Green

What to do with the massive amounts of parsley growing in your garden? Ghormeh Sabzi, of course! Yum! My favorite Persian dish as a child...and maybe even still! (It's better when mom makes it, though.) Matthew actually requested it this time!

(Not my picture - we always eat it before we remember to take a picture of the presentation!)

And what color did we paint our chicken coop? 

         

....................Green, of course! (Photography by Matthew)

Andrew helped out a TON! Matthew did at first, but we needed a photographer so he traded in his brush for a camera...

Some super cute videos of the chicken coop adventures, taken by Matthew:

What a Guy!

This post is about how much I love and appreciate my sweet fiance. Well...it starts that way, anyhow...

Have I mentioned here yet how awesome it is to be engaged to a personal trainer? I still do my own thinking, but have his brain close by to pick anytime I'm not sure about a food choice - and when I try to cancel a training session, he knows I'm full of (bad) excuses and won't let me! Why is this so smile-worthy? Because in working with him for the last month, I've lost 4.5 pounds and lots of inches. I'm so thrilled to be back on track and super close to my goal weight yet again. :)

PLUS - when we're out and about running errands, and I see something fuzzy I just HAVE to bring home, he 'lets' me. (I use the term 'lets' loosely - we aren't exactly a 'I let you or don't let you' kind of couple - but you know what I mean!)

Meet Red...she's likely to be our best layer of the bunch....

Red is named after our favorite character on our current favorite TV show (plus, she's a Rhode Island Red chicken - so it just made sense!) Mike and I usually only watch one sitcom at a time - we watch season after season until we're either tired of it or it ends. Our current favorite? Can you guess? I'll give you a hint: Red is hilariously grouchy.

I've considered changing the name of my blog to: From Polish to Poultry - because once upon a time, my nails were painted beautifully every single day. Now? I'm loving being an urban farmer - dirt, feathers, chicken poop and lots of hand washing = no more pretty nails. BUT - today, I splurged and painted them. It's a few hours later and they're already trashed. It's okay - I'll trade polish for poultry anyday!

More chicken news: Tweety (aka Little Miss Perfect) may actually become Little Mister Not-So-Perfect and may need to leave our flock. Since he was a Bantam chick, he came to us straight-run (which means he wasn't sexed and it's a 50/50 shot at whether you get a rooster or not!) We think he's a he because he isn't getting his feathers yet...and I've heard that roosters take longer than hens to get their feathers. No other reason, really - just a hunch. I wanted to be sure we had 3 good layers - and adding a young chick too much later in the game isn't going to be fun. Red is from the same place as the rest of them, and likely  hatched around the same time...she looks like it, too. Sweet bird so far - doesn't mind being held at all! She's a tiny little thing compared to Big Mama and Rio.

In other foul news, the ducks are whacked. They are seriously crazy...so much fun, but insanely messy, active and loud. Oh, and huge. These suckers are growing almost as fast as my neglected asparagus. (Have you ever seen that plant grow?!?) We haven't been able to keep the ducks from swimming in the water, which is creating such a mess, wet bedding and just plain chaos.

So, our solution was to separate the fast growing crazy ducks from the smaller, cleaner, sweeter chickens. (Who's idea was it to get these ducks again?) So here you have it - a bathtub containing the largest plastic bins we could fit...

The ducks are being SO loud since we separated them. I'm not sure if they're bummed about the chickens being gone or super thrilled to have so much space (and an open water dish!) I can tell you that this is the best thing we could do, even after only having it this way for a couple of hours. The water in the chicken brooder is clean (and there! We were having to refill it every hour or two because of the ducks splashing!) and the litter is dry. I'm not sure what happens when we try to combine the two sets of birds in the outside coop - fingers crossed we all get along! Maybe we'll have to have brooder playdates every day - move them all into one for awhile or something, so they don't forget each other? Any ideas for me from the more experienced bird keepers?

Popcorn

Today's biggest smile was brought on by a napkin and some ink...

Following closely behind, the sheer joy and wonder on the faces of children of the new millennium, who have never seen popcorn air-popped before...

Sunday

This happened in my backyard today while the boys were at their baseball jamboree...

I tell ya - those are going to be some spoiled birds! We still need to paint it and sink some metal flashing into the ground, and then wire it - but by the time our chirpers are cluckers, it should be ready for them to move in!

Not sure when this happened, but the backyard bushes are gorgeous right now!

This is the best part of my day, hands down. I waited all weekend for this. Mom's babies are home, clean and ready for bed - watching martial arts videos with Baba before snuggling up in bed for stories...

Rats in the Curtains

No, not really. But this was in my curtains. Scared the bejeebus out of me when he giggled. While it's quite obvious there's a child in the curtains in this picture, it wasn't quite so obvious when he was standing perfectly still and quiet and I was looking elsewhere for him.

Here's the rat...he wasn't in my curtains, though.

This was my first doula birth baby...I was visiting her on her one week birthday. Such a precious little one.

We have wings! This is Rio - she had a few wing feathers when we got her (itty bitty ones that were barely feathers yet) - and now look! She's turning into a real chicken!

I was reminded tonight by a friend to focus on what's going right in times of stress (vs. focusing on the stressful/difficult things in life) - and while I realize this posting is very random (and perhaps even a little disturbing in places), it's full of things that have made me smile lately. Tell me what's been making YOU smile lately! What are you grateful for?

Foul Introductions

You've already seen a few of our birds - here are a few more pictures of the little squawkers. I took these last week - I'll have to take more this week to show you how fast they're growing!

Mr. Andrew is wonderful with the critters - he looks out after them, waters them, snuggles them...

He even climbs into the tub to just sit and watch them...

Tweety in Andrew's hands. Tweety is a Bantam chick - she has cute little feathered legs and is SUPER loud when discontent! Andrew originally named her Little Miss Perfect and Matthew renamed her Tweety. Both are very suitable names for this little fuzzy.

Matthew isn't so much into the birds. He's protective of them, but has yet to hold them...he'd rather cruise Amazon for new toys and high top Converse.

Here's Rio (named by Matthew) - pecking away at her chick feed. Rio is a Silver Laced Wyandotte chick. She's going to be a beautiful chicken someday. Rio doesn't love to be held, but will tolerate it. She's the first of our flock to grow her wings - so pretty!

From L to R: Big Mama's head, Rio, Jennifer and Tweety (aka Little Miss Perfect) from behind...

Here's Big Mama on the left and Jennifer on the right. (Tweety in the background.) Big Mama is my favorite chicken - she's content to be held and barely ever squawks. Jennifer is everyone's favorite bird - she is silly, active, friendly - catches flies when we let her outside, climbs into your lap when she's done. She's growing faster than anyone! We're pretty sure she's a Rouen - a close cousin to the Mallard...

Last, but certainly not least, here's Fuzzbutt. Fuzzbutt is an Indian Runner - she stands upright like a bowling pin, doesn't love the water, but will follow Jennifer anywhere (including into the water). This little one didn't seem super healthy when we got her, but she's made a full recovery and is quite the little peeper! If separated from her flock, she'll let you know very persistently!

Fuzzbutt has a fuzzbutt...

T-Ball, Take 2

Matthew is playing T-Ball again this year - this time, with a new coach. We loved Coach Graham (and asst. coach Bailey) - but wanted to support Coach Read in his first year of T-Ball coaching. Plus, neighbors Ashley and Parker are on the team, so the kiddos can practice together in the yard.

Here's my happy t-baller...super thrilled to be #1 this year!

Coach Read helping him get set up...

A short video of Matthew hitting and running to 1st base...

Playground time after practice, since it was beautiful Friday evening and we had nowhere to be in a hurry...

But the results of playground playtime were not great for the brand new uniform. Who puts 3rd graders in WHITE pants? Oy. (Andrew didn't have a game - he just insisted on wearing his new uniform to Matthew's practice. His first game is tonight, though!)