Wascally Wabbits

We successfully navigated our ten plus hour roundtrip car ride to my mother-in-law's for Thanksgiving with few incidents besides Scrappy Doo spilling his root beer bottle filled with pee all over the backseat.  

The husband and my brother-in-law start the journey driving the Mini Cooper back to my mother-in-law which leaves me alone with three kids, one farting dog and a puppy we had never taken on a car trip before. Once I pour almost an entire bottle of Rescue Remedy for Dogs down both the dogs' gullets (a truly remarkable product for anyone with neurotic mutts),

I purchase a Coke large enough to be banned in  NYC, and buy each of the boys their own 16 oz root beer and an assortment of snacks containing all the different colored dyes food scientist have invented so far. I am the mother who insists on healthy, mostly organic eating on an everyday basis, but get me in a car for more than three hours and you can eat or drink whatever you want.  The more sugar, fat and artificial coloring the better.

We stop about half way through the trip since we all needed a pee and the husband joins us in the van for the rest of the trip west leaving B-I-L to drive the Cooper.   The husband stops for nothing and no one when he is traveling on the highway so when James Dean announces that he needs to pee again after having finished his large soda, the husband tells him to stick his penis in his empty root beer bottle to relieve himself.  Peeing into drink cups in the car is not a new concept for my boys so JD quickly empties his bladder into the bottle and puts the cap back on.  The amber liquid in the bottle that was supposed to contain a "caramel colored" drink tickles my funny bone.  What would happen if we got stopped by the police?  I imagine some State Trooper asking the husband to step out of the car thinking he is trying to be tricky and drink his beer out of a soda bottle.  How would we convince him it was actually pee and not a Heineken?  Yuck.

Minutes later, unable to resist his constant urge to do what his older brother does, Scrappy Doo announces that he too has to pee.  Why I put the little guy in the third row of seats is still a mystery to me but I instruct him to take his little winker out and repeat the process his brother just completed and then hand the bottle of pee back up to me.  He manages to get the pee into the bottle but as he is screwing the cap on, the bottle falls to the floor splattering the boy and Pepper the farting dog as well as soaking the floor in the back of the van.  I go Mission Impossible and unbuckle myself so I can climb over two kids and a dog in the second row of seats while driving 75 mph, squeeze into the third row and sani wipe everything.  Next time I am driving.

We finally get to our destination and have a fun couple of days visiting.  Now, some of you may remember from my blog a month or so ago that my M-I-L purchased some angora rabbits and mated one of the females for us so the boys could experience the miracle of baby bunny birth.  She actually mated both females but was unsure if they were pregnant.  Since there were no signs of labor or even evidence that the fluff ball bunny was pregnant, we loaded her up with the two dogs, three kids and three adults (B-I-L was now coming in the van with us) and headed home with the promise of a stop at Toys' R Us to make the ride a little more bearable.

My brother-in-law regaled us with tales of the pet rabbits he had as a kid, though the stories were a little more Stephen King than Beatrix Potter. Father and son rabbits banished from the hutch for fighting over the affections of the mother rabbit only to start an all out war in the backyard: Oedipus had nothing on this son.

I am starting to get an uneasy feeling about this pregnant rabbit thing.  Plus, poor Baby Bunny is still not going to be able to have a friend in his hutch because that will just make more bunnies.

The day after we get home my mother-in-law calls to tell us that the other female rabbit just gave birth. Prince is hopeful that our bunny (who James Dean named Little Bunny Foo Foo) might give birth at any moment, but she was mated before the other rabbit and is showing no signs of nesting.  The following morning I get up to check on the rabbit and nothing seems to have changed.  Two hours later Prince tells me he thinks there is a dead baby in the cage with her.  Sure enough, Little Bunny Foo Foo gave birth to two babies and then promptly killed them.  I am sure she was stressed out being in a new place and all, but even my crazy ADHD dog growing up was able to successfully whelp and suckle twelve puppies.  I think the Ancient Greeks were probably raising rabbits when they wrote their plays.

Prince immediately blames me for the deaths.  I guess I was supposed to play midwife to a rabbit I wasn't even sure was pregnant instead of making his breakfast, feeding his dogs,  and doing his dirty laundry so he could have his "comfy socks" for basketball practice.  Can you tell I am a little bitter?  Once I give him my best "How dare you say that to me" speech, he calms down and realizes that the rabbit was just being a shitty mother and he had better be nice to me in case I get any ideas.

Now that she is no longer pregnant we decide to throw poor Baby Bunny a bone and put Little Bunny Foo Foo in the hutch with him since we don't have to worry about them fighting over who gets to eat the young since the young are already dead.  Well, I guess she was feeling a little hormonal after just giving  birth and killing her babies and she pounced on top of poor Baby Bunny and started ripping the fur out of his neck.  I am sure I wouldn't really feel like entertaining a suitor right after I gave birth, but she was going for blood.  The husband quickly scoops up Baby Bunny and put him into the chicken tractor.

Now we have two lone rabbits in separate houses and no babies.  The new rabbit is no longer called Little Bunny Foo Foo, but BFF as an homage to my search for friends.  The only difference is that BF does not stand for Best Friend but rather Bitch Face.  The kids and I bond over our dislike for our homicidal rabbit and we have a good chuckle in the car when we come up with her new name.  Not the Popcorn Bowl Moment I wanted, but I will take it nonetheless.

gesundheit Chicky Rivera

The boys and I were outside last week while the chickens were pecking away. All of a sudden we heard this weird sound. "Casnuff."  I looked at Prince to see if he had just snorted over something he saw the dumb dogs doing, but he looked as puzzled as I was by the origin of this strange sound. All of a sudden I heard it again and realized it had come from Chicky Rivera.

"Did she just sneeze?" asked Prince.

"I think it was a cough."

She does it again and follows up with a hoarse cluck as she tries to intimidate the poor beleaguered Kyle the Rooster yet again.   Holy shit.  My chicken is sick!

I have three kids and have had many dogs and cats in my day, so I know how to deal with most sick creatures.  I have stumbled into steamy bathrooms cradling small colicky children more times than I care to remember.  I have dosed a dog with vitamin K because she was accidentally poisoned by the husband (don't ask).  I have blown antibiotics down a cat's throat through a straw because he was so upset by the fact that I left him for a week (according to my vet) that he got a urinary tract infection.  I have even held a horse while another really cute vet shoved some medicine up the horse's pooper. However, I have never dealt with a sick chicken.

If there is one thing I hate it is a stuffy nose.  When I was a kid a bottle of nasal spray was always on my bedside table.  It really sucks to not be able to breath through your nose while you are trying to go to sleep.  Damn near impossible to do really.  My mother tried to take the nasal spray away from me at one point because she was concerned I had a little problem.  That did not go over well.

I have definitely projected my hatred of congestion onto my kids. I was obsessed with picking boogers out of their little noses while they nursed or napped or both.  I have pinned more than one down so I could squirt some saline up there and insert the booger sucker to suck out all of the snot.  This was often met with screams of torture.  When Prince was a toddler, his room was like a Koala's womb complete with white noise and moist eucalyptus scented air.

I was a little perplexed by what to do about a congested chicken.   Even if I still had a snot sucker, I don't know where her nose is really.  In my ignorance I did the one thing you should never do when seeking medical advice... I went online.

Most people know that whatever ailment you google, all roads eventually lead to cancer.  Well, when you google coughing chicken, all roads lead to dead chicken.

I am not sure how she got sick.  We moved the chickens into the chicken Taj Mahal.  I have enough bedding in there to keep them cozy all winter and I installed a heat lamp for the really cold nights. I even put a little apple cider vinegar in their water every day to help fight infection, but she got sick nonetheless.  I sat in the hen house for a while studying her and wondering if I could actually eat her if she did keel over.  I decided to call the vet.

"Hi.  My chicken is coughing and sneezing."

There is silence on the other end as I am sure the woman who answered the phone at the vet's office is trying to get me on speaker phone so she and the other women in the office can have a good laugh.

"I'm not really sure what you should do.  I will have the vet call you back."

The vet calls me back and says it could be anything from a virus to a tumor and I should call the Avian Veterinary Center at Cornell.

Now, I love my chickens, but I am not going to be driving four hours to take Chicky Rivera to the vet.  I decide to put my motherly know-how to work and do what I do for my kids.

Chicken soup is out because that is just weird.  I do make her a nice warm tea with honey, lemon, apple cider vinegar and cayenne pepper.  I mash up some garlic with banana and flax which she still hasn't touched a week later.  I then go to the Feed and Seed to find out if they have any holistic treatments.  I really don't want to put her on antibiotics, nor do I know how the hell I would get her take them.  She is a feisty one.

The Feed and Seed is the greatest store.  I love the people who work there. They are super knowledgeable and nice.  One of the owners may be my new fantasy BFF.  Sorry Nigella.  I ask about equine grade Apple Cider Vinegar which I read about on one of the Chicken Chat Rooms.  The guy looks at me like I am crazy.  He has never heard of such a thing and no one else in the store has either.  It is now glaringly obvious that I am a dilettante.  He hands me some oil that smells just like the concoctions I have smeared on my children's chests over the years, and tells me to put it on all the chickens' heads and under their wings twice a day.

OK. Doing this to my rooster is easy.  I am the only female who actually pays attention to his attempts at cockiness and he likes it when I pick him up and pet him, but the hens are another story.  Every once in a while Chicky Rivera will squat down in a submissive hen pose when she has a lapse in bitchiness, but most of the time she and Jonah just run away from me.

I lure them all into the Taj Mahal with some sunflower seeds and close the door.  I grease up both hands with the smelly oil and hilarity ensues.  Every time I get close to one hen, she darts in the other direction.  I chase them around in circles diving at them only to miss every time. Kyle, who is nicely lubed up, is on the roost pacing back and forth clucking in confusion.  I know he probably likes me better than the two hens, but it is his job to protect them.  Should he attack me or help me?

I finally get a hold of Chicky Rivera and rub the oil all over her like I am about to roast her, just in case I can't catch her again in the morning. I sprinkle a little of the oil in her bedding as well and turn on the heat lamp.

A couple of days go by and she is still coughing and sneezing but laying eggs and beating up Kyle, so I am hopeful that she is on the mend.  I try to get the husband on board with bringing her in for a steam while he is in the shower but he shuts that crazy right down.

I have plans to go into the city to see my girlfriends and am close to canceling for fear of leaving sick little Chicky.  The husband informs me that under no circumstances will he be rubbing oil on chickens but he will put the heat lamp on and give them hot water.  I am going to go buy a humidifier.

My new BFFs

I have a very complicated relationship with Martha Stewart.  She scares the shit out of me.  I know a few people who have worked for her in the past.  I will not divulge names in order to protect them.  She sounds like a nightmare of a boss for whom I would never want to work.  Many of her DIY projects make my eyes roll back into my head as I nearly choke on my tongue.  Then there is the September cover of Martha Stewart Living where she is apparently tormenting a baby who wants a toy.

But part of me also wishes desperately to be more like Martha.  I think she is pretty badass for going to prison and walking out wearing her signature pageant smile and a fetching poncho that her celly made for her.  I also covet her collection of green glass vases she displays effortlessly in her elegant Maine farmhouse, and why can't I have a English flower garden that looks like Lucy Honeychurch is going to emerge through the lilies at any moment?

Unfortunately, I don't and I won't which is why I came to terms with my need to distance myself from Martha as soon as we purchased the farmette.  The restraining order is reinstated whenever I see a copy of her magazine while waiting in line at the grocery store.  The holiday season is an especially difficult time to stave off her advances.  She is a cruel temptress, but I stay strong.

All hell broke loose the other night though when Martha was a guest on my beloved NPR show, "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me."  She was funny and witty and even dropped the F bomb.  Be still my heart.  Have I been wrong about Martha all this time?  Would she really be an awesome friend to hang out with?

A little backstory on me for anyone who is reading this and doesn't actually know me.  I am a very social person and I love NPR.  I love my family and spending time in the testosterone cloud that is my home, but my girlfriends and my NPR keep me sane.  Scrappy Doo is the only one in the family who doesn't seem to understand the unspoken rule that no one is to come into the kitchen while I am cooking dinner and listening to, "All Things Considered."  You don't want to know the wrath that comes down if they interrupt, "This American Life."

Friendship has been a little more difficult up here on the farmette than it was in the city.  Don't get me wrong, I have some great friends up here, but I don't get to hang with them and gab the way I could in the city.  Playground time in the city was as much for me as it was for the kids.  If one of my favorite moms was in the playground, I would force my children to stay long after all of their friends had gone home so she and I could chew the fat.

The poor husband has to play substitute girlfriend for me now.  I linger outside of his office when he is home working waiting for him to look up so I can share some piece of information I probably just heard on NPR or a funny observation about one of the animals or the boys.  He tries his best to engage in a conversation, but he isn't the Chatty Cathy I am and I can tell he just wants to get back to looking at listings for farm auctions in the area.

What does all of this have to do with Martha Stewart you wonder? Well, I have this habit of daydreaming about whether certain famous women I hear on NPR would turn into my new best friend if I met them at a party. For instance, I am sure Susan Stamberg, Cokie Roberts and I would have a lot of laughs together but they would probably be more like older sisters than BFF's.  I don't think I would hit it off with Sylivia Poggioli because I don't like the affected way she pronounces her name every time she is on the air.  I would learn a lot from Ofeibea Quist Arcton, but I don't think I could ever belch in front of her or gossip about Renee Montagne.  Amy Dickinson would be a promising best friend because she is hysterical and she lives not too far from here.  We could read some of her Ask Amy letters together and make fun of people's pathetic lives.  I am afraid she would think I was jealous of her though because she is a hugely successful writer and I have a blog read by a few of my friends.

Yes.  I really have put way too much thought into this.  So, when Martha showed up on my  NPR dropping the F bomb, I started to rethink my ban on all things Martha.  Alas, ours would be an ill-fated friendship.  I would be a basket case if she ever came over and I think she is too much of a social climber to hang with me and my mutts anyway.  There is one person on NPR though that I am absolutely 100% sure would become my best friend if we ever met: Celebrated food writer and Food Network star Nigella Lawson.

Nigella is the whole package in the BFF department.  She is beautiful but not in that stick figure Barbie Doll way like Giada de Laurentis.  Like that woman actually eats what she cooks.

Nigella likes to cook just like I do and more importantly she likes to eat.  She also loves to share her food with friends and family just like I do.  I can imagine us sitting at a huge farm table together with our families laughing and eating.

She also has that dry sardonic British wit I love.  She even admitted on an NPR segment that she has the children help her in the kitchen because she is too lazy to play with them.  What's not to love?

It is true we run in slightly different social circles. She is married to super wealthy Charles Saatchi and she lives in London, but I am still positive we would be great chums if our paths ever crossed.  So in honor of my good friend Nigella, I would like to share her wonderful recipe for chocolate zucchini cake.  It is tasty and gives you something to do with all that freaking zucchini that grows in everyone's garden.  I copied this from her website: www.nigella.com/recipes/view/chocolate-zucchini-cake-1356 so you can see her funny Britishisms.  Sigh.


Ingredients

90g butter
1 tsp orange rind( i sub mint essence)
1 cup castor sugar (i use normal)
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups self raising flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup milk
1 cup grated zucchini
1/2 cup chopped pecans ( i omit due to school regs)
Method

Grease 15cm x 25cm loaf tin, line base with paper.
Cream butter and sugar and rind ( if using) in a small bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beat until combined.
Transfer to a large bowl. Stir in dry sifted ingredients, milk zucchini and pecans.
Spread into pan.
Bake 180C/350F for about 45 mins.
Stand 3 mins before turning out onto rack. Spread with icing, if using, when cold. (I add the mint essence after the butter and sugar creaming)

And They Call it Puppy Love?

My father died when I was 18 after a long illness.  I don't have a lot of memories of him, but I do remember the three things we had in common: We were both lefties.  We both loved baseball.  And most importantly, we both loved dogs.

When I was in grammar school, my mother took a weekend job at the local hospital leaving me and dear old dad to our own devices.  He would let me do things like watch the Three Stooges on Saturday morning while enjoying an icy cold coke.  I was also allowed to ride my bike three miles to a friend's house even though he had never met her parents, did not have their telephone number nor any idea where they lived.  He was the one you went to when you knew mom would say, "No."

I am not sure how we started our weekly puppy quest, but every Saturday we would scour the classified section of the Newburyport Daily News in search of Golden Retriever or Labrador puppies.  Dad would circle the most promising ads and call to get directions so we could go, "take a look."

In the beginning we truly did just go to, "take a look" sometimes driving two hours to another state for a chance to play with a litter of pudgy little pups. Dad had the same story for every breeder.  He wanted to start breeding puppies himself and needed to investigate the puppies lineage before committing to buy.  He'd be in touch. In reality, we were both just scared shitless of what my mother would do if we brought home a puppy.  Soon though, we just said fuck it and decided to bring one home.  How could mom be mad once she saw how cute the puppy was and how happy it made us?  Pretty mad is the answer.

There were a few she made us take right back and a couple she let us keep.  We even convinced her to  let us start breeding Golden Retrievers.  Dad and his mother found a beautiful little golden puppy named Molly.

Everyone was sure she was a champion who would produce Best in Show puppies. Unfortunately, like many Golden Retrievers, she suffered from hip problems and insanity.  We couldn't breed her but we could all end up in the emergency room as a direct result of her "love."  Dad had a broken bone under his eye from Molly running like a steam engine straight into his face while he was bent over trimming a hedge.  I broke my front teeth after deciding to literally harness her energy to pull me on my skateboard.

My memories of Molly either influenced or scarred me depending on how you look at it.  I have never been interested in owning another Retriever, thus the non-guarding livestock guard dog we now have.

The husband had the boys start making their Christmas lists last week and top of Prince's list was another puppy.  The husband put his foot down and refused to entertain the idea.  Prince and I strategized to develope a convincing argument.  We tried the Noah's Ark argument that we needed two of every animal.  Didn't work.  Prince was lonely and needed another dog who would play fetch.  A little wiggle room there, but still not budging. A true guard dog that would protect us during the class war (more on that later).  That did give him pause, but seeing how the livestock guardian spends his nights sleeping in the house, the husband was skeptical that any puppy we get would actually be used for its intended purpose.   Finally, I used the same argument I am imagining my father used on my mother when he convinced her to breed puppies... making money.

The husband is all about making money off of our farmette.  There are some pretty decent tax benefits from having a working farm, though to actually make it your sole source of income is a struggle to say the least. Since some purebred puppies can sell for over $1,000 each I show him how we could make $15,000/year breeding puppies.  Plus, it will be such a great experience for the boys to witness the miracle of birth.

"Isn't that why we have a pregnant rabbit?" he counters.

 I am wondering if we will be able to find one of those stickers for the back window of the van?.  You know, the ones with the stick figure family that reflects the makeup of the car owner's family?    I haven't seen one yet with 100 rabbits.

The husband sighs and walks away leaving me free and clear to start my puppy search.

I have a friend in Italy.  I could have her find me a Maremma or Italian Spinone breeder and I could take a trip over to Italy to pick up our little money maker.  The problem is, then I need to find a male in the states to breed her with.  Maybe we get a male and female?

I finally come up for air one afternoon after an extensive online puppy search and ask Prince what kind of dog he wants. After all, this is supposed to be his puppy.

"I want one that will play fetch and be a friend for Pepper."

Shit.  This kid needs a retriever, but there is no way I am getting a purebred.  The husband will divorce me for sure when he falls victim to the unbridled affection and slobber of one of these beasts.  I shift gears and start looking at mix breeds.  I need to combine the hyper activity of a lab with the mellowness of a giant dog. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing what mix most of the pound puppies have in them.  I always love the photos of the pitbulls on Petfinder that are labeled, "lab/shepherd mix."  Sorry to any of you pitbull lovers out there. That is one animal I will not be hoarding.

I find out from a guy at the Y that someone who works there just had a litter of puppies.  He was attempting to breed his female lab with a male lab, but the labradoodle snuck in there first.  So now he has labradordles.  This isn't the ying and yang Golden Newfoundland I had envisioned but we decide to go "take a look."

The whole way there I feel my feet getting a little chilly.  I tell Prince repeatedly, "If this isn't exactly what you want, we don't have to take it."

What moron thinks a ten year old boy who wants a puppy is going to walk away from a three month old lab?  Oh yeah, me.

So, Friday we came home with a new puppy.  A couple of months sooner than anticipated, but we get to cross that one off the Christmas list.  It may be a problem that Scrappy Doo has a puppy on his Christmas list as well.

The one good thing about bringing home a three month old puppy is that you actually appreciate your other dog.  Pepper doesn't cry all night in his crate.  I don't have to get up at 4 in the morning to take Pepper out to pee.  Pepper doesn't shit all over his crate twice during the night so I have to spend my entire Sunday cleaning bedding and washing poopy puppy.

When Prince asked what we were going to do yesterday because he was bored,  I nearly jumped across the table to tear his throat out.  Go play with your pain in the ass puppy that kept me up all night while you slept!!

It is Monday morning.  I am tired and unshowered because I had to use all of the hot water to clean the puppy after Pepper decided to "play" with her stinky ass outside thus sending her sliding across the muddy yard into the runoff from the sump pump in the basement.

As I sit here trying to figure out how I will ever be able to leave my house again since I don't think Athena (that is her name)  in an Ergo will be allowed in Hannaford's Supermarket, I am suddenly aware of why my mother never wanted a puppy. But when I look at her chunky little wiggly body and long silky ears, I also know why my father did.

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: