Hillary Rodham Cluckin

We are now the proud owners of 52 chickens but I still have to buy eggs from my neighbor.  I am thinking about starting a chicken non-profit that will be named something like, Patriot Chicken or Chicky Tea Party.  I could dress the chickens up in little outfits and serve them tea; something I am already known for doing.  People could come too and give a tax deductible donation.  I am really doubting I will get any flack from the IRS at this point.  I bet I could just send out a quick email to them letting them know of my intentions and they will waive all paperwork to avoid looking like they were targeting conservative chickens.

Two shipments of baby chicks have arrived. It is really crazy that these little creatures are sent through the US Postal Service a day after they are hatched but that is how they came.  They sent two extra with each shipment.  I am assuming this is because there are usually a couple that don't survive the two to three day journey.  We did lose a couple but not without a fight.  The husband had one wrapped up in his sweatshirt feeding it water from an eye dropper while he was watching TV, but the poor little thing didn't make it through the night.  I stayed up to check on her until she finally died around midnight.  It is kind of crazy that we spent that much time and attention on a bird we planned on eating in a couple of months, but is was still sad to see her fade away.

We have told the boys which birds are for eggs and which are for meat and made them promise not to play with or name the meat birds because that will make for a very sad roast chicken dinner.  Here is the breakdown:

Faverolles are a favorite meat bird in France and I saw many a headless one in the butcher shops of Paris hanging by its scrawny legs.  The roosters are spectacularly beautiful and we will be giving a few of them a Presidential pardon in order to keep producing more birds so we don't have to do the shipping thing again.  Poor Kyle the Rooster is going to feel even more inadequate when he gets a load of his Favoerolle counterpart.

Speckled Sussex are also a meaty bird.  I feel a little guilty about these ones since one of our original layers is a Speckled Sussex and she may get a little nervous that her number is about to be up.

Cuckoo Marans lay these crazy brown eggs that look like chocolate Easter eggs.

Golden Comets and Black Australorps are docile girls who are reliable layers of your standard brown egg.

I was hoping to also get some Aruacanas. They lay beautiful blue eggs, but we couldn't find any.  My awesomeness cache would definitely go up a couple of notches if I could send my city visitors home with a dozen rainbow colored eggs.

The husband really has done a spectacular job with the chicken house for the layers and the new chicken tractor for the meat birds.  Unlike the Trump Tower he built last summer, the new one is more spacious, easier to move so the chickens can have new pasture every day and a big door so you can actually get into the coop; all at a fraction of the cost of the previous tractor.

The chicks are really cute, but luckily we have the kittens to fill our need for ridiculous cuteness so hopefully there will not be a boycott of our clean pasture raised chickens in favor of factory birds.

Even though we will not be naming the meat birds, I feel an overwhelming urge to name all the layers.  I have a thing for giving all of our animals a name which we never use because they also have a nickname.  I am going for a powerful women theme.  So far I have:

Hillary Rodham Cluckin
Joan of Eggs
Susan B Layer
Emma Goldegg
Eleanor Roosecluck
Martha Stewmeat (I know that is a meat reference but...)
Mother Therbeaker
Dorothy Pecker
Edith Waddleton

You get the gist.  Unfortunately there are only so many bad puns you can come up with using, egg, beak and cluck.  I need some help. There are twelve more girls to name  Please send me your ideas.

Mother's Day

I am sure Mother's Day is going to be an over done topic on the blogosphere this week and I really was trying to come up with a different topic to write about, but I couldn't, so here is post number 5,672 about this magical day which leaves most of us a little disappointed.

There was a time in the not so distant past that what I wanted more than anything for Mother's Day was to wake up after a restful 9 hours of sleep to a beautifully clean home with smiling doting children holding bouquets of wildflowers they just picked and homemade cards with heartfelt sentiments about how much they love and appreciate me.  These children would then magically disappear outside for the rest of the day leaving me to watch an entire season of "Sex and the City" and read a grown up book.

Of course, this has never happened in the past 11 years, but now that Prince is a tween who would rather spend his time playing Xbox live with his friends than hanging with his mom, my fantasy of spending time alone has turned to a desperate need to force my kids to spend the day with me.  I am not ready for them to be grown up quite yet.

I definitely had an overwhelming need to always be with my boys when the were infants.  It was painful and innate.  I felt a combination of guilt and relief that I did not have a paying job to go back to right after they were born.

The husband thinks I am over protective and though I really have come a long way since the days when I wouldn't let anyone take baby Prince out for a walk for fear they would push his stroller into an open side walk gate or into oncoming traffic while carelessly navigating the mean streets of Carroll Gardens Brooklyn, I still throw up a little in my mouth whenever Scrappy Doo pumps so hard that the swing bounces at the top, and even though I was very happy that Prince was invited to his first sleep over since moving here, I had to grill him on what he would do if his friend took out a gun. There's quite a few of those up here.

The day James Dean came home from school and told me one of the boys in his class asked him why he was so small, I actually said in my out loud voice, "Tell him it is because you really are supposed to be in 3rd grade and he is supposed to be in 5th."  I tried to swallow the venomous words right after they oozed out of my mouth, but James Dean just looked at me and said, "I told him some people are small and some are big."  Lessons from an 8 year old.

Watching all of the mama animals up here is farm country makes me feel a little less crazy about my own maternal behavior.  You don't mess with a calf if mama cow is loose.  The doe who came charging out of the woods at me when her fawns got a little too close, wasn't being over protective.  She was being a mother.  That is what mothers do: We protect.  Granted, sometimes we may take it to an extreme.  Chasing down a New Jersey driver who seemed to think there is a left on red rule in Manhattan probably wasn't the best idea with then five, three and four month old boys in tow, but the mother monster inside of me didn't care if the guy was five times my size.  He had to see the faces of the kids he nearly took out (probably wasn't that close, but I did have to pull everyone back) and be told to keep his moronic driving skills in his own state.

I am sure my inner mother monster has embarrassed my children countless times.  What is up with New Jersey drivers in New York City?

Itty Bitty Kitty seems to have the same mother monster inside of her.   Athena the big labradordle got a little too close to the kittens the other day and mama released a hissing, spitting, clawing fury that made the poor dog yelp and pee on the floor as she cowered in the corner.  I would have high fived the cat right then but I was a little scared the claws were still out.

It is now 9:00 on Mother's Day morning and I have already had my traditional breakfast in bed.  The husband still hasn't learned that I don't like cheese IN my scrambled eggs; only ON my egg sandwich.  James Dean just woke up and gave me a big hug which was a little tighter and a little longer than usual, which truly is the best Mother's Day present I could ever wish for.

In the very wise words of my bestie's beautiful mom, "Kids need roots and wings."  I am still working on digging the roots down to the Earth's core, but the wings are starting to sprout.

Happy Mother's Day to all those fierce mother monsters out there.

Bad Neighbors

It seems we are now THAT family.  We're not the ones with the broken down cars and inflatable pools... yet. Though there would be an inflatable bouncy amusement park in the backyard if left up to me, the husband hates, "plastic crap."  He becomes incensed when he hears the crackling of shattering plastic when he mows over one of the water guns I secretly purchased at the Dollar Store.  There isn't much that really gets under his skin, like plastic toys.  I even had James Dean bring his father the BJ's flyer featuring a $700 inflatable pool/slide combo. The plan was to have James Dean tell him that I had just purchased it online and then  I was going to get all mad at James Dean for spilling the beans.   We rehearsed the scene a few times and it was pretty perfect.  Unfortunately, when show time came, James choked a bit and the husband didn't take the bait.

So, we are not the family with crap all over their yard, except for the scraps of the toy squirrel the dogs have ripped to shreds which causes me to gasp in horror every time I step on it thinking it is the remains of Baby Bunny. We are the family whose dogs bark maniacally at the geese in the pond at 6 am and whose rooster likes to go up the hill to the neighbors' house to cockadoodledo and poop on their deck.  We are also the neighbors who constantly have tractors running, the father doing chores in his underwear, children screaming  and young heifers roaming the neighborhood.


Friday evening the husband decided to take the boys to see the latest Iron Man movie.  I begged off claiming that we needed to save money or something.  I was going to curl up on the bed to watch "A Little Romance" and have a special mommy dinner: Shiraz.

I was pouring my wine when I heard Pepper barking.  Pepper barks at everything so normally this would not be a big deal but this was a strange bark.  I looked out the window and there was Noelle across the street eating the neighbor's forsythia bush.  I ran out the door and across the street to try and wrangle her back into the barn.  She didn't have her bridle on so I am not sure how I thought I was going to grab her.  I tried wrapping myself around her neck but she shook me off.  I tried herding her but she ran the other way.  I decided to run home and fill up the baby bottle to entice her back.  I dangled the bait in front of her and managed to get her all the way home before she sucked it dry.  A couple of may flies  managed to go up my nose and down my throat but I didn't drop the bottle until I had her shut in the barn.  Getting her into her stall would prove a little more difficult since her milk was all gone, but I finally managed to get her in.  I went in and fell asleep about half way through the movie.

I am not sure what it is about our animals that they are all so ill behaved. We have done a pretty good job so far raising three kids who are reasonably polite, well behaved and manage to stay out of trouble.   I am still on the fence about Scrappy Doo having a run-in with the law when he is older but that will probably be a white collar crime like embezzling money from his televanglism empire.

I think our problem may have something to do with how much we spoil our animals.  The livestock guardian dog has taken to guarding the "barn" kittens because neither the dog nor the cats will ever spend a night outside despite our best intentions.

The husband came in the house the other day with the rooster under his arm.  My inquisitive look was answered with, "I am showing him around."

Noelle wears a cashmere cardigan when it is cold and I am still trying to design a special hat to keep the bugs out of her eyes.

All of these crazy bad critters are part of the farmette family.  The husband would probably argue that he does not consider the dogs to be part of the family, but he does like how Pepper looks out for those kittens.

Thankfully the neighbors have been very understanding so far.  So here are a couple of videos of some of the spoiled critters that fill the popcorn bowl with lots of good memories:

Just so you know, this post is going to contain lots of photos of cute animals even though they have nothing to do with the story.   This is due to the fact that I am sure none of you want to see pictures of people with stomach viruses or a tutorial on how to fold a T-shirt.

My Freaky Friday role reversal with the husband has been an adjustment.  While it is nice having him around and he has completed most of the earth moving projects with his toy tractor, his list of top 10 chores to be completed doesn't always match mine and I find it irritating.  When I pull into the driveway in the afternoon,  he usually emerges from the barn with a big smile on his scruffy bearded face (which is actually pretty cute)  announcing that he spent the whole day "organizing" tools or work spaces or other things I don't give a rat's ass about.  Now, if he told me he beautifully landscaped the front of the house or ripped out the wall to wall carpet in the playroom, I would be ecstatic

I am a completely disorganized control freak.  A strange combination I know, but it has gotten me through life this far. I have a system that I believe mathematicians call the Chaos Theory and the husband calls a mess.  I like to think of it as, "organic" and it usually involves having three projects going simultaneously. Spending an entire day fixated on one project is beyond me and probably has something to do with the combination of undiagnosed ADD and being a mother of three boys who need annoying things like food or splinters removed from their eyes throughout the day.

I think I am also annoyed because the husband seems to be enjoying his time at home a little too much. Given our new situation, I insisted he be responsible for laundry, emptying the dishwasher in the morning, and cleaning up the breakfast dishes. Yes, it does make sense to put ALL of the cups in the same place, but I have the little plastic juice cups and sippy bowls next to the cereal so Scrappy Doo can help himself.  And who the hell folds t-shirts in half lengthwise so you have a big crease down the front?  Has he never visited the Gap?  Ditto for his pant folding technique.

Once I sufficiently bitched about his folding inadequacies and that the socks need to be right side out and not in a ball when placed in the washing machine in order for them to get clean,  I needed something else to break the husband's domestic bliss.

Me:  "You need to change the litter box because I am working full-time and even though you just started your own business and in one month have already earned five times as much as I will this entire year, you are home more."

Husband: "No.  You said laundry and dishes and that is what I am doing."

I guess I should have started the negotiations with more grandiose demands.

On Sunday, Scrappy Doo and I came down with the stomach virus.  Unfortunately it wasn't the knock you on your ass, puking your guts out kind of virus.  It was the, feel good enough to go to work in the morning only to break out into cold sweats by lunch kind of virus that lingers for a week.

By Wednesday, James Dean had it as well and didn't go to school.  I came home to find dirty dishes in the sink, crumbs on the counter, uneaten grilled cheese sandwiches upstairs and incorrectly folded clothes in a pile to be put away, since it was established early on in husband's laundry career that he doesn't know whose clothes are whose. Boys really will put on any article clothing they find in their drawers?!  I had to explain to James Dean a couple of  times that even though he found the capri length pants he was wearing  in his pant drawer, they did indeed belong to Scrappy Doo, and Prince now knows that the size four Spiderman undies don't fit because they are not his.

I was tired and nauseous, with an added dose of PMS crazy.  I unleashed my fury on the husband with a good deal of sobbing about the chores he needed to take care of. I also pointed out that his list of priorities needed to mirror mine.  He wasn't really buying it.

I fell asleep in a cocoon of martyrdom and awoke to coffee in bed.  The counters were sparkling clean and the T-shirts folded correctly when I returned home that afternoon, plus the rock wall around my new herb garden had been started.  Crazed hysteria has its merits.

Things are definitely taking shape here at the farmette since the husband and his singular focus have been around more.  He's a pretty impressive guy and will probably have us self-sustaining within the next couple of years.  I know I am a lucky woman, but I have to admit, I am looking forward to the first, "I told you so" moment that will surely come soon after tomorrow's arrival of the first twenty-five chicks.  Love you honey!

The Blessed Event

We had our first birth on the farmette last monday. ( I should say, live birth, because there was that issue of the bunnycicles.) 65 days from Itty Bitty Kitty's lost weekend, she gave birth to four adorable kittens and of course I missed it.  I had thought about calling in sick to work so I could play midwife to the teen mom, but since I had taken the previous week off for my trip to Paris, I thought it wise to go in.  Luckily, the husband was there to record every last moment, including  closeup shots of the cat eating the placenta, which he couldn't wait to show me and the boys when we got home that afternoon.

I had no doubt the husband would capture everything given the extensive footage he shot of all three of our boys coming into the world.  When Prince was born we still had a video camera which could be connected to the big screen tv.  It is such a wonderful experience to see one's vagina ten times its actual size on screen as a baby's head pops out of it while "Exorcist" inspired screams of, "Get it out!" echo throughout the scene.

The video was played for everyone who came over: Family, friends, acquaintances.   The husbands of the women in my mother's group got to see it the first time they met us.   His cousin's six year old daughter went screaming out of the room half way through.  Poor thing thought she was just coming over to see a cute baby and ended up having to watch a Polanski flick.  Luckily the mailman never came up to our fourth floor apartment or I am sure he would have been subjected to it.

One evening a couple of years ago,  I hear James Dean moan, "Oh gross!"  I came upstairs to see what they were all watching on the computer with their father.  Yup.

Not to worry, I will not be posting any of the video footage of the kitty births but I will post lots of adorable photos.  I have become THAT cat person.  All of my Facebook friends will still have to tolerate all of my liberal rantings but they will now be mixed with a heavy dose of cat pictures with nauseatingly cutesy captions.  Sorry.

I may even write a book, "The Ten Things Every Woman Can Learn About Motherhood From Her Cat," or something to that effect.

Seriously though, she is an amazing mother and watching her makes me realize how innate motherhood is.  I am not such an amazing woman because I managed to have three with a team of nurses, midwives and doctors around.  Shit, she was giving birth to the fourth one and munching off the umbilical cord as the other three were climbing all over her trying to nurse.  Nature is crazy.

It is funny how my relationship to this little cat has changed.  She is no longer the pain in the ass cat I chased after when she managed to snatch a piece of chicken off the kitchen counter.  She is a peer.  When she gives us the, "I wish I had hands right now so I could stab you in the face for waking up the babies" look, I totally get it.   I've been there.

The campaign to keep all of the kittens is in full swing.  The husband swears they will all be barn cats.  I am sure the lobbyists are going to exert their powerful influence to change my vote.


PS:  The husband just asked excitedly if I was including any video.

April in Paris

April in Paris is a little like April in central New York:  Rainy and kind of cold.  Of course, there are croissants, really good coffee, the best ice cream I have ever tasted, Kir Royals, beautiful architecture, amazing art, and of course, a garden of pate.

I had a great time eating my way through the 4th and 5th arrondissements of the French capital.  It really is a magnificent city and it was so much fun spending quality time with two females who love to poke around shops, touching and smelling everything in sight, as much as I do.

I even got to see an actual letter written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which was just as charming and witty as I imagined a letter from my favorite author to be.  It was displayed in a store window next to a letter from Hemingway which was just as boring and self absorbed as I imagined a letter from one of my least favorite famous authors to be.

Upon arriving home, after being awake for 20 hours, I was warmly greeted by two dogs, two children and one husband who managed to keep everything under control while I was away.  The third child remained upstairs declaring later that, "You were only gone five days."  The following day when  I presented him with a Parisian souvenir T-shirt, he scowled and pointed out that James Dean got the better shirt thus reaffirming his belief that I actually do love my second born more. Ahh, the pre-teen.

Itty Bitty Kitty has not had her babies yet.  She is on day 64. I was really hoping they were going to come while I was away because I am a nervous wreck that there is going to be some operatic infant and maternal death scene given her diminutive size and enormous belly and I really wanted the husband to have to deal with that fallout.

Like an asshole, I have done some online research about birthing kittens and now know I need to be standing by with vaseline so I can yank any stuck kittens out and probably a wet nurse in case Itty Bitty is an Itty Bitty Shitty mom.

I have learned not to seek medical advice for myself or the children online because as one friend described it, "All roads lead to autism or cancer."  This is absolutely true.  I had a kidney stone shortly after Scrappy Doo was born and diagnosed myself with liver cancer about twenty minutes into my online search.  I weepily sat up that night staring at my new baby trying to decide if I should do a video diary or a written diary to let him know how much I had loved him.

There are about a zillion cats in the world though, so I am hoping nature will amaze me once again and I won't need to cut an umbilical cords or rub any kitten anuses to stimulate poop.  I am thinking about going to vet school with all of my free time so whatever happens, it will be an education.

Speaking of veterinary experiences, Noelle has an eye infection.  Again, I went online to look for some remedies.  I found everything from squirting some milk in her eye to calling a vet immediately because she is probably going to go blind.  Since I have had more than my share of experience with eye infections with the three boys, I decided to go the homeopathic route for now.  I brewed up some honey and chamomile concoction that I need to go dab on her eye.  I am sure there will be some apple cider vinegar and garlic tea coming her way as well.  Lucky girl.

Au revoir from the farmette.

Weaning

Well, it happened.  The bag of baby formula is gone. The husband and I had decided that when Noelle was done with her 50lb bag of milk replacement, she was going to be cut off cold turkey.  We rationalized that since we were only going to be feeding her formula for a short time, we would continue to use the gigantic baby bottle until the end so she would really bond with us, despite much more knowledgeable dairy folks telling us she should have been weaned from the bottle a month ago.  How could we?  She was almost three months when we got her and she is sooo cute when she slobbers milk all over you trying to get the last drop of ambrosia from the bottle.  It is udderly (get it) adorable when she tugs on the nipple as she thrusts her head forward ramming the bottle into your ribcage or forehead depending on how you are holding it; not to mention how sweet it is to have a 200lb baby giving you the pat down with her tongue once she has sucked the bottle dry because she is sure you are hiding more milk in your boots.  Who'd want to give that up?  I was quite relieved I was boarding a plane a day after her last bottle.  The weaning process was not going to be pretty with our spoiled little princess.

Yesterday morning as I was calmly getting myself and the children ready for school in the most organized fashion,  the husband asks, "How long can a calf be given formula? "

I know what is coming but reply, "Anywhere from 2 to 6 months is what is recommended."

This is what greeted me when I got home that afternoon.

Technically, she should be getting cow's milk since she is a cow, but we couldn't find a supply of raw milk nearby so settled on the formula, which seems strange, but she is thriving.  When Prince was a baby I felt like a failure as a mother because I had to supplement him with baby formula. He wasn't getting enough breast milk because, to quote my lactation consultant, "He was a lazy sucker."  I know I should probably stop telling this story since Prince is almost a teenager and is probably mortified by the knowledge that he was breast fed, but the double entendre (a French term I will surely be using next week) is just too funny to take out of my comic repertoire (more French).

This reminds me of another funny thing that happened at school this week.  I know I said I wasn't going to write about the children, but this more of a situational story that just happens to have occurred while doing a project with a group of five and six year olds.  It has absolutely nothing to do with cows or double entendres but I still start laughing like a thirteen year old boy when I think about it.

So yesterday in my ELA group, the children had to cut out letters and unscramble them to spell a word. Each word scramble had a picture to give them clues as to what the word was.  For one of the word scrambles, there was a picture of a little girl picking blueberries and the letters P, K, C, I.  They needed to cut out the letters and paste them next to the picture in the proper order which would be, "PICK."  One little boy proudly showed me his work.  He had inverted his "P" so instead of "pick" it said, "dick."   I turned purple trying to stifle my laughter for fear he would think I was laughing at him.  I am pretty sure someone at Houghton Mifflin chose this word on purpose knowing that many children would be pasting the word, "dick" onto their school work, in order to give overworked teachers a little chuckle.  I may need to add this person to my list of dream BFFs.  Nigella still tops the list, though Nico Case is coming in at a close second.  She was hysterical on NPR the other day.

Phew. Is there such a thing as writer's ADD?  I definitely have it.  Back to my lazy sucker.

The first four months of Prince's life were spent with him curled up on a nursing pillow eating for three minutes, sleeping for twenty, eating for three minutes, sleeping for twenty and on and on, while I sat on the couch watching every episode of Law and Order.  Breastfeeding was the best thing for my baby and damn it, I was going to do it.

This all day nursing session was a big reason why I didn't go back to work after he was born.  Well, this and driving around in a cargo van with a film crew at all hours of the night with generator fumes wafting through the air probably wasn't the best place for baby. Oh, and there was also the fact that I was convinced anyone who took him out was going to drop him on his soft spot or push his baby carriage into an open manhole.  I may have had a teensy bit of postpartum crazy.

He finally got the hang of the nursing thing, but decided to wean himself right around a year.  It was a much easier process than it was for James Dean or Scrappy or I guess Noelle at this point.

Tomorrow I am off for five days in Paris!  Waves of excitement come rushing over me followed by waves of anxiety about being so far away from my boys. The tsunami of apprehension of leaving the husband in charge of getting them to school and feed them something besides cereal is starting to subside.  I thought about leaving him cold turkey like Noelle, but the roast chicken for dinner tomorrow is already in the oven and I have mapped out a meal plan for the week, but just in case, I have stocked up on cereal.  Luckily, since he has been home and I have been working at the school every day, he has learned how to do a load of laundry and he loads and unloads the dishwasher.  Weaning all around.