Them is a Comin'

Ok, the chickens are coming and the coop is built. Thursday is the day. We have to get their wings clipped or they'll fly around the neighborhood and perch in the trees. silly chickens. I'll blog about it all after Thursday. I don't know what I'm getting myself into! I think we're getting Rhode Island Reds? Right now we're coming up with names. Any good ones out there? So far we've thought up names like Bess, Henrietta, Boss, Gus, and Blanche. There are three coming.

CHICKENS??!!!!

So after a long silence and break from blogging, I have something to say. It's something I've been thinking about for a while. Chickens. I want them. Yes, them with their feathery heads, and egg laying bottoms. Them with their poop and the lovely feeling of country and dirt, brought to home in urbania! Chickens. I don't even know if I like them, but I want them. There are three chicken coops at residences within walking distance to our house and I stalk them, by stopping and staring and coveting every time I walk past them. I've created a chicken stalker out of Lil' B. She cries, "Chickens, STOP!" anytime we drive past a home with a coop. Anyways, we're sounding pretty strange now. Read on. Tell me if we're crazy.

Fears about Chickens:

1.They might peck each other to death?! Yuck!
2.They leave a lot of poop.
3.If the coop isn't structurally sound, my cat will probably kill them all with pleasure! It's really upsetting to think about.
4.Nothing. Chickens are great, I tell myself.

Pros about Chickens

1. Eggs!!!!!!!!
2. Great learning environment for my hippie children
3. I want them.
4. Fun
5. Eggs!!
6. Eggs

See that's six, which way outways the fears.

Today at work, B happened to secure us two or three chickens from the cook at school, who is giving some away. Sweet, and they are free. But the negative side is that we don't have a coop yet! Very negative. B would have to build us a coop right away. (Side note: The other night I came home and B was looking at urban chicken coops online. So cute.) Stay tune to see what happens in the Rambling Rose Chicken Saga. "Will she get chickens or not?"

Conversations with lil' b

After going to OMSI, pretending to be chipmunk in full costume, and gather nuts into a tree with other "chipmunks", lil'b told me that "chipmunks eat donuts." What? Is this really what she gets out of OMSI?

Today while getting ready for bed she told me that she want another girl, just like her, and she asks if I could "grow one in my body" for her. Nice. It was extremely cute and sweet, and also made me feel like she viewed me a baby making machine.

While sitting at the breakfast table, lil'b holds out an imaginary something close to my mouth, and says, "Here's Cheep." Thinking and not thinking much about it, I pretend to eat the imaginary something, then I glance over and notice the horrified look on my daughter's face. Quickly realizing that cheep meant chick, like little chicken, and I just "ate" it, I pretend to spit out the cheep. Then I say, "Where's the cheep?" She looks at me sort of irritated and disgusted and says..."In your mouth." Me, feeling rather low at this point, show her again how I can imagine to take the "cheep" out of my mouth, and I GENTLY put it back in her hand. She sort of agrees or puts up with my adult stupidity and walks away cupping her cheep. I imagine her thinking, "Well, I'm not giving you anything again."

Tea for Two

Recently , I had the pleasure of inviting a little elephant and ferocious lion over for tea.





Thanks to B's dad and step mom, we acquired a delightful tea set for Christmas, and here's it getting put to use. It's so precious, and dainty. Tea with one of lil'b's best friends, Boo.

First Loaves of Bread

After being inspired by some other women's bread making abilities, I decided to make my first homemade bread. Well, how it really happened is we ran out of bread and I didn't have the car or the desire to go to the store, and I thought this would be a good time to give a try at making bread. So about 11 am I set out to give it a go. After reading the directions for making Honey Whole Wheat Bread! Yum! in my handy dandy Betty Crocker Cook Book, I realized it's a similar process to making pizza dough which I do about every week. So, it turned out to be easier than I excepted. There is truly something wonderful about making homemade bread. First, it smells wonderful even when it's just sitting on the counter rising. It feels peaceful, and made me feel that this is how life should be. I realized while kneading the dough for about 10 minutes (plenty of time to contemplate life), that bread making is cool. I hope one day I will be able to say to lil' b, "Can you go make some bread?" and she will be able to. In our day and age when everything is so processed and package, to me, it seems so precious to be able to pass something simple like bread making onto my kids. Well, first step- make your own bread.

I actually skipped a step accidentally. I was suppose to knead, rise for 60 mins, then roll out, shape, then rise again for 35 mins. Well, I read the directions wrong and skipped from kneading to shape and rise, so I just let it rise for 1 1/2 hrs. Here it is rising.

And , even with my mistake, it turned out. It was delicious. I am truly amazed how good it turned out. I will definitely completely follow the directions the next time, because it will make it even better and yummier!!Here is my egg salad sandwich I ate afterwards, with HOMEMADE BREAD. I couldn't believe it. It was euphoric. I felt like a proud puffed up mama hen. I throughly enjoyed the process and will be making lots more homemade bread, in fact I'm about to right now.

Bird Cages

These are Bird Cages by Tamar Mogendorff. Aren't they beautiful? I saw them in Little Circus' shop. She has a blog I've read to pretend that I can still read French. It's very sweet and I wish I could actually come up with sentences to say to her.

Wiener poopie

This is one of the funniest videos I've seen in a while. Please watch it. It'll give you a good laugh.