BOO!

Well,  I managed to pull off a successful Halloween party.  It is probably a good thing I was nine months pregnant and on bed rest when I got married because I think I could have been a major Bridezilla.

I started planning this party about a month ago when I opened my big mouth and offered to throw this shindig for a sad ten year old boy who was feeling a little lonely in his new surroundings. What better way to make your kids popular than to throw a kick ass party and invite their classmates to witness first hand your family's awesomeness?  I know, it is kind of fucked up, but when you become a parent you will do just about anything to make your children happy.

I remember back in the early 90's there was this movie starring Holly Hunter about a mother who puts out a hit on her daughter's cheerleading rival.  It was based on a true story and I remember thinking, "What the hell kind of person would do that?" Now that I am a mother, I can kind of see how she got there.

Preparations for the Haunted Barn Party began in earnest about two weeks ago.  After spending countless hours perusing Halloween ideas on the time suck that is Pinterest and a few hundred dollars on party decorations we started setting up the haunted house on top floor of the barn.  For anyone out there who is thinking about doing a haunted house, these are my three must have purchases: fog machine, creepy sound effects CD and lots of fake spiderweb stuff. If you have a few thousand dollars you may also want to hire a professional lighting technician, a few professional actors to scare the shit out of people, and a special effects make up person, because according to Scrappy Doo, our party didn't scare anyone.  Lucky for him I had PMS the week before, otherwise I may have murdered him.

I snapped at Prince more than once as he attempted to decorate without consulting me.  I had my vision and he wasn't seeing it.  I didn't really start completely riding my broomstick though until two days before the big event. Why hadn't the husband put all of his crap away in the bottom of the barn?  Where was that little room he was supposed to build upstairs to put his tools in?  When the hell were the electricians going to come finish putting electricity in the barn?  Goddamn it!  Didn't everyone know I had a party to throw?

















Three days before the party I had the menu set and all of the food purchased.  Most of the decorations in the barn were complete and I spent 8 straight hours carving jack-o-lanterns to put out in the front yard with the fake tombstones that the dog kept snagging out of the ground. I think he finally got the message that he had better stay clear of the graveyard when I ran after him screaming and wielding the large kitchen knife I was using to carve the pumpkins.

The day before the party the husband arrived from a business trip.  He had a huge box of the most disgusting candy you could imagine.  Every last bit had at least three different food dyes in it just in case the high fructose corn syrup didn't do the trick in getting the kids worked up into a complete frenzy.  Instead of going over to Amish Eldin's to steal some clothes off the line and go as an Amish to the party, he decided to be a zombie Candy Store owner.  I was going to be the creepy old lady who lived in the haunted house and just sit by the window and rock in a rocking chair.

The electricians finished wiring the barn and the husband finished cleaning up the barn so he was no longer on my shit list. Some friends arrived from the city and I calmed down a bit.  I woke up at five the next morning and started the tedious business of making cheese stick fingers and eyeball donuts. With only an hour before the guests were scheduled to arrive, I still needed to set up apple bobbing and set all the food out.  Luckily my wonderful city friends were on hand to finish the mummy hot dogs and pour me a glass of wine.

At 4:03 people started arriving and I was not in my rocking chair yet.  I was now kicking myself for not insisting that the haunted house portion of the evening be held after dark.  By the time I got upstairs, every child had either blue, red or green teeth depending on which nasty candy they decided to try first. I pretended to be dead in the chair.  I think I freaked a couple of the younger kids out a little but for the most part they all just ran around screaming and sucking on baby bottles filled with neon sugar topped with lollipop nipples. (Yes this really is a candy you can buy.)

By the time it was actually dark enough to be scary in the haunted barn, the kids were outside in the yard and we had lost all control over any organized activities.  I did manage to get a large group together for apple bobbing.  The husband stuck his whole head in and thrashed about like an angry shark until he pulled an apple out.  I have to admit being married to the biggest kid in the room always makes for a fun time.

Our friends' band entertained us on this unusually warm October night and the almost full moon was just enough light for the kids to play manhunt in the backyard.  We were only slightly worried we might have to organize a search party for kids lost in the woods. By 8:00 many of the local families began to leave.  One kid said to the husband, "Thanks for the best party ever!"

We shipped the kids and the dads out to the barn to sleep and James Dean and his buddies stripped off their shirts in order to participate in Pee Wee Fight Club. I am happy to report Scrappy Doo held his own.

 The next morning our city friends hit the road early in anticipation of the storm. I surveyed my house which looked like Sandy had already swept through.  Cleanup would have to wait. My dreams of having the boys shower me with affection and gratitude for a fabulous party and new found social status were quickly squashed by the onslaught of teary eyes and sullen faces.  Everyone was sad the weekend was over so quickly and apparently there was nothing to look forward to except death.

So here I am in my messy house waiting for the boys to come home early from school because of the weather.  Lots of board games are in my future as are hopefully many more magical memories with family and friends here on the farmette.

Fiber Heaven

This past weekend I got to go to the New York Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY.  My mother-in-law was going to pick up two angora goats she had purchased from someone who was showing at the Festival and I decided to tag along to find out a little more about sheep.

My mother-in-law is starting a fiber business on her new farm.  She already has two pregnant alpaca, a handsome llama and now two Rasta goats.  She is an accomplished knitter and wanted to get there on friday so she could see the wool judging.  Let me tell you, these people take their wool very seriously.  A group of giddy women and a tall Texas cowboy examined and discussed each entry like art critics.  We were informed that we could not speak to any of the judges nor could we touch any of the wool.  Perhaps a payola scandal in the past?

We wandered around the rows of fluffy fiber stuffed into plastic bags trying to find the perfect wool to blend with m-i-l's other hairy beasts.  The aroma was gamey to say the least and I soon discovered that the pretty pale yellow color that shaded some of the wool was not actually a beautiful result of years of careful breeding but rather piss stains and the brown "tips" that were an automatic deduction on the judging scale, were poop.  I decided to stop secretly shoving my hands into each soft bag.

We then decided to go check out some of the animals that were being trimmed and primped in anticipation of the next day's competitions.  The sheep were amazing.  Very gentle creatures with deep voices and gorgeous eyes.  One nearly fell asleep as we petted his head.  Goats on the other hand, are insane.  You can see it in their eyes.  They have that vacant hillbilly stare like a kid from the Ozarks whose father is also his uncle. I knew immediately I made the right decision to make sheep cheese and not goat cheese.

We soon found the goats we would be driving back with in a RAV 4 and were less than impressed by these grubby little girls.  There was hay all matted in their dreadlocks along with poop and what appeared to be some loosey goosey poop coming out of their back sides.  M-i-l was not pleased and we decided to go to dinner and figure out how she could get out of the deal.  

We went back to festival bright and early the next day prepared to demand a refund for the dirty goats but were soon convinced by the owner that they were merely wet from a long rainy ride in an open trailer and the loosey goosey was only pee shallac on the "tags" attached to their hind quarters.   M-i-l decides to take them after all and went off to visit the rest of the show before we load them up.

We walk into one big tent and are immediately greeted with eight beautiful angora bunnies.  Without skipping a beat we find out if they are for sale and before I know it, m-i-l is the proud owner of three bunnies and I own one.  When I later meet up with my BFF from college and tell her about my latest animal purchase she asks, "Didn't we just have a conversation about how boring rabbits are and you kind of regret getting Baby Bunny?"

"Yes.  Yes we did, but I am going to breed my girl with m-i-l's boy and have a little angora fiber business of my own.  I may even be a vendor here next year. Plus, the boys will get to have thousands of baby bunnies.  What could be cuter?"

I have visions of angora hats and mittens for the whole family.  I will save tons of money on clothes.  I will just spin angora hair in my free time and whip up some outfits for the whole family.  Just so you know, I came to the Sheep and Wool Festival two years earlier and bought a bunch of beautiful yarn with the belief that I was going to become a knitter.  I was going to make quirky hats and fetching scarves for the kids that would cause people to stop us on the streets of NYC to ask where we got such fabulous accessories. I just finished my first hat a couple of months ago.

Women at the Festival are all decked out in their flashiest knitted pieces that they made from fiber purchased at last year's festival. The talent and creativity at this event is mind blowing and I feel very humbled by my lack of knowledge or aptitude for knitting, but I am OK with it.  I am not a crafter. I am a foodie who would much rather stand in the kitchen for hours coming up with a new umami blueberry jam recipe than sit down with a skein of yarn. Maybe my little bunny business will be hassenpfeffer instead of mittens.

We load up the SUV with some hay, two goats and four bunnies and head out on a stinky but luckily bleat free ride home.  My m-i-l takes my bunny back home with her so we can hopefully pick up a pregnant bunny at Thanksgiving. Maybe we will have some cute little County Fair contestants next summer.

I Am Woman Hear Me Roar

The first frost has hit at the farmette. The chickens were all huddled in their nesting box refusing to step foot outside and pretty much everything in the garden is dead except for the greens which I covered.

As the weather gets colder I am realizing that the mice get bolder. I have found evidence of the little rodents under my sink but I have so far chosen to be in denial about the fact that they could actually get into the house. We have two cats so I am hopeful that the mice won't dare venture into the enemy territory, but Big Kitty prefers to kill our neighbor's mice and bring the corpses back to us and itty bitty kitty is not much bigger than a mouse herself.

Please don't think I am some sort of girly girl.  I can use power tools and have been known to tell a good fart joke at the dinner table, but I hate mice.  Actually I hate: mice, rats and snakes.

My criteria for hatred is if it surprises you by running or slithering out of nowhere and/or if the babies are not cute but merely smaller versions of the adults, then I hate it.  Have you ever seen a cute snake?

You may argue that a baby mouse is cute.  No it isn't.  It is just smaller.  The fact that the young of these three species are not cute is just their way of saying, "Fuck you.  I don't have to rely on being cute for my survival because I can scare the shit out of you."

"Well," you may say, "A lion could rip your head off and their young are ridiculously cute."

This is true, but you are probably going to see that lion coming at you before you step on it and I love the movie, "Born Free."

"What about Ratatouille?" you ask.

I hated that movie.  The whole time I was just thinking how gross it was that there was a rat in the kitchen.

When we lived in the city there were always rodents lurking in the shadows.  Rats are the ones that really send me round the bend. There was a rumor going around a few years ago that rats were getting into apartments through the plumbing in our midtown neighborhood and jumping out of toilets at unsuspecting bare bottoms.  Come to think of it, this may be just the rumor I need to spread about our guest bathroom so children stop pooping in the pee only toilet.

One morning back then I was nursing baby Scrappy Doo in the bedroom when James Dean came in.

"I just saw Mickey Mouse in the kitchen."

My heart starts racing knowing he wasn't watching the Disney Channel.  "How big was it?"

He uses his hands to show me that Mickey Mouse is the size of a small dog.

I leap out of the bed, tug James Dean into the room, run into the other room to get Prince and barricade all of us in the bedroom. I call the husband at work to tell him.

"What do you want me to do?" he asks.

"Um, come home and kill it"

"I can't. I am in a meeting."

I was horrified.  This was a matter of life and death and he wasn't going to come home?  I got everyone dressed and ran out of the apartment.

It seems James Dean exaggerated a bit and the giant rat was actually a little mouse, which we caught in a trap.  I was still creeped out though and a few days later we had Big Kitty.

When we bought the farmette, Big Kitty was in heaven.  The lazy indoor cat suddenly turned into a fierce warrior.  There were dead mouse offerings waiting for us each morning at both the back and front doors.  I told myself it was OK because country mice were not as gross as city mice and they were outside not in my house.

That seems to have changed after our kitchen renovation.  There appears to be a hole under the sink that leads down into the basement.  My first thought was poison, but with the dog, cats, and chickens,  I couldn't risk anyone snacking on a poisonous mouse carcass. The decapitation traps were out for the same reason, plus I would not want to clean up that mess.  Glue traps were the way to go.

I laid out five traps the first night;  two under the sink, two between the stove and counter and one on the counter. The next morning they were all gone.

The husband was back in the city and I was envisioning a scenario similar to the time he set the Have A Heart Trap on a Sunday and left for the city the next morning before I woke up to find the meanest mama groundhog spitting and hurling her body at the sides of the trap in an attempt to escape.  We had caught two of her babies before this and relocated them a few miles down the road. The little ones were yes cute, and also really mellow.  They had no problem with the relocation.  Mama was another story.

After I covered the mama up with a moving blanket, dragged the trap over to the minivan, and hoisted her in, I called the boys to come get in the car so we could reunite mama with her babies.  I looked in the rearview mirror for a moment at my shirtless babies strapped into the back seat a mere foot from a crazed wild animal who wanted to tear us apart.  I jumped out of the car and hustled the kids out. I hoisted the spitting demon back out of the van and dragged the trap into the shade so she wouldn't die of exposure on the hot summer day.  Luckily I found someone to take her away.

I know, a mouse is probably not as dangerous as a large pissed off groundhog, but the thought of one of them chewing its little leg off and hobbling around my kitchen in the middle of the night was enough to make it hard to sleep.

The next night I opened up the doors under the sink to lay out some new traps.  Itty bitty kitty and the dog were very interested and I knew one of the mice must still be stuck to a glue trap out of sight. Itty Bitty climbed in the hole and disappeared. Pepper tried to shove his big head in there as well but jumped back as the kitten shot up stuck to a glue trap along with a little mouse.   My first reaction was to scream but I didn't want to wake the kids.  I grabbed a towel and threw it over the trap, pulled Itty Bitty's paw off, opened the back door and threw towel, mouse and trap out onto the deck. I was so proud of my little girl and myself.

I am slowly coming to terms with my fear of ugly animals. When I see a snake in the yard I no longer jump up and down and scream, "Kill it! Kill it!  Kill it" as I push the husband in the snake's direction.  I can now pick up an earthworm WITHOUT gardening gloves, and  I can dispose of a mouse.  All that said,  I won't deny being ecstatic that the husband just fixed the hole under the sink.

Now here is a little video of two animals that fit my definition of cute:

Garden variety sex education

A while back I wrote about my rather brownish green thumb.  The couple of dozen tomatoes I managed to grow are just turning red.  My beans were attacked by some little bastard rodent.  My broccoli heads are puny, thanks in part to my friend the flea beetle. It just wasn't a stellar season in the garden of the farmette.

The one thing that seemed to grown beautifully were the many different variety of squash.  I boasted about them on Facebook after feeling more than a little inadequate upon seeing pictures of Prince's godfathers' garden. Check it out on Pinterest:
http://pinterest.com/douglasatkin/the-hidden-garden/

"Garlic the size of my fist!" was the caption under the image of the bushel of large beautiful garlic heads.  Well, mine were the size of the quarter used in the comparison.

Their garden is also beautiful.  A gorgeous stone wall surrounds the raised beds that seem to produce five times the amount of produce as my 750 square foot behemoth. A little metal bistro table with two chairs are set up in the middle so they can enjoy a cold drink while they snap their 50lbs of beans.  The only problem they have is the chipmunk that likes to steal some of the tasty veggies.

What?!  A chipmunk?  As in one? We have a hideous 12 foot fence surrounding our garden with electric wire strewn throughout.  It makes a supermax look low tech in comparison, and still we have all sorts or break ins.  Detecting a bit of jealously?

In my attempt to turn lemons into lemonade, I decided to concentrate my attention on the success of the squash.

The plants started growing like crazy.  I had to train one vine through the ugly fence because there was no more room in its bed. There were all sorts of blossoms with promise of lots of delicious squash that we would be eating throughout the winter.  I got a little impatient though because none of the flowers seemed to be producing any fruit.

I had read in a magazine that you can pollinate your own plants just by taking a QTip and rubbing some pollen from one flower into another flower.  How unbelievably cool is that? I felt like Mother Nature impregnating all of my little squash plants.

I am a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't realize I was trying to impregnate the boy flowers until I came upon a girl flower.  I am sure many of you are thinking, "Didn't she take biology?" But the fact is I cannot remember high school biology.  I can't even remember who my biology teacher was.  I remember my chemistry teacher because he was a basket case who looked like he was about to go Postal at any given moment, which kept me on my toes. And my physics teacher was this wacky woman who looked like Olive Oil from Popeye but was a really great teacher.   No memory of the biology teacher though.  Any of my high school friends who read this, a little help here.

For anyone else out there who is as clueless as I was, there is indeed a girl flower that will bear the fruit and a boy flower that will supply the pollen.  I was so excited by this discovery that I dragged the boys up to the garden to teach them this important prequel to sex ed.

I first show them the stamen of the boy squash blossom and ask if they think it is the boy blossom or the girl blossom.  They all look around like they might die of boredom and shrug their shoulders.

I then open the girl blossom and asked again.  "Which one do you think is the boy blossom and which one is the girl?"

James Dean's eyes bug out of his head as he yells, "Are those tic tacs?" He stares at the little orange stigma inside the blossom in the hopes that they might be his favorite candy.  For one glorious moment he must have really thought you could grow candy in the garden.

They still all shrug their heads and I nudge them along a bit.  "Doesn't this look like a penis?" I ask as I point to the stamen.  All three snicker, "Yeah."

I go on to wax poetic about the wonders of nature and how the bees pollinate the flowers so the squash will grow.  I then show them how they can do it too.  They don't seem to share my enthusiasm.

"Can we go back down now?"  Scrappy Doo asks.

"Fine," I sulk.  Sex ed lesson over.

With the boys gone I go about my job of helping the bees pollinate.

It didn't dawn on me until a couple of weeks later that some of the squash seemed a little strange.  I didn't think much of it since in keeping with my tradition of painstakingly listing all of my seedlings in a notebook, only to neglect to label the pots I transplanted them into;  I meticulously mapped out my garden, only to throw some random squash seeds in, when it appeared that the butternut and acorn squash were not going to grow.  I told myself I would just thin the mounds out if everything started to grow.

Well boys and girls, there is this little phenomenon called cross pollination.  I assumed the weird white acorn squash was a result of the blue hubbard seeds I randomly planted and the tall green pumpkin that was supposed to be a pie pumpkin, must be green because it just needs to ripen.

It didn't dawn on me that I was channeling my inner Dr. Moreau and not my inner Mother Nature, until I attempted to chop up a soft skinned patty pan squash. I couldn't get my knife into it.  When I finally cut it open, the normally white flesh was actually a pale orange.

In my zealous attempt to pollinate the squash, I must have been knocking up all of the female squash blossoms up with the prolific acorn squash sperm.  I now have acorn/pumpkin, acorn/pattypan, acorn/zucchini and acorn/hubbard.

Luckily it all still tastes good even if it is a little hard to cut the zucchini. I decide to save the seeds and see what happens next year.  Maybe I discovered a new super squash that is pest resistant and will end global hunger?  I guess I had better come up with a name for it.

Date night at Walmart

It has been a rainy week up at the farmette.  Swimming lessons are over and school is in full swing.  Scrappy Doo of course runs to the bus every morning with a smile on his face and returns in the same state, but Prince and James Dean are a little weary and missing their friends in the city.

My mommy guiltometer is registering a 9.5 since I promised them a Mayberry existence up here with ponies and puppies, so I start thinking of ways to turns those frowns upside down.   More animals are out at this point since the chicken Taj Mahal is not ready yet and the fencing is not up for wooly four legged friends.

I've got it!  Let's have a Halloween party in the barn and invite city friends and new friends.  We will turn the second floor of the barn into a Haunted House and the front yard into a graveyard.  It will be awesome!! Once again I open my mouth before my brain has had a chance to really think this thing through, but now there is no way out.

The kids are stoked. Prince has a hundred ideas, which will cost a few thousand dollars each.  I nix all of them.  I am actually kind of a control freak when it comes to parties.  I love to throw them and can't tolerate stupid ideas, aka ideas that are not mine. The only person I would probably allow to take over a party would be a certain Swiss friend of mine who can turn water glasses or a couple of rolls of toilet paper into the most beautiful centerpiece you have ever seen.  Bitch.

Anyway, the kids are all in a frenzy about having this party. They each want to invite about ten kids from the city.  Some of these kids I don't even think they ever spoke to at school but whatever.  I have to slow them down a bit because a bunch of five, eight and ten year old aren't going to be driving themselves up here so there will be parents and siblings coming as well and everyone will be sleeping over and using our one and a half baths.

I say one and a half baths not because there is one shower and two toilets but because one of toilets will only accommodate pee.  No crapping allowed.  The toilet stopped really flushing about a year ago.  I told the husband I was going to replace it myself thinking that would motivate him to do it, but it only illicited his WTF look and a cocky "Go ahead."  So needless to say, there is still only one toilet you can defecate in and inevitably some kid will end up pooping in the pee only toilet and that will leave us with one toilet.

They each agree on three city friends.  I of course have to invite some of my BFFs as well.  It will be a tight squeeze, but hopefully the kids can sleep in the barn and I will just lace the brownies with some Imodium to cut back on the toilet use.

I spend the entire next day on Pinterest looking for Haunted House ideas and am now as excited as the kids.  I promise them a trip to Walmart on Friday after school so we can start purchasing some decorations.

Friday rolls around and I tell the husband we are going to Walmart if he wants to come and he does. The kids and I immediately head for the Halloween section which is stocked to the hilt. The husband mutters something about plastic junk and goes in search of a snack.

"Mommy, can we get a smoke machine?"

"Of course we can Prince.  What kind of Haunted House would it be without a smoke machine!"

"How about this 7 foot tall zombie?"

"You betcha James Dean. And don't forget the tombstones with the dead bodies coming out"

Within about 10 minutes the cart is full and I am starting to worry about how much this shindig is going to cost me.  We haven't even gotten to the refreshments part of it.  I suck it up though because this has to be a kick ass party. I want all the new kids coming over to see what a cool mom I am so they will want to hang out here when they are teenagers and not drive around drinking beer with my babies.

We head over to the doll aisle in the toy department in search of cheap baby dolls we can dismember and put into jars of formaldehyde.  This is an aisle I have never walked down at Walmart before.  It is very pink and glittery.  No luck in finding baby dolls.  Barbie just won't be realistic enough.  The boys want to cut a Dora the Explorer doll up for this prop but I am fearful of scarring one of Scrappy Doo's little kindergarten classmates.

The boys are now bored and I need to go get some milk and cereal so I send them off with the husband who is munching on BBQ Pringles and needs a coffee to wash it down.  They all come find me about 15 minutes later with McDonald's Frappaccinos (yes of course there is a McDonald's in the local Walmart), some fishing lures (because the husband and Prince went fishing with our Amish Eldin and are now hooked...get it),  "The Avengers" DVD, and what appears to be a rifle.

I now give the husband MY WTF look.  "What?  It's a BB gun.  Prince is going to pay for it with his allowance."

"Yeah  Mom," Prince says sucking on his 500 calorie iced coffee.

Now, to fully comprehend the 180 that has occurred in my approach to parenting, we must go back about 6 years to when Prince was 4 years old.  He had happily spent his first few years absolutely absorbed with "Thomas the Tank Engine" and all things PBS.  He had never shown any interest in "shooting things" as I used to refer to guns, not wanting him to even know the name of theses horrible vehicles of violence.  Water guns in our home were water squirters and did not remotely resemble guns.  Oh, and the only sugar he had was in the watered down organic apple juice he drank.

I looked on in horror at mothers in the playground who would let their little thugs play with toy guns while swigging Capri Suns.  Surely I could teach them a thing or two about parenting.  Then I had James Dean.  Before he could even speak he was running around with gun shaped sticks, rolling his R's like a native Spanish speaker whilst making the sound of a machine gun.

By the time we came upstate, the kids had an entire arsenal of Nerf guns in my attempt to get them to go outside and run around. The husband even slunk in one day trying to hide the 22 he decided to buy himself.  I made him swear he would never tell the kids about it.

I soon realized though from the number of "My favorite animal is the one on my plate" T-shirts I had seen, that hunting is a big thing around here.  Probably most of the kids my kids are going to be playing with have guns in their homes, and it was time my kids knew about guns and more importantly, gun safety.

I agreed to let the husband take them outside to shoot the 22 one day.  When he yelled upstairs, "Who wants to go outside and shoot a gun?" you have never seen three boys move faster.

Surprisingly, James Dean is not all that interested in shooting the gun.  Scrappy Doo has a couple turns, but Prince LOVES it and is a pretty good shot.

It is dark by the time we leave Walmart with $400 worth of Halloween decorations, three out of control caffeinated boys with orange mustaches from the red dye in the Pringles, and a brand new BB gun.  We head home to watch "The Avengers" and eat popcorn out of our favorite bowl.

Animal Hoarding

Hello.  My name is JoAnn and I am an animal hoarder.  Have you seen this show?  I was a little nervous to watch it because quite frankly, I am concerned I have animal hoarding tendencies.  I still think I may, but I don't think I will let it get to the point these people do.

http://animal.discovery.com/tv/confessions-animal-hoarding/

The show is really pretty ridiculous. In the episode I watched there was a woman whose life was in the shitter because she partied way too much, lost her husband, and has no relationship with her son, so she starts taking in cats. Another woman collects stray dogs and the cops come and arrest her for animal cruelty and take the dogs away because I guess it is more cruel to feed and take care of a bunch of dogs than it is to kill them which what the cops do.  The woman then goes and takes over this junk yard on the edge of town and starts keeping the dogs there.  I have to say I was cheering her on.  If she wants to have a home for a bunch of ugly stray dogs, why shouldn't she? Rich people keep lions on private reserves for christ sake.  I am a little worried about my affinity for this woman.

 We have our chickens and will probably be getting more as soon as the storage shed is turned into the Chicken Taj Mahal.  Our Amish told us we could fit 30 in there.  Luckily, I watched "The Birds" when I was way too young, so the thought of 30 chickens milling around while I am trying to retrieve eggs leaves me more than a little uneasy.   I was probably the same age James Dean was when we had the great idea of choosing the Hitchcock classic for family movie night.  The poor kid was sobbing in fear by the end.  I don't think I will be a chicken hoarder.

Let's start by saying, the husband is usually the rational one when it comes to collecting animals. He has said absolutely no more dogs.  Pepper is going to have to man up and get his ass off the trundle bed and out into the field protecting our sheep when we get them. Hmm something tells me we will be revisiting this restriction. The plan is one Jersey calf which we will raise and breed so she will start producing milk, two pregnant sheep, one dog, ten chickens, two cats.  Done.  If I keep dropping the word, "horse" into this list, I may achieve Inception.

One thing I didn't consider in this scenario are the babies that are going to be born every year to ensure that said cow and sheep keep producing milk so that I can produce my award winning cheeses and maybe some real Greek yogurt.  I may as well jump on the central New York yogurt making bandwagon.  This means we will be making some tough choices.  Do we just keep adding to the flock until there is a sheep for every square inch of land or do we start making gyros? I am sure this is going to be a difficult discussion with the boys.  Anyone who knows me may need to steer clear of me around Easter because I will probably be bringing you baby lambs.

The one animal the husband has no ability to say no to is the kitten. He walks around the house with our little Amish kitten either riding in the hood of his sweatshirt or stuffed into the pocket.  It is pretty cute. When Prince declared that the only way he was going to join the school band was if we got another kitten, the husband agreed, thus leaving it up to me to say no. This is kind of like asking the crack head to pass on the pipe.

At first I say no because we already have two cats.  The husband counters with, "Well now that we have a barn, we will need some barn cats." Good point.  Sold!  I start perusing the Penny Saver (sober) for kittens.

Now, the Penny Saver is even worst than Petfinder because the pets are local and even easier to acquire. We find a couple of cute little kittens.  The husband dismisses them  because they are too big.  He wants one that is really tiny and adorable like Emma.  Mind you, Emma was probably only about three weeks old when we got her.  She still wakes me up at 4am every morning to nurse on my chin.  Most kittens are not weened until around 8 weeks so any compassionate person out there with kittens is not going to be giving away newborns.

I call one number about a little grey and white kitty.  Luckily there was a problem with their phone.  There are a few more but they are kind of far away.  Then I come across a free bunny with a hutch.  Prince is fine with the bunny instead of the kitten and I argue to the husband that the hutch alone is probably worth about $100 and we could use it for baby chicks.  Plus, this could be Scrappy Doo's 4H project.  He sighs and walks away.


I connect with the woman who has Baby Bunny and make a plan to pick him up.  She can't be there but the bunny and the hutch are in the barn for me to take. No problem.  The husband looks at me with his WTF look.  "How are you going to get it into the truck?"

"I can do it." I reply and off I go to get the rabbit and hutch.  When I get there, I realize I am screwed.  The hutch is about five feet tall and six feet long. Even if I can get it into the truck, I can't flip it over on its side.  Just then Grandpa drives in and the two of us manage to get the hutch into the back of the truck.  He ties it down and tells me to drive slowly.

It takes me about an hour to drive the ten miles home with a bunny in the passenger seat and a hutch wobbling in the back of the truck.

The kids play with him for a while and then we put him back in his hutch.  Prince looks at Baby Bunny for a couple of minutes and says, "He looks lonely. We should get him a friend."


Easter bunnies anyone?