My Girls

We recently entered into the realm of chicken ownership. What began as a simple quest to have eggs, has become a full 'fledged' effort to educate our kids and enhance our lives. We began with 1 tiny fluffy chick and attempted to have it inside. Unfortunately the dangers inside were far more concerning than the cold outside. We have since increased our numbers to eight and have varying ages from a week old to almost 3 weeks old. They are so fluffy and cute, peeping whenever we are near.

Nick nearly completed two coups last weekend with the help of one of our neighbors (one for us, one for them). I quickly realized that the size of our flock and the size of the coup would not mesh. We are deciding to either enlarge the current coup or make a new hen house. Regardless, Nick was able to create these coups in one afternoon with the use of free scrap materials that we have accumulated. If the current coup is deemed useless we will sell it. (This could be another great way to earn some extra income.)

I am on a quest to beautify and simplify my life. My backyard and kids areas are one of my top priorities. It is my desire to redesign our backyard to create play nooks and areas to inspire creativity. In the next month I will build a sunflower house using natural materials (logs, sticks, bark, twine, sunflowers, etc..), also a deep open sandbox, plant some large growing grasses, plant our garden, incorporate more natural toys into our outdoors play areas, and many more projects. Of course it just so happens that almost all of these projects require absolutely no funds. Yes, I am getting very creative!

We considered my goal in our desire to have eggs. This is why our flock of gals is varied and diverse. We wanted a variety of color in the hen house as well as in the eggs. This is certainly a benefit of being able to buy one of each variety of chicken and not having to order them from a dealer. Kudos to the legalization of backyard chickens. I am loving the process of raising chicks and it has become a focus in the kids daily life. I may not have the ability to live on a farm but I can experience a small part of farm life through our chickens.

My friend Sharon took pics of her flock and posted them on her blog. I absolutely loved the idea. I also think it is a great way to remember what kind each chicken is and to capture their youth. After all, they have changed dramatically in only a week! Here they are:


First our beautifully colored Speckled Sussex, Dahlia. This is momma's bird.





This is our Buff Brahma Bantam, T-Rex. She was the original chick and has been with us from the begining.




Our Buff Orpington named Velociraptor. She is very mild mannered and docile.





This is our unknown chicken, Cauliflower Compsognathus. She is most likely a whiter version of a Maran and we will know by how dark her eggs are. This one we left at the store and I just couldn't stop thinking about her. After two days we went back and she was still there. I am just so curious about what she will be!





This is our Maran, Hazel Saltapus, and as you can see she is definately darker than the other.



This is our White Leghorn (pronounced leg-urn, and make sure to say it with a southern drawl). Brachiasaurus is definitely the brute of the bunch. She is a production layer and will have white eggs. She tends to dominate the group and is the 'chick in charge'!





This is one of two Americana's. She is named Blackbird (a name Landis chose after his favorite song). We got them today and I absolutely love them. These will lay a variation of green to blue eggs.


This is Archaeopteryx Cadbury our second Americana, she has such beautiful back markings I just had to show off. She is much lighter with more yellow than the other Americana. Both of these birds will be uniquely colored when they are mature.


Teilee holding Archaeopteryx Cadbury.




As you can see we shall have a colorful group of chickens and eggs. We are so excited!
I thought I would show you one of the coups made. I am thinking this is most likely a four chicken coup.


This really is exciting to be able to provide ourselves with our own eggs. Now all Fort Collins needs to legalize is having a goat;). A large garden, edible landscaping, and chickens, we are becoming more self sufficient and healthy everyday! Happy Spring!

Two in one night, what's up!

So I decided that most of my writing is dark and often dreary and I wanted to change it up. I began thinking about the wonderful times had with my children at our local park. What started as a lovely piece on the wonders of our playground, turned into a short essay about poop. I don't know how I do it?:) This one is a work in progress but when it has been progressed I think I might post it at our local park.

Here is that essay:

The grass all but crunched beneath my feet. If it weren’t for the melting frost the grass would cease to squish and would burst into flames. Never have the blades been so parched for moisture. The ground counts, in drops, the iced dew that dabbles on the ragged grass. I step swiftly sideways to avoid the droppings that are quite certainly from a dog whose owner could not lazily stroll to the plastic bag receptacle to obtain a much needed and almost always provided baggie. Occasionally I reminisce about the rumors of coyotes in this area, somehow the possibility that this pile could be that of a wild animal makes it much more palatable. If only that were coyote poop I could excitedly show my children the wonders of wildlife. However, being highly trained in the identification of scat, I can correctly identify it as that of a negligent pet owner. This is a destination location. There is not a dog owner that visits this park that does not understand what their pet intends to do there. Clearly my children’s feet need not to tramp confidently, carelessly through a field. We are apparently undeserving of our soccer field, and kite flying meadow when a dog’s bowel is needy. We are accustomed to the inability of rolling down a hill at a moment’s notice. We are educated on the way in which to step nimbly over the obstacle. Do these dogs not head home with smears on their paws? Do they not recognize their own consequences and suffering? I wonder if the owners, noticing the dry ground, believed that their contribution to our park would provide earthly nourishment. Of course my justifications are only another sign of my ability to see half full.

Old Poem

I wrote this a while ago, I may have already shared it. I don't think I considered it complete at the time and so there is no title. Here it is in all its graphic strangeness:



You exist on the scraps of my soul,

Feeding hungrily on the carnage that was me,

Like a wolf ravenously devouring the remnants of kill,

You have so bathed in the blood of my death.

What I was, what I could have been,

I am but a shadow,

A fragment of bone in the grass that was once a majestic and prized pelt.

The whispered rumors of strength and beauty are all that remain.

You have stolen the future.

I can't even keep track of myself!

I have written about a dozen blogs and not published a one of them.
We have had lots going on and most of my blogs have had tons of boring, blah, often negative things that I really don't think you want to hear.

We really have had a lot going on so this will be my sorta journal update!

The Low Down:

Landis will not stop singing Wagon Wheel. It's first thing he asks for in the morning and the last thing he wants to hear before going to sleep at night. We are Wagon Wheeled out! I have tried to get him interested in other songs only to have those become obsessions along with Wagon Wheel. At least he is expanding his repitoire, but please Landis no one wants to hear the same song a million times!
Here he fell asleep while with me at the computer!



Nick is now in school 3 nights a week. He is working a day job, and a night job. On the nights he has school he goes to his night job after class. He has expanded and is now pursing two home businesses. They are BeatNick Audio and a new woodworking business building solid wood kids toys. He is home 2 hours in the late afternoon, these are precious hours.

I am partaking in a home school co-op, and also working in my spare time on helping to establish a Waldorf inspired Charter School. I also have been working hard to find as many fun and fulfilling activities that I can. I am part of several different groups: A birth activist group, a book club, and a monthly singing group. All are just fun and fabulous for me!


Teilee has had several orthopedist visits and I finnally found a doctor who recommends getting orthodics to stabilize her foot and add in calf stretching exercises, then wait to see what happens. Basically all the research I have done says the same thing and I am happy to have found an experienced doctor. The only problem now is getting insurance to pay for it. Unnecessary surgery they will pay for, but they won't help with the much cheaper and more helpful orthodics.

Teilee has been a vibrant little helper these days and has even assisted in putting Landis to bed and in tending to a sick mommy. Her in depth knowledge of dinosaurs grows along with her curiosity. She has resorted to telling mommy and daddy the hip type of each dinosaur. I have no idea if she is right, I don't have that kind of memory. I have got to get this child to the Denver museum. I believe they have a free day next month and I intend to take her. She has also stated that we need to travel to Canada, Australia, and Germany to see certain
dinosaur fossils. She was concerned though that if we traveled for longer than a day that we would have to sell our house, get rid of our cats, and move there. Of course I just thought that was so sad that she has never had a real vacation or even a visit to grandparents that involved both Nick and I for longer than two days. She doesn't understand the concept.

She is in the barrel in this picture. It was an elaborate pulley system that she a some other kiddos came up with. They would climb into the barrel from the bridge and then lower each other down to the ground.


We are still struggling financially, but have had a ton of support lately that has made me feel so positive about the future. It is still difficult that when I need a new bra, or the kids need a new pair of shoes that these things have now been deemed unnecessary and quite frankly just not possible. We are headed in the right direction though so hopefully this will be temporary (if you don't count the last 4 years).

We have recently begun our house re-vamp/spring cleaning/decorating/finishing projects. We tackled the living room last weekend and discovered our need for shelves. I didn't want to spend money and knew that I had some extra books so this happened........


They work great for all the little knick knacks and it looks like the books are floating on the wall. I love it and they were free!


Then I kept working......





We took another bookshelf, chopped its legs off and put them inside the bookshelf as shelves. I brightened up the paint and hung it vertically instead of horizontally and walla, insta shelf (on the right). Then I painted the mirror red over a pastel green and scuffed it up. It turned out great too. I intend to paint the red doors, accent walls, and all of the trim in our house white, then next month we will paint our kitchen cabinets white. Then either our appliances or our counter or something fabulous will be red. I am so ready to get our house in shape and am excited to flex my creativity. As long as I can keep it free or almost free I am sure I will be able to do almost everything that I want to. Thank god for freecycle, and craigslist and my already abundant supply of decorating, painting, remodeling gear!



I am craving some creative writing so be prepared for something in the near future that does not include journaling or updating.



Busy busy busy and I have only included a portion of our lives I wish you had time for all of it......I wish I had time for all of it!

New Do

In an attempt to empower myself and to save a few extra bucks I cut my own hair today.

This is the after shot. Mind you it is not styled, curled, or blow dried but since that is usually how I roll I needed a cut that would look good without attention. Nick helped me with an even cut in the back and then I went to town on the layers. Having some natch wave and thick locks definitely benefited me. I have been cutting Teilee's, Landis', and Nick's hair for a long time and from now on maybe I will do my own too. It is convention that tells us that we must have this done by a professional. I say it's my hair and I will do what I want to. If all else fails I have the shears that I use to buzz cut Nick's hair (beard hair right now) short. I can always go bald too!:)

This weekend we had two stand out events. One being the Raintree Charter School Meeting. Exciting things happening there and great people involved. Even though it was hard I stuck to my boundaries and didn't throw my name into the ring of contention for a seat on the Steering Committee. I think my skills will be better served in a supporting role anyways. To see a community of support for this is wonderful and I say it is about time that this town had a school like this.

The second being the deflowering of our Settlers game with our friend De. (Yes, Kara I am ashamed to say that was the first time we played our own game. It seems that people who know how to play usually have their own set.) Even though we invited her over for dessert and games, she winded up providing all of the dessert. Ummmm.....those choco covered strawberries are still on my mind. We have been needing to do that for a while and unfortunately Mr. De was out of town. Next time we will have a four player game. I have to say that it took me years of playing Settlers before I made it past 6 points. In her first time ever De earned 7 points and was in near contention for first. Nick and I are baffled at how she picked it up so quickly. Lots of fun, too much wine, too much chocolate, and I can't wait to do it again!

This week we have a busy one, that's no surprise. Tomorrow we are meeting with our 'financial advisor' who has already worked some miracles with us.
Nick will have school this week but no UPS. He is on vacation from UPS which means he will be able to work more hours at his day job. He is still restructuring his work schedule to allow for the night course.
And now some catch up pics........



Landis loves the cream cheese. This was the day he snuck into the kitchen, pulled the cream cheese out of the fridge, put some crackers on a plate, got a butter knife out of the drawer and started spreading. After a few crackers had been adequately dosed with the cream cheese he decided it was a lot more fun to slice off pieces to go directly into his mouth.


















My two lovies nursing their babies.

















Flying high at the park. Landis never misses an opportunity for mommy or daddy to go "un'neath", or to kick us to the ground! Teilee is a pro at the swings and loves to show off her skills!



















My crocodile and my ghost. Teilee helped assemble this costume for Landis one day and he walked up and down the house booing. She then equipped herself with the croc suit and roared along with him. I had to include all three pics. One they are sounding off, the other they are giving me the same squinty smile, and the third just shows their bond. There have been many occasions where I will catch Teilee just randomly telling Landis she loves him. He refuses to hold mommies hand when Teilee's is the alternative. I love that they adore each other and this impromptu hand holding is not a rare occasion. I am just glad I captured it on film.













Hope you have a bootacular day! Write you later alligators!

Why I hate Doctor shopping

I have been completely unfocused and scatterbrained this week. It could be the sinus infection, lack of sleep, of the added stress of Nick going to school. Regardless I feel the need to write something even with my filter off. Brace yourselves.......

We have been trying to find a new doctor. While I would love to have a naturopathic doc, or to just go back to our kinesiologist, I really need a traditional physician (one who accepts insurance). Teilee's toe walking is creating issues in her leg, knee, hip, and foot development. She may need to wear braces and or special shoes to correct this. I am hoping it won't be the Forest Gump kind.:) Whatever they are, we will call them her magic shoes and let her show them off to every person she meets. We tried out our first doctor today who came highly recommended by Grandma Betty back in the day. The first and only requirement that I have is that our new doctor needs to respect my decisions as a mother and be open to what it is I am doing. At least to not criticize or tell me that they know better. Most everything I am doing comes backed up with research, I am not making decisions based on a whim. You can imagine today when the doctor went to check out Landis' intact penis I was immediately on guard. Current research shows that there is no, I repeat no need to give any special care to an uncircumcised penis. There is no need to pull back the foreskin and clean the area. This is a natural part of a male body that, when the child is ready and able, he will clean and tend to whatever needs to be tended to. IN FACT retracting the foreskin can actually cause damage and problems. When a boy is around 5 years old he will be taught to retract and clean when it is necessary. Cleanliness is not an issue for most males. I have heard of only two cases where circumcision was necessary and one of those was a gentleman who would have no access to any bathing for years and worked with manure. The other was a sheep farmer in Kansas that had a hard time keeping sheep manure away from his member (yeah, I wondered why too). Why the rant...well....the first thing this doctor does when he checks Landis over is to pull back my sons foreskin. It has never been retracted, has developed normally, has had no infections, and there was absolutely no need. As I protested the doctor persisted. I was nearly pulling my son of the table when he finally stopped. Then he proceeded to tell me what he was doing and why (a little late a**hole). As if I had never heard what to do with my 2 year old's member before. I explained the research that I had read that was supported by 2 other doctors that we had seen in the last year. He had the audacity to say, "Isn't that interesting, you hear different things from different sources." And then proceeded to tell me why those other doctors were wrong. Regardless of what he knew to be true, here I was a mother clearly objecting to what he was doing and being invalidated. According to him I had no right to do what I thought was right for my child because he was clearly the superior. The entitlement he felt was completely inexcusable and yet runs rampant through the medical field. I am so tired of the neglect and abuse (yeah abuse) that my children have recieved by those that I hire to help me care for them. You may not agree with what I am doing, but I have a right to educate myself and make an informed decision about the welfare of my child. Please respect that or shove it where the sun don't shine!

Winter Pic to follow the unfiltering