Spring Comes, Eventually, With Birds


We’re just going to pretend May didn’t exist, ‘k?

I might talk about it sometime, but suffice it to say that it was a month of profound imbalance, lived largely in vehicles and including an astonishing number of grabbed meals on-the-run, and the gaining of 10 pounds. I’m cranky, irritable, and generally not much fun to be around after that. Also, it felt like it lasted 3 times as long as normal. Let’s put it this way: The most recent weekend included four parties and a school event, on top of swimming classes, spontaneous house guests and a stomach bug. That would be the nature of all the not-writing I’ve been doing for the last 4 weeks.

Ctrl-Alt-Del. Kill processes. I think I need to take the week long workshop on balance that I taught last summer.

***

Spring is finally here (ish) on the east-er coast. Although we had to light a fire in the woodstove this morning, and the plants have stalled out due to an entire month of overcast skies, there was sun yesterday and the black flies are out in force. Also, the new chickens arrived! I am told that they are unsexed Ameraucana and Araucana chicks, so half of them are likely to be roosters. These are astonishingly pretty birds, which look like wee chickens dressed in hawk costumes. They also have green feet, which are super-cute. (And yes, I’m becoming quite mad for chickens.)

They are currently about three weeks old, and are living on a tarp in the corner of the office. They will be moved to the coop tomorrow, we plan, as long as nobody else gets too sick to help with the coop modifications. (Here’s hoping.)

Pictures!

Did I mention that they lay blue eggs? Mad, I tell you. Quite mad.

***

And a quick moment I captured that I wanted to share. When my two children got off the bus yesterday, they both were reading as they came up the driveway. (The younger one is reading The Hobbit. Take that, school, for scolding our family reading habits on report-card day. “Needs to read daily,” indeed. Try and stop them, I say.)


9 responses to “Spring Comes, Eventually, With Birds”

  1. Those are awesome pictures – especially the reading while walking one at the end! That would make me insanely proud as a parent. Hooray! Have missed a daily dose of the dilettante lately, but some months are like that. Here’s to a new month! p.s. I pilfered the #trust30 from your site and will join in. My sentence today: ‘A friend trusted me with an important story today. She is amazing and I’m so glad to know her.’
    Blue eggs? Really? Do they go well with ham?

  2. Ahahaha! That’s like the cutting homework my son got the one year he was in school – and he’d been expertly wielding scissors (better than his dad I might add) since he was 2! Love the photos! Love the chickens – now where did you get them? All that’s around here are boring leghorns & golden comets…

      • Ah the mainland – that’s the closest we could find any too. True, golden comets are nice – I keep having a hankering for buffs though…

    • I’m pretty fond of the comets, though. They’re super good-natured in my experience.

  3. Oh, my. Much of your life may be out of balance, but you have some seriously stunning chickens! Your description could not be more accurate.

  4. I will sometimes put the same comment on everyone’s report (like, “Must do homework daily”) because I’m forced to put three comments, one of which has to be about what needs improvement, and sometimes I have nothing to add beyond “Keep up the good work!” (which I will have already said). So it might not be personal.

    But that’s an awesome photo, and you should bring it with you to parent-teacher meetings.

    • That is useful information. I fear that, until the mud incident, I had no idea that the comments section was even on the report card, as it looks like footnotes or something. I had missed it completely.