A happier, fluffier time ... and there were more eggs

There were requests for pictures of my poor molting birds.

Frankly just looking at a motley group of wacked-out feathers and chicken skin got me a little depressed. So I first had to post some snaps of the younger girls in their full-feathered fluffy glory.

Ah, the foof and arrogance of youth.

The sneaking around after preening for the cocksure boys. Wait. Is that a rooster reference? 'Cause that's how I meant it.

But look. Look at the inevitable end of all that vanity.

Just look, willya?

I hope the requested molting pictures are what you wanted. I for one feel a little older, a little less fluffy and a whole lot less fertile.

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What's up with that?

People pocket dress

I got a little restless while waiting on some paperwork yesterday so I started cutting up Laura's t-shirts and some random flannel bits.

This dress is not the most seamstressy thing I've ever made, but it sure is the baby's favorite.

Because of the Little People pocket! An afterthought with an oversized button closure and a scrap of ricrac, it makes the perfect play dress accessory. I might have to add some Little People (Lego, Beanie Baby) pockets to more of her swing tops.

(Don't mind the mountain of toys in that snapshot. Please.)

What have you repurposed lately?

On those days

On those days, more frequent than we might like to admit, when it's difficult to leave the flannel sheets at 5 in the morning when no one remembered to program the coffee pot...

On those days, nearly every day lately, when we run the dishwasher at least three times and the laundry runs washer-dryer-fold-dresser-hamper-repeat, hamster-like in what can only be named a vicious cycle...

And on those days, don't tell a soul, when the forgiveness of an elastic waist skirt is all the mercy one receives...

On those days I am grateful for the smallest of victories and quietest of comforts. I am compelled to watch for the last holdouts of the falling leaves finally fluttering to a damp rest and to listen for the hum of the passing school bus as my children read at the table.

I dunno. It's just so everyday. Wake and change a diaper before dawn. Start the oatmeal, check the email, return the phones to their chargers. Feed some crowing and whinnying animals and get the hem of my pants wet with dew. Inventory the hay bales and calculate how long until more will be necessary. Remind myself again to list some of the junk overflowing the shop and barn on Craigslist.

It's just so everyday, and I've not yet had a cup of coffee. Some days I want to make scones instead of oatmeal and read the paper and some yummy blogs instead of email and lesson plans.

Mr. Suite has a hand-painted sign at his office that he keeps facing out from his desk for the benefit of subcontractors who might be tempted to complain. "No Whining" it proclaims in faded black on a waxy cream background.

I think I might need to borrow that sign back home for a while. For myself.

If you know what's good for you

This past week has seen my novel (sounds so grand, doesn't it?) fall far behind the word count goal. I'll catch up! I must!

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It's not my fault, Ossifer, I have good alibi:

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Three doctor appointments. Three volleyball practices. Two volleyball games. Two music lessons. A repeat of the ever-escaping pony drama.

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Ooh. Let's lean on the pony drama.

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On Saturday we were watching Madeleine serve it over the net and score on a small town near us where the players are all fed Miracle Gro or some such supplement so as to make our team look like miniature players on a full-size court. That was my view from the bleachers, at least in between serial battles to keep Laura from, er, borrowing extra team balls and hucking them into the field of play. I think she was trying to confuse the other team. Or get us some penalties. It's hard to tell; she's not yet 2.

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Anyway between Games A and B I had to miss out on the ever-tempting concession stand lunch to run into town for my H1N1 immunization appointment.

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This is when I abandoned my mother and Mr. Suite in our group efforts to corral Laura and cheer on the mighty Wildcats.

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And while I was gone, my husband's cell phone rang. It was our next-door neighbors of the B&B, now for sale and looking oh-so-French-Country should anyone out there be interested.

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So Mr. Suite answered. He didn't figure it was a social call. Never has been.

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Nope.

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Dolly-the-danger-girl Shetland was out of her paddock, causing my elderly Arab much anxiety.

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Dolly never ventures far, mind you. She just wants to taste the grass on the other side of the fence and it's a bonus if she can drive her pasture pal insane in the process. Just because he's not willing (or able) to commando crawl under the bottom wire. Gee whiz. It never occurs to gentlemanly Two Spot that he could leap the top wire with ease. He's just a law-abiding sort deeply offended by Dolly's disregard of the order of all things barnyard.

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Anyway this escape caused the neighbor (did I mention their house is beautiful and for sale?) much consternation as he is not a "horse person" and his wife is allergic. (To horses, not him.)

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Mr. Suite (otherwise known as my long-suffering non-horse-person husband who loves me despite my horse habit) was 30 minutes away from home and I was 45 minutes to an hour away. The hour existing in case I might have time to pull through Dutch Brothers for a mocha. Full disclosure. And, hey, I'd just had a SHOT. In the arm.

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Recap, without parentheticals:

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I'm in town. My husband's watching four children and a volleyball game three small villages away. One pony is out and one horse is pacing the fence and whinnying like a heart attack. The neighbor is worried about ... well, who can blame him? ... his lavender plants.

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So Mr. Suite does the most expedient thing possible and gives the combination to our barn lock to the neighbor and explains the steps to capture said pony.

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Oh, poor, poor neighbor. For a non-horse-loving person to be subjected to this: Open barn, step over feed sacks and assorted tack items, scoop out can of grain, call for unhaltered naughty pony, open gate in (schlocky deep) muddy paddock entrance, shoo away full-size panicked horse from open gate, maybe even step in the mud in order to lead stinky pony inside, close gate, re-lock barn against tack thieves... it's all too horsey for words.

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Also I think this is why good fences makes good neighbors.

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So I'm driving home like a maniac, sans mocha. Mr. Suite is driving home much more safely because he has Laura and Grace on board, having left Madeleine to finish game B and Sarah to keep Grandma company and further to beg for Taco Time on the way home.

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I beat my husband and the babies home by a few minutes, long enough to watch Dolly look left and right, to simply step over the lower rail and duck under the middle rail to freedom. By this time Two Spot was bored of the drama. As might you be if you lived with Dolly.

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I called to the naughty pony, opened the gate and she marched back in with her head held high.

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Then Mr. Suite went to town and bought some solid field fencing. He and his dad spent a happy (okay, that part's maybe not true: it's a frigid 40 degrees out here in the evenings) afternoon fencing our lower paddock. The openings in the field wire are three and a half inches square. In fact it resembles a volleyball net, just a little, so that's bringing the themes together for you. Such service with the tangents.

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Dolly has not figured out a way around (through, under) this. Yet.

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Just like I haven't yet figured out how to catch up on my word count. 'Cause I've been too busy catching ponies. Yeah, that's it.

More baking ... and the chickens are molting

"Molting" is one of those words that sounds exactly as it is: gross-me-out, gag-me-with-a-spoon, molting is revolting. Seriously. There's nothing cute about a laying hen with half her feathers on the henhouse floor. (Picture mange. Only poultry. And you know, natural rather than fungi-created.)

You'd think everything about my sweet little fluffy egg producers would appeal to me. But you'd be wrong, because as molting creatures they are mostly featherless and charmless creatures. Also I have been (gasp) buying eggs, which annoys me to no end. Once you've switched to free range eggs there's almost no going back. Unless you have to make cookies. So I'm buying eggs.

And ... I'm feeding cat food to the hens. I heard this farm girl tip from one of the old-timers at the general store. Something in the cat food supposedly makes their molting stage speed up and their cute fluffy egg-laying selves return.

Who knew I could be so fickle?