of it this way-does a woman need a man around to menstruate? No. It's the same with chickens. 

Forth, and yes I have been asked this! Roosters do not lay eggs.

Fifth. You are not likely to open an egg from an egg carton and find half a chicken! Normally these eggs come from girls(see above!) who have not been around roosters at all.  Going back to humans-can there be a baby if there isn't a daddy and a mama? no. Same with chickens-if there's no daddy around there will be no baby chick in your egg at breakfast.

Sixth(and hopefully finally) You CAN have another egg in an egg! Don't believe me? Watch this video.

 

Gotta go folks, Hope you enjoyed! =D

I can't even bloody BLEED right!

I try not to complain on line, I really do.  I think we all have enough problems in our life; keeping positive is difficult. Having to read about everyone elses problems on facebook etc. tends to bring me down. Some folks-all they do is complain. It really bothers me! BETH STOP. Ok. Whew. Had to stop myself before I started complaining ABOUT the complainers! Oh the irony.


Where was I? Oh yes-I don't normally complain but I'm going to today.  It was one of those 'how can all these bad things happen today? It's a Friday & this is the sort of crap I'd never expect from a Friday. A Monday of course, or perhaps a disgruntled Tuesday but sheesh!' kind of days.


And I blame my husband for the whole rotten thing!  Let me explain why everything is his fault. (and if you're a woman perhaps you've made a similar lists detailing why everything that went wrong on a particular day was your husband/boyfriend's fault.  If so, feel free to nod in agreement while reading the rest of this entry. If not, you've just not been together long enough darlin, give it time.




I need focus!
(attention kind, not Ford kind).


So today I had an appointment to donate plasma. I do this twice a week. I'm compensated for my time/gas-and it does take me an hour to drive there and an hour to drive home again, so I'd call this a fair trade.  One day I'm sure I'll do an entire entry on how giving plasma makes me feel like one of the humans in the machines on the Matrix-I have this gut feeling that the staff are aliens and they're using my plasma to fuel their alien craft or for some other creepy, yet totally possible, scenario. But hey, they pay for my gas so I'm happy to help them out so long as they only probe me with the one needle at a time and only in the arm, thank you very much.


So today on the way to my appointment I ask Scott to send a text to my sister asking if she'd like to meet for coffee after.  I said 'Say I'm giving blood, should be done at 2 and will head straight to Jewels(our coffee hang-out).'  So he types away and then sits in silence and I assume he's done exactly what I have asked.  NEVER assume that your man has done exactly as you've asked! I learned this lesson a while ago and as I sat in the car I could hear the little voice in my head saying 'Are you SURE you want to assume this?' Of course not.


So I ask... 'What did you say?'
He says 'I told her you were giving blood and you'd text her when you were done.'
(insert smacking forehead sound here)
'Why would you say that?! I'll be driving and won't be able to text back and forth while driving.'
And here's where it all went wrong....
He says: 'What if you're not done at 2? What if there are complications?' at which point I should have just turned around and driven all the way home again... Of course, that'd be quite a boring story and not very 'blog-worthy' so you KNOW that's not what happened.
I tried to reason with him. 'I've done this quite a few times before, there's never complicatins. I'm very good at bleeding. It takes me 40 minutes and I'm done every time.'


except today.... because he HAD to say 'but what if blah blah blah.'  


After dropping Scott and B off to go swimming I arrive, I scan my finger in, answer the millions of questions you have to answer & sit and wait for the dreaded prick. 


The finger prick that is.
You see they have to test your blood-iron and protien-before they let you donate.  They do this every time.  I don't know what they use to prick my finger but this time it felt like whatever it was went in one side of my finger and came out the other side.  I didn't watch as they did it, but I did check my fingernail for puncture wounds after just in case.




So my captured blood spins around in this alien machine, determining if my plasma is suitable to run their space crafts, and then they say 'Right-up on the scales, and no-don't take your shoes off.'
GREAT!
After trying, unsuccessfully, to convince them that I had my 20lb flip flops on they let me step down.  (note to self, next time wear swimsuit only!)


Ok so I've been pricked and weighed, sounds like a good time to take my blood pressure and heart rate. (idiots!)
Of course my heart rate is a bit high so I said 'Well, you just stabbed me in the finger and then told me how fat I am, it was bound to happen!' This resulted in my having to sit on what I can only assume was a time out seat for 5 minutes, after which they'd check my heart rate again.  5 minutes later, when I'm called back, I though  "ok, that was only a minor complication, I can still make it to coffee on time and won't even tell Scott that this ever happened! As far as he knows-everything went as normal."


ya right
'Um, you have been deferred and have to see the nurse, please go back to your time out chair and wait til we say you can get up'.


 So I go back to the naughty seat.  By this point I've already decided it's all Scott's fault, he jinxed me.... but it was only the beginning.  If you know Scott at all you know he doesn't do things by halves. If he's gonna jinx me he's gonna do it good and proper!


So finally nurse Ratchet calls me over and asks if I have a bruise on my arm? She says it in a 'Have you been shooting up crack, you freak?' sort of way so I explained I DID have a bruise, from where they mercilessly stabbed me the last time to extract my plasma based alien fuel.  Apparently this was the right answer because I was not sent back to the time out chair.


Off to the probing table!
So, finger still slightly dripping, I climb up onto the table, get situated and wait.  Arm cuff goes on, iodine rubbed on for 45 minutes(or maybe it was only 30 minutes but I swear I'm covered just about elbow to wrist in it!) then the probe.


I was told on my first visit to always mention if anything felt strange, so when I lost all feeling in my arm I felt it best to mention this in case it was important...


'Do you think the cuff is too tight?' the staff member asks.
'I'm not sure really.' I said-looking at my hand which, at this point was looking more like hamburger meat than human skin. I wanted to add that-had I been able to feel my arm at all I might have known if the cuff was too tight, but thought it best not to since she had a whole cart of needles there. Never smart off to the needle lady!
So she messed with things and slowly feeling (and color) returned to my arm. Whew-complication over.
Or not so much!
If you've ever given plasma you know what happens-they take your blood out, separate the plasma from the red cells and then give you the red cells back. So they took out the first cycle of blood and when it came time to give the red cells back my arm started to swell like a balloon at the injection site and the staff ran over and said 'Right, you're done!'
What!?!
Thus the title of the blog-it seems today I can't even bleed right! Apparently the needle was touching my vein and so the blood couldn't go back in and decided to congregate at my elbow instead. 


Staff members put on appropriate hazmat gear before considering removing the needle and releasing pressure.  Not knowing where all of this blood was going to go once she pulled out the needle that was plugging the massive hole in my arm, I had visions of Mt. St Helens in my head. Fortunately it wasn't that bad. I was bandaged up (with ice back strapped to arm) given 2 full glasses of water to drink (cause lets face it-water's basically the same as blood so when you lose too much you should just drink water and you'll be ok) and was told to ice/heat/repeat and get the $%^^& outta there!


COMPLICATIONS!  grr.
Now I was going to be WAY too early for coffee so I went to the book store in the mall.  I nearly fell over at one point but no one saw, so that was ok.  By the time I found something remotely interesting to buy, and walked to the til, I have to say I was not feeling well at all.  The lady at the cash register asked me if I was ok and I said 'Yes... I think so.... but maybe not.' and I briefly explained what happened and this started a discussion which she felt required the involvement of the other cashiers as well. 
Fun times. . .
Anyway on the way out she said 'I hope you get better soon.' to which I replied 'Don't worry, it's just blood-it'll grow back.'
And if it doesn't I will just have a glass of water, right?


All this (and more-I didn't even tell you about the flat tire!) just because he HAD to say 'What if there are complications... I love Scott to bits but sometimes I think he needs a smack!

Nikki, the cat we got to scare away Steve....

When we moved into the old farm house we currently live in we were never told that there were already existing tenants.  The first night we stayed in the house they (existing tenants) made their presence known.  They were so effective in their endeavours that they scared the begeezus out of Scott all night long and he stayed on watch with a mag light until the sun rose!  The next day Scott had decided we were moving out.

It turns out that our house guests(though at this point they viewed US as THEIR guests) were typical of old farm houses in winter.  There were about 376 mice. And then there was Steve...


It took quite a few days of living in the already occupied house before we realized the nature of our squatter.  Finding a cupboard full of torn out insulation and empty nut shells was our first clue. 

So we discovered Steve. Now I feel its important to explain why he's called Steve. 

My son B was scared of the noises that 'Steve' would make. And by B, I of course really mean Scott...  Anyway we'd recently watched a movie called 'Over the Hedge' where a gang of critters discovers a Hedge which they are scared of. To make it less scary they name this hedge Steve and it's immediately less scary.  So, hoping this magical power transfered to other items/creatures we named the squirrel Steve. Immediately he was less scary, almost part of the family.  But, like all family members, he had overstayed his welcome. 

I tried writing a very nice, yet firm, note stating that we appreciated his watching the house for us before we moved in but it was time to move on.  Apparently my dot com English/Squirrel translator wasn't working properly because Steve read the note and interpreted it to mean 'Effective immediately! Get a girl squirrel to move in with you'. So now we meet 'Steve's girlfriend'. (That was, in fact, her name).

After the failed note & the arrival of Steve's girlfriend panic started to set in.  We had visions of going to the coffee pot in the morning to see Steve, Steve's girlfriend and all Steve's babies already there brewing a pot themselves!  Time for drastic measures.
(Insert menacing music)
Meet Nikki, our 'Steve the squirrel' catching cat.
Or so we'd hoped...

Turns out Nikki was a 'scaredy cat'. Who knew this was an actual breed?!  When we first got him he lived in the tumble dryer for about a week and would not come out. 

After allowing a brief settling in period we explained to Nikki why we'd hired him. He was to evict Steve and Steve's girlfriend.

Cancel menacing music!

Nikki had no intentions of catching Steve.  It turns out that Nikki is a free loading scaredy cat! We would here Steve running in the ceiling and we'd say to Nikki 'Get HIM' and Nikki would not move, or-even worse, would proceed to lick himself in inappropriate places which, later, we were required to explain to our 7 year old son. 

In the end we got a live trap and caught Steve ourself.  He now lives about 10 miles up the road.  Steve's girlfriend no longer comes around though we wish them both the best and hope they were able to make their long distance relationship work.

Here's Steve by the way...




Nikki still lives with us, we didn't have the heart to fire the useless bag of fur.

We also didn't have the heart to tell him he's not a human. 
He insists that he is!

For example, the first few days we had him he would not drink water out of his water bowl. He absolutely refused. He'd rather spill the water all over the floor for us to step in than drink it himself.

He would, however, drink water if it was in a cup. ONLY if it was in a cup. See photo!

Unfortunately he still thought it was funny to occasionally pour his water all over the place so we started to put it in the bathtub. Now he still spills, but we don't step in it in the middle of the night.

If this wasn't enough, he also likes to sit like a 'people'.

There is plenty more I could tell you about Nikki,(like his diet-he's vegetarian!)  but for now this will have to do. After all, it's a big old family here and everyone wants their story to be told...

Meet Scott & B.

I'd like to introduce you to the 2 supporting actors in the 'you made your bed, now lie in it' show that I call my life.

To date Scott and I are beating a lot of odds and still going strong. During our 'courting' period friends and family were very helpful and always willing to point out reasons our marriage was doomed to fail (and for the record, I love my friends and family for it, they were just doing their job!) Anyway topping the list at number 1 -We were young. I was 19 and he was 23. This was very closely followed by number 2- It was a long distance relationship. I lived in the USA and He lived in England.

12+ years later we're still together and even occasionally talk to each other.  So folks, I agree-sometimes it doesn't work out, but sometimes it does...

Stats on Scott:
Name- See above
Occupation: Yes
Age: 4 years older than me
Hobbies: Probably
Interests: Man stuff
Misc: He grew up in England but is a cowboy at heart. He has the patience of a saint and will do anything to keep the peace (thank goodness!)
Fortunately (for me) he's not really a blog reader! 


And now for B.
He's a 9 year old boy (with no job I might add!) with typical boy interests and hobbies.  I'm happy to be able to say this!  It wasn't that long ago that this child, cursed with parents who lived in a big city, thought that milk came from Tesco's (grocery store).  He is the reason we moved back to the USA.  While here on vacation he said he wanted to live here. Within a year of him saying this we'd sold our house and bought this one and the rest is history. Now he plays outside, gets dirty, plays baseball and is all in all pretty well rounded. Though I would like to add that it wasn't until we actually HAD chickens that he believed me when I told him where eggs came from.  Thank goodness he took my word for it when I explained about the milk!

An introduction, just so you know what you're getting yourself into.

Before we get into the heavy reading material filled with large amounts of sarcasm combined with poor attempts at bitterly dry humor, I thought it would be best to introduce you to most of the main characters who will be staring in this particular blog.  Please feel free to use this as a reference at any point in the future if you are finding it difficult to keep up with who is who. There are, after all, 19 (+ numerous cats) to keep track of.

First of all I've given a lot of thought to how we all should be listed-oldest to youngest, biggest to smallest etc and I've decided that I'll go first and the rest will be random depending on who's photos I find in what order.

Today we'll start with...

Me: 
Name~ Beth
Occupation ~ Habitual & compulsive hobby farmer with animal addiction
Age ~ >30 < 40 In other words-none of your business really unless you're buying me a gift for my birthday.
Hobbies ~ See above. Does it sound like I'm a person who has time for additional hobbies? !
Interests ~ (Yes, interests are different from hobbies. The word hobby implies something I spend my leisure time doing. Interests, on the other hand, are things I WISH I had leisure time to do.)  
*Reading(especially blogs-if you've got one let me know~ I'm quite nosey!) 
*Facebook (actually I do manage to find a significant amount of time each week to go on facebook and post the latest photos of our family shenanigans, so much time in fact that my husband is considering looking into a 12 step intervention/program that addresses compulsive hobby farming and facebooking at the same time. Fortunately for me no such program exists as of yet.)

Misc ~ Grew up in Wisconsin, moved to England for 11+ years and lived outside London, eventually came to my senses & moved back to rural Wisconsin. It's a fantastic place to raise kids and nurse animal-collecting habits.