Marmalade wants you to know that i have been writing hard and well.

A large post is coming.

Until then have a fabulous weekend.

This one is for chair who lost her cat, Job, last week.

We, being not overwhelmed enough, have added a new family member. He is a christmas present for the kids, who have been relentless for the past month.

His name is Marmalade. He is lucy's new best friend. The girls are both allergic, but we are hoping it will pass.

I think i've mentioned that i have had problems with raccoons and *gulp* a cougar in my yard. Most of my chickens have been killed. The raccoons going so far as chewing their way into the chicken house one night.

I have three chickens left who have gone completely wild. They won't go near the coop, instead roosring high up in the trees every night.

I've been holding my breath over the last few days because stanley, our old english bantam rooster, has been missing. He was one of the first chickens i had and the only one to really become a pet.

The kids carried him around, took him down the slide and fed him special treats. He would follow us around outside, alongside the dogs, a member of the family.

But, he's gone. And i'm sad about it. Silly being sad about a rooster. Probably it's the total loss of all my chickens that saddens me more.

I'm going to wait until the spring to get anymore.

I think i've talked about pesto before. My lovely, smelliest dog in the world.

He protects me when shane is away.

I bought pesto out of the back of a pickup truck in the parking lot of a mall in victoria. Before i was married. Shane and i loved him like a child. The sure sign of a young couple destined to marriage and children is when they start to purchase pets together.

It might start with an aquarium, or a kitten. Personally, i don't think rodents count.

Pesto is 11 years old now. He suddenly has little tumors. He still acts like a puppy, but he is getting old. He is getting them removed next week and then i will know if it's cancer or something more benign.

I'm hoping for the good news to come, because my heart can't take death right now and all the discussions with children.

Last night i was complaining to my country vet friend that my chickens have stopped laying eggs. No green eggs for over a month.

It all started when two of the hens got broody and started sitting on eggs right before i went to california. They were each sitting on six eggs. I marked each one with a black "x" because chickens? Not so smart. Each day i'd go in and the other ten hens had gone in, sat on top of the broody hen, and layed another egg in the clutch. At the end of the day the little broody hen would be spread out, flat as a pancake, over a dozen or more eggs. Struggling to keep all of them warm.

I'd reach under them and grab the non-x'ed eggs and toss them into the woods because i cannot eat eggs at the same time as chicks are forming in other eggs. City girl mental block.

Generally chickens hatch after 21 days, but from history i know it can sometimes take up to 27 days. After 30 days we had no chicks. I solemnly took out all the eggs and threw them in the trash. And then?

They all stopped laying.

So, my vet friend said "you have to think like a chicken. You need to expect them to act like chickens, not people."

Sounds simple. So, this morning i went out to watch them and think like a chicken. The first one up and out of the house is dumptruck the rooster. He crows a bit and then stands at the door and as each hen jumps out he drops his wing, does a little horny dance and proceeds to chase her around the coop until she gives in and lets him jump on top of her for a very quick quickie.

Thinking like a chicken? Those damn roosters are annoying. And, about a month or so ago shane, tired of chicken poo on the balcony, spent an entire weekend securing the chicken run so that they couldn't get out anymore.

So, my chicken brain is telling me that those hens are sending me a message that they want that damn rooster out of their house so that they can lay some eggs in peace. My girly heart had been telling me that they were sad about the chickless eggs. But my chicken brain told me No! They will gladly kill and eat chicks after they hatch. They don't give a hoot about those chicks, chickens don't think that way.

So, dumptruck? He's been sentenced to a life outside the chicken run. At least for awhile.

I love animals. Always have. When i was young i dreamed of being a veterinarian. Those hopes were squashed by my complete lack of logical thinking and ability to pass biology 12.

Any romantic notion i had of being vet. have been trampled by my friends the large animal and small animal veterinarians. I could tell you some stories, like the cow that had to be put down so they shot it in the head in the barn in the evening and when they came back in the morning it was out grazing in the fields.

This afternoon we attended a "farm family picnic" at our friends dairy farm. It was a lovely evening, out in the fields with hayrides, cow pie tossing and obstacle courses. Did you know that calves will suck on your hand if given the opportunity? It is like a giant sandpaper hoover - full of slimy drool.

As we were leaving our friends called us back because one of the cows was about to deliver a baby. We watched as she pushed and moaned. It was absolutely incredible. The calf came out front legs first, followed by a tongue sticking out and a little black snout. From start to finish it took about thirty minutes. It was a magical experience for me. Brought me back to my own births; the pain, the joy.

It was the perfect thing to pull me out of my slump and show me once again the incredible gift of life and children.

This summer is exactly two weeks old. We have packed in so much fun already that i feel like my job is done and i can just curl up in my hammock with a glass of wine and a good book and partake in the alcoholic summer.

Except for the kids.

I have people related to me visiting this week and my time will be taken up with familial love and joyfulness.

This morning we partook in a fabulous world cup soccer brunch complete with champagne and orange juice. I have never had that bubbly combination before (except at the morning after party at highschool graduation and i suspect that the parents switched for the non-alcoholic kind) and it was yummy.

This evening my husband switched his sissy office worker hands for rural licensed weapons to kill.

I went out to the chicken coop to check on things and collect eggs. A hen was in the coop and i noticed her breathing was laboured and she seemed listless. As i looked closer i noticed THINGS crawling all over her. Maggots.

I ran inside and told shane "we have a problem!"

He marched out and after a little discussion and pep talk he killed our poor little hen. It all sounds so gross and disgusting, well it was actually. But, i was really proud of us. Us squeamish city folk. Dealing with death, dying, suffering.

The chickens have been roosting in the trees, which is annoying in it's own right because roosters? They wake up at 4am. They wake EVERYBODY up at 4am. But roosting in trees? It's shows how dumb chickens are because they are prime bait for every predator in the neighbourhood there. I suspect an owl or something took a bit of her and it got infected and gross. Poor hen. She had no name.

Chickens owned - 67
Chickens missing or dead - 49

Chickens. Not for the weak of heart.

Harry Potter was our little sick rooster. I couldn't tell what was wrong with him. He couldn't walk. One leg would lay straight backwards and the other forwards. Like the rooster splits. He's just a bantam so he fits in the palm of your hand.I thought it was something broken.

We kept him in the hospital wing of our coop for a whole week. Taking him out on the grass for some sunshine and food and water twice a day. If we left him with the other chickens the other two roosters, stanley and dumptruck, attacked him.

Last night i was on the phone with my farmer friend talking to him about it. "I know i have to kill him, but how do you do that?" Terrified. Obviously.

He offered to come over and either do it or show me how. I felt like a lame-ass, but so relieved.

We took harry potter out on the grass and watched him for awhile. My friend got on the phone with his wife who was a vet. They did many tests chatting back and forth. It wasn't broken legs. Something neurological - perhaps contagious.

When it was time to kill harry i had to go hide in the bushes. All my kids watched as well as his son. They are so much braver. I think they don't comprehend how valuable life is and how easy death comes. I also think that changed a little for them last night.

When i talked to them before bed to make sure they were okay, they all were. Especially toby who said;

"Oh yeah! Because i'm going to be a farmer when i grow up!"

It's hard to beat the manliness of our farmer friend.

RIP harry potter rooster.

Still (knock on wood) no lice on the kids heads, but the chickens, my god the chickens. I have the worst case of heeby jeebies ever. Seriously.

The lady i bought my chickens from had some heavy duty spray that she sprayed on their butts (vents) and necks and then declared them "lice free for six months." I need that spray and nobody has it. I know not many of you are chicken owners, but please! I need the super toxic lice killing spray.

Fork it over.

Actually, heh, in an interesting turn of events the kids and i are off to vancouver for my quarterly haircut and shane will be left to deal with this problem for the next few days.

I'm not really kidding anybody here am i? He will do exactly nothing except toss them some food every now and then and, hopefully, lock them up at night and let them out in the morning.

Luckily we escaped the lice thing because, quite frankly, lice followed immediately by the plague is more than my weakened heart can handle.

However, in a cruel twist of fate my chickens have lice! Aaaah. I have been assured by my veterinarian sources that chicken lice is species specific. I found it first on stanley the rooster (pictured above). He is our little pet chicken. I discourage the kids from calling any of the other chickens pets because they die or get killed all the time and they're gross.

So anyways, i was walking around holding stanley when i lifted his feathers on his neck and OH MY GOD SHIT SHIT SHIT ... "BUGS!"

I double dog dare you not to feel those things crawling all over you after seeing a site like that.

*massive shudder*

I dusted all the chickens and the coops and roosts with some highly toxic delousing powder. All seems well now, not that i have checked too closely.

And one of the hens has a cold. She keeps sneezing. The plague is spreading to the barnyard.

• i'm learning some html ho-ho!
• chair's revenge for my valentine slacker husband is too good not to share "Run him a nice sexy hot bath -complete with bubbles (this is important). When you're in the middle of a back rub and he has his eyes closed, dump a packet of that Rit dye powder into the water and quickly smooth bubbles over the area so he doesn't know the water is full of dye until! Until! It's Too Late!!" So awesome. I'll have to think up a prize for her.
• Remember that chevy chase movie where he buys a house in the country and it all goes to crap? Remember the dog that they bought that instantly ran away and you would see it run by every now and then? That is what my rooster i owned for four minutes is doing. Every now and then i hear his cock-a-doodle do's and then see him go running by somewhere out in the woods. Crazy rooster.
• Lost! Tonight! Although i'm not really feeling it lately it's still fun to watch. I totally have a crush on the junkie boy. So cute!
• tomorrow? i dunno but they say it's going to snow!

I cracked open the teeny tiny green egg and it had no yolk. There have been no more teeny tiny green egg incidents. The sky is apparently not falling.

Last night, as i already mentioned, we had a major thunderstorm. When i went out to let the chickens out i found this in the coop:

That is the smallest, greenest egg ever.

In an effort to limit my driving time i am attempting to teach lucy to drive.

Wow. Where does time go? How is it that christmas is in just a few days?

Yesterday was a rough day. Poor turkey. I kept thinking about him all day. We dropped him off in the morning at the processing plant, got a look at the process, made sure it was all as painless as murder can be and left with instructions to pick him up at 6 - what was left of him at least.

Geez, i am not built for this. I hold strong to my conviction that if you're gonna eat it you should be able to deal with the face that came before it, but, it's tough. Anyway, he's in the fridge and he looks completely different than your average butterball. Plus, he's way smaller than i anticipated. All the free-ranging made him lean.

I think i'll make a roast chicken at the same time. I have four chickens in the freezer that a friend raised. We've been eating those no problem. I'm not sure what the difference is, but it's there.

I bet you never thought you'd hear someone go on so much about a damn turkey.

Enough turkey talk!

gobble, gobble