The Call

While driving Annie and her cousin Ruby to school I received a call from my neighbor. The chickens and the turkeys had all gotten out. This is not a good thing. I drop off the girls, call my job to tell them I'd be late (and why) and drove back home to find 8 chickens wondering the yard and two turkeys looking at me like I was dinner (did I mention turkeys are mean yet?). Thankfully I had a bowl of Tomatoes from the yard sitting on the kitchen counter. And yes I made a trail of tomatoes leading back into the run and no it did not work. It only succeeded in tricking the evil turkeys which also happen to be dumb as rocks. That still left me with 8 chickens. Praying that no one is around to watch me. I walk around the yard bent over like a 90+year old woman making kissy sounds with my arms spread apart so they don't run right past me trying to entice chickens to come get a tomato from me. It probably looked more like the hunchback of Notre Dame trying to catch dinner. Thankfully it only took me 30 minutes to round everyone up. It definitely added a little excitement to my day.

a little like Trainspotting

Annie is still using a binky.  It's a problem, I know. This last few weeks she has been using her binky non-stop.  I've tried every method I can think of to gently ease her off.   The reality, you can't ease an addict off their addiction.  So I'm preparing myself.  As soon as I am not sick anymore (hopefully very soon) we are going to have to go cold turkey with the binky.  I'm imagining this looking a lot like the scene in the movie Trainspotting where the addict is going through detox.  Puking, sweating, chills, fevers, in-visioning the dead baby crawling on the ceiling only in Annie's case it will be a binky just out of reach no matter how hard she tries to grab it.   You may think I'm over imagining, but she's three and everything is a battle right now.  We don't just cry when things aren't what we want anymore.  We hiss, and kick and bite.   We scream and throw things at innocent bystanders (sorry again to the woman at Target who got clocked with the shoe).  We strip off our clothes and run outside screaming, "I not wearing that!"  We cover the kitchen in yogurt because it isn't the right color.  I love my three year old, but I won't be sad when she turns four.   Only 313 days to go.

My little Gymnast

Annie had her first Gymnastic class today, and to say she was excited would be a huge understatement. Not only did we sleep in a Leotard and legwarmers last night, but we had to bring every pair of tights with us just in case. She had to watch Nadia while eating breakfast and then we had to put Nadia bows in her hair. I was in shock when we got there. I don't think I've ever seen her listen so well in my life. She did exactly what her teachers told her, which after a week and a half of constant fits and fighting I could not believe my eyes. She can hear, she just doesn't like listening to mom. Did I mention Three is hard? She's become a terror, and the worst part is I never know when she's going to strike. At least class went well.
Annie doing the classic "butt shelf" (you will only understand this if you've seen the movie stick it, which I'm not sure I'll let her watch again. She was showing off her butt a little too much in class).


She may not know how to do a cart wheel yet, but her finish is spectacular.
Driving to class. I think the tongue sticking out is her new thing she does when she's nervous.
Walking into class (her pants are little long).

Meet Mr. Wormy (the snake)

Have I told you Annie's love of bugs and all things crittery? Today my little princess comes running in the house announcing, "Mamma, we found a snake! he died, but he's OK." I see what looks like a small twig in my daughters hand. Of course it's not a twig, upon closer inspection I see she is carrying a dried up dead worm. "Annie honey, I think that's a worm not a snake." "No it a snake, but his name is Mr. Wormy." You will have to double click on the photo to see, but in her hand that Banjo is eying so intently is the dried up worm who now lives on my kitchen counter (in a jar).

Tower Grove farmers market

Thanks to our early morning wake up call, Annie and I got our chores done early (AKA I took care of the work part, while Annie danced barefoot in the grass) and so we went to the Tower Grove Farmers Market. We do not go for the overpriced produce or the organic eggs (we have our own thank you), we go there for Honey sticks, music and the great playground. Annie loves to just walk around and do nothing. For a total of $6.50 we had breakfast, heard a great band, and drank insanely sour lemonade that we sweetened with out honey sticks.Here's Annie enjoying honey stick number one.
This would be Annie somewhere between honey stick number four and seven? listening to free music. (If you look closely she's hiding a small pumpkin under her foot. An adorable 15 month old kept picking it up and walking around with it. Annie didn't like this,we might have some sharing problems to deal with down the road.)Here's the band. Need to find out who they are, it was fun to listen, and yes they do play that mini piano during their songs.
Annie finally started to get worn out, and tried to take a nap on this very comfy concrete slab. I dragged her home after she closed her eyes.I think Banjo missed her.

Good Morning Puff

On the one morning when I am able to sleep in, I get a 6am wake up call. From who you ask? Puff, my injured chicken who lives in a cage in the run. I do not want a noise complaint filed against us, so I go outside to see whats up. Puff, all up in hysterics is puffed up to twice her size standing on top of her water feeder yelping for dear life. I can't help but laugh, and suddenly I find myself not so upset that I'm up at 6am on a Saturday. I really love having chickens, even ones with gender confusion. Dear Puff, you are not a rooster, therefore you do not need to cluck at 6am.

While the cats away

So while Annie was at school today I went to a friends and learned how to kill, pluck and clean a chicken. I was a little nervous about the whole thing, but I figure if I eat chicken I should just as well deal with the fact that someone is killing it before I buy it at the store. So I put on my big girl panties and got to work. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Definitely not something I'd want to do alone, (mine almost got away). I had the dumb luck of missing on my first swing accidentally knocking the poor guy out with the butt of the hatchet (yeah, I really missed). I got him on the second swing though. Me holding the rooster getting ready to chop (not my best picture, but I dressed to kill chickens not go out on a date). His head is held between two nails hammered into the table.Richard ( with his wife Merryl behind him) carrying his out to the chopping block.
Sorry if some people are grossed out or possibly even offended by this post, but unless your vegan I don't think you have an argument. I thought it was very educational and I'm glad I went. I feel a little more prepared for Thanksgiving. I'm going to need a lot of help holding down Norton though. By then he should be huge. I'm not posting the more graphic pictures, but if you are ever interested in learning to prep a chicken from start to finish let me know. Merryl is more than happy to have the help, it's not much fun to do this kinda thing along.