Farm adventures

Wednesday morning I woke up and was sitting at the computer doing my morning email checking routine.  Everyone else was still asleep, except for Christa and Lexi, who went out for a run.  I thought the chickens were being especially noisy, but thought maybe I just hadn't noticed them before since it's not usually so quiet this time of day.  Chickens?  I guess I should explain.  We had been told that chickens are fairly easy to raise and that we could have our own fresh, organic eggs within a few months.  So we decided to give it a try.  Of course when Ryan decides to try a new hobby, he goes all out.  Within about a week's time, we had close to 50 tiny chicks and 4 cute ducklings in a little pen in our garage under a heat lamp.  This was in mid-March.  In about 2 weeks they grew out of that pen and he built a slightly larger pen for them, still in the garage, since it was still pretty chilly outside.  Meanwhile, a friend started building a more permanent chicken coop out on the driveway in front of Ryan's shop, with the intention of moving it to it's permanent home in the pasture when it was complete.  Well, the chickens continued to grow and didn't know they were supposed to wait for the coop to be ready so they could have a home and learned to fly out of the pen in the garage and were creating a bit more mess and smell that I really wanted in the garage.  Plus the nights were mostly above freezing by the first part of May.  We attached wheels to the coop and moved in about 50 feet down the driveway, where it has been stuck since the first week in May.  The ground has been too wet for us to try to take a large, heavy building across the field.  And the original plan for moving it did not work quite the way we expected.  The chickens (and ducks) were moved to a new temporary home of enclosed chicken wire in the field. They have been mostly content with this arrangement, as long as someone remembers to feed and water them often enough.  The girls like to go out and pay them a visit every now and then.  We have several varieties-mostly hens, but some roosters, too, and four funny ducks. On Wednesday morning as I was sitting here, I heard an especially loud THUMP, followed by more chicken sounds.  It's not uncommon for birds to hit my windows in the morning, but this didn't sound like the usual chickadee hitting the glass.  So, I went downstairs to investigate.  Out the back window I saw my chicken enclosure completely empty with not a chicken in sight, and a large dog running away across my field.  Hmmmm.  I stepped out the back door, and still could see no chickens.  I walked around to the front of the house and found about a dozen of the chickens hiding out on my front porch.  Then I went around the other side and found another couple dozen, and the ducks, hiding out under Ryan's truck.  I also found a few on the back porch, and two that had somehow fallen down the window well to the basement.  I don't know a lot about chickens, but I really didn't want to leave them all over my house and yard, leaving little presents for us to find later with bare feet.  So how to get them back to their home.  (There was one chicken dead next to the enclosure, and lots of scattered feathers.)  In books and movies it seems you see chickens happily following their caretaker, who scatters corn as she wanders the farmyard, and all the chicken follow.  My chickens were not the least bit interested in following my trails of feed.  Next idea:  to herd the chickens back toward the enclosure.  I learned that chickens are not particularly herding animals.  Especially if there is only one chicken herder.  I did manage to get all of the ones on the front porch to join the group on the back porch.  Now to get the ones from under Ryan's truck.  Finally Ryan came out to join me in my chicken herding endeavors.  (Of course by now it's starting to rain again.)  With the two of us and Ryan's brother Andrew, and our lawn boy, Blake, we managed to herd all the chickens back to their enclosure.  Ryan nicknamed me "Chicken Whisperer" because I did have a good number following me around.  We must have looked pretty silly chasing chickens all over the yard.  Blake had to climb down the window well and carry the two that were down there up and out.  I need to get better farm girl shoes-my good white sandals got pretty muddy.  Another adventure of the city girl trying to turn into Farmer Brown.

Shopping . . .

So, the last few months have been crazy busy and I was in Facebook world for awhile, but it's not really working for me as a good way to actually share or record what's going on in my life, so I think I'm back to blogger.  I'm not deserting Facebook altogether, since I still like to spy on my children that way, but for my personal use, I think this is better.  I've skipped a lot, but I'm not going to try to go back and catch up now, I'll just pick up with my thoughts for today and maybe one day next week I'll find some pictures we've taken in the last bit and add a few historical notes.
As for the title of this post . . . I've discovered that the trade off for the fun of shopping for cute baby girl clothes is the agony of shopping for preteen and teenage girl clothes.  This is where having boys would really be handy-jeans and T-shirts and styles that don't really change from toddler through adulthood.  That doesn't work for girls.  Particularly my girls.  You would think that with all them I would just be able to pass things right on down the line.  Not so much.  For one thing, they are all different body types.  For another thing, they all have completely different tastes.  Thirdly, they are all pretty particular about what they will and won't wear (it's too itchy, it's too clingy, it's too loose, it's too short, it's too long, the pockets are strange, I hate glitter).  Fourthly, styles change between the time #1 child wears it and #6 child gets it.  Fifthly, after about 3 children, clothes start looking pretty worn or stained.  So, I find myself needing to buy every single one of these cute girls a new summer wardrobe this year.  Luckily the oldest 2 have their own source of income and are largely responsible for paying for their own things.  But I still have to endure the shopping for the new things.  I confess, I have never been a shopaholic.  I spent some time wandering the mall as a teenager, but not for the love of shopping.  I get a headache after running from store to store for more than about and hour and a 1/2.   I don't even enjoy shopping for my own clothes.  I find myself spending hours perseverating over whether or not I'm getting the best deal, and whether I might find something I like more somewhere else, how often it will have to be ironed, and whether I really should be spending my money on this at all, or if this article of clothing will match enough of what is already in my closet.  That's after I even find something I kind of like and that mostly fits, which in and of itself is a major chore.  I inherited my shopping dislike from my mother.  She was one of those who knew what she needed, knew where to get it and was in and out of the store with her mission accomplished.  I'll probably pass it on to my children.  Summer clothes and church dresses are particularly troublesome shopping missions.  Shorts are too short, tank tops too skimpy, and dresses don't come with sleeves anymore.  Of course my girls want to look reasonably stylish, and so do I, but these days stylish means having the least amount of coverage of your body as possible.  That doesn't work for me.  This season I seem to be having an especially hard time finding things I like and that they like for anyone.  Lexi and Christa are so long-legged that any skirt or shorts is too short.  Emma is difficult right now being in that weird preteen size where juniors don't really fit, unless I can find an extra small, but girls' size 14/16 don't really work either.  Sierra is just too skinny and pretty much any bottoms fall off of her.  I had a bunch of knit shorts that Emma wore, but she hates those.   I have several cute summer skirts in Anya's size, but she's not so much into those.  I've tried saying, "Well, that's what we have, so wear it or not" and they usually opt for the "or not" and wear the same 3 outfits that they like every day then cry to me in the morning that their clothes aren't clean.  I just gave away boxes of clothes that were just sitting in the closet not worn while my kids complain that they have nothing to wear.  Internet shopping doesn't really help me because the girls really need to be able to try things on-there is so much variation in sizing.  Maybe I'll be hiring a personal shopper for back to school season . . . for the next 15 years.