Survival of the

There is a reason Monday is called Monday. That's a stupid sentence and the reason they call it Monday really has nothing to do with how awful the day can be. But still, there's a friggin' reason folks.
A while back, shortly after Tristan was born if I can remember at all (perhaps while I was still preggers), it dawned on me that some days were days that I was able to get stuff done. I could clean the house, do the laundry, bake the bread, and so on. I could be SuperMom.
And then there were the other days.
Those days were just "Survival Days." (And, for the record, I am not a fan of the tv show Survivor, never have been, never will be) If you're a stay at home mom, and especially if you're a homeschooler, you know what I'm talking about. Some days are just "Survival Days" and, during bad times, they can turn into "Survival Weeks" (awful vacations with relatives?), and so on.
Today has started off as a "Survival Day" so join with me as I count the ways:

Survival of the Homesteader & Homeschooler: This one gets lumped into two categories. Our hatching eggs did not hatch. Today ought to have been the magic day. We had pretty much given up hope since the gals had seemed to decide surrogacy wasn't for them.
We had gone the route of getting some eggs to hatch because if Mother Nature told the gals to go broody and sit on eggs we felt they deserved a chance to see that through. It also was a good homeschooling lesson about the cycle of life, animal behavior, and so on. Instead we watched as, one by one, 4 of the eggs were broken. Today I took the remaining two out of the nest box. The lesson we must learn from this is that while a hen may go broody that doesn't mean she wants to be a mama and that's ok too.

Survival of the Kitchen: This one comes in two parts. Right now one of those parts is a fart because Jomo the Wonder Gas Dog is laying near by blowing noxious fumes my way. Ironically, their awful stench takes away the next part.
~The Eggs~ The eggs I took out of the nest box I decided I would just cook up for the dogs for breakfast, knowing they were likely too old for us. I cracked them open into my cast-iron skillet and watched as broken yolk blended with the white and turned almost brown poured out. Then the smell began to hit. Not as bad as the usual "rotten egg" smell, but I do believe this was perhaps the TRUE rotten egg smell, not one I've been trained to know via faux scented chemicals. -- Lesson learned, don't do that again. Wash the skillet and get the shells to the compost NOW!
~The Bread~ Ok, this one happened last Wednesday but it was total Murphy's Law and I'm currently baking my first loaf of bread since then, so I thought I would share.
THE APPRAISER (doesn't he deserve all caps?) came out last Wednesday morning. 10am. I was so nervous I actually woke up and took a valium. I also decided, since we needed bread anyway, that I would bake a loaf of bread so that the aroma would entice him to appraise our house at 1 million dollars. ... Ok, maybe just at more than it appraised for when we bought it. My timing was perfect, the bread would come out of the oven while he was here.
He's climbing up into the attic when I hear a rustling in the kitchen. I turn around to see it filled with smoke, Justin holding the 1/2 burnt, 1/2 raw loaf of bread and exclaiming "who turned the oven up to 500 degrees?!?" ............ ok ...........
The chickens got the bread, the appraiser got a laugh (said it smelled like his wife's cooking), and I learned a lesson - THAT is why people use those fake scented Glade candles.
(For the record, I DID have a pot of vanilla, cinnamon, and cloves simmering on the stove top .. I just think the burnt bread aroma overwhelmed it)

Survival of lettuce: We broke down and picked up a few plants at Lowe's this weekend. Two Romaine lettuce plants, one 6-pack of Red Leaf lettuce, and two leek plants. Naturally, the temperatures have dropped from low 70's to upper 30's-mid 40's and rainy. The Romaine & the leeks seem to be doing fine. The Red Leaf isn't happy. Picky damn Red Leaf lettuce.

Survival of my ankle: I can't remember if I told you, but a little over a week ago I went to bed fine and woke up with a badly bruised ankle. I have no clue how it happened. No injury from earlier that came out as I slept. I was 100% sober when I went to bed. Just a mystery.
Anyway, the way to heal an injured ankle is, apparently, NOT climbing up on ladders, crouching in catcher position, and doing all the things I did while we tried to finish fixing up the house some. Ankle is still bothering me over a week later. Yesterday we went and picked up some Arnica pills and some more Arnica gel. I am contemplating a splint. Fun stuff.

Survival of the humans: Ok, maybe not the human race, but at least the humans who live in this house.
I wake up this morning to yelling. The boys have already lost the privilege of going to play with our other homeschooling friends this afternoon. -- Seriously, that is what I WOKE UP TO.
The boys were apparently up very early this morning and have been fighting non-stop. Justin gets up earlier than I do since he has to go to work. When I asked him what was going on he informed me how early they had gotten up and also how many times he had already gone in their room because they were fighting. He then kissed me goodbye and left for work.
I threw my head back onto the pillow, groaned, then rolled on out of bed (literally) and announced to no-one that this would be a long day.
Since the time breakfast was over and now the boys have already managed to get sent to their room for fighting -earning them the time-out and their first 'X' of the day. Three 'X's and they go to bed a 1/2 hour early.

And now you know why today is a "Survival Day." For the record, we also have the guy coming out to fix the washing machine. The maker of the machine is paying for the part, we're paying for the service, and the company fixing it is paying for the parts that the guy broke when he was here to examine it.
We're also signing our very last document before closing today. Numbers changed and so we had to resign the form, or sign the new form, whatever. We're not closing today, that day is scheduled for April 5th but there is a chance we might be able to close before then.
I've talked to the contractor and he's planning on coming back out possibly tomorrow evening. A friend (Hi Carole!!) gave us some tile and we're now looking at possibly putting tile in the tiny 1/2 bath off of our bedroom. We also need to discuss all the fun details: when can he start, how long will it take, how much money down as a deposit, and so on.

Now I'm going to drink my warm tea, keep an eye on the oven since the bread is in it, and get back to my chores. The boys are playing on our insanely out of tune piano, banging out their rendition of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' .. which vaguely resembles banging the keys from one end of the piano to the other and back again.
In the time of trying to type that Shannon has been sent to his room yet again. And Tristan is now in here asking for lunch .. as they have both been doing since 9am.

Yup ... it's a "Survival Day."


*** FOLLOW-UP NOTE: 1) It took me three tries to type the word 'note' correctly just now. 2) Apparently I am on a Bad-Bread-Bender. Loaf last week ruined because the oven mysteriously got cranked up to 500 degrees. Loaf today ruined because I forgot to add yeast. .... hope the chickens are hungry ...

Surrogacy & Sadness in Chicken Land

When I brought home the hatching eggs, I was very nervous. I was careful not to take turns too quickly for fear it would jostle the eggs in the wrong way. I was also nervous about Patti's broodiness and whether she would sit on them or not. As you know, she has decided to be broody by herself.

~Patti with Chicken PMS??~

In the above photo you can see her on the left, hunkered down and not moving, a dark ball of feathers. The eggs are in the nest box, she's outside. Motherhood is apparently not something she's interested in .. no matter how many times I catch her and sit her on the eggs. Do chickens just get PMS & bitchy?

However, all hope is not lost. The other chickens seem to have realized that there are eggs that need sitting on. One of our Americaunas (Easter Eggers) particularly has taken it upon herself to sit.

~The eggs are under there!~

I wasn't sure if she was just sitting there because she wanted to lay an egg, or because the eggs needed sitting on. However, yesterday we didn't get any blue or green eggs, and she spent the better part of the day on there.
What is funny is that she seems to know that they aren't her eggs. If I look in there she'll occasionally hop up, but remain on the roost in front of the nest boxes. She hasn't minded me messing with the eggs if I've felt I needed to.
Yesterday, if she wasn't in that box, another chicken was. Note - Patti the broody was NEVER in there except for the fleeting moments after I caught her and sat her on there until she hopped out to go sit in the yard, or on the floor of the coop. ... bitch.

And so, that is how yesterday went. The gals have seemed to pull together to ensure that those eggs are kept warm. And they were, finally. They were warm to the touch this morning.


~"Butch Patti" & Ann Bancroft -- I'm being watched.~

This afternoon I was snapped out of the rainy day induced afternoon & nap-time lulls by a very loud ruckus.

"bwak-bwak-bwak-bwak-BWAK!! bwak-bwak-bwak-bwak-BWAK!! bwak-bwak-bwak-bwak-BWAK!! bwak-bwak-bwak-bwak-BWAK!!"

Normally this noise is a heads-up that there is an egg out there. So, I meandered on out there a minute later to check for the egg. So far, we've only gotten one egg today, a green one.

Instead, I found one of the hatching eggs cracked, with a little hole in it's side. Nothing had oozed out yet. The biddies were all in the coop, most of them staring back at me. One of the Americaunas was on the roost, pacing.
I stood there, staring at the broken egg for a minute before gingerly lifting it out. The other eggs were still warm, and I gave them a turn over just to be safe. I looked in at the floor of the coop, and there were no new eggs to be found anywhere. When I went inside I once again heard the call: "bwak-bwak-bwak-bwak-BWAK!! bwak-bwak-bwak-bwak-BWAK!! bwak-bwak-bwak-bwak-BWAK!! bwak-bwak-bwak-bwak-BWAK!!" (I've found if I take an egg too soon they will sometimes get upset and squawk at me). Happy chickens they were not at that moment.

I brought the egg inside and hesitantly cracked it open into a bowl. Nothing dramatic fell out. I could definitely tell this egg had been fertilized, and when I broke open the yolk with a knife, I felt resistance from a white spot in it. It could've perhaps one day been a chick, but that wasn't Mother Nature's plan. I couldn't bring myself to feed it to the dogs, so I poured it down the drain. It was a sad moment.

It has shocked me to see how much these little eggs have affected us. How connected with them we already are, though we keep repeating to ourselves that they may not hatch.

I just went back out there to check on the gals. Everyone except for LadyBird was in the coop. LadyBird was keeping her ever watchful eye at the door.
I opened the lid to the nest boxes. Both were occupied. The one without the eggs was taken by "Butch Patti", the one with the eggs held Ann Bancroft.
The surrogacy & egg-sitting shifts have resumed.