We are just having so much fun with our chicks.  We finally took them outside to play!

A Haiku 

Babies hatched this week
Two Starling nests in my roof
Cheeping everywhere

There are two separate sets of starling families that have built nests in the eaves of my house and their babies hatched this week.  Add to that the sounds from my chicks and there is muchly bird noises.

It is sort of annoying. 

Unfortunately, I am not the type to shoot animals. 

Aren’t they adorable?  The kids just love them. 

Rosie loves them too.  We took this picture a couple of days ago, but today I caught her sitting in the brooder with them. 

Chicks are fun!  And so far, really easy.  We just got the four, two rhode island reds and two black australorps.  They all should be layers of brown eggs.  That is if one isn’t a rooster… We can’t keep a rooster where we live, and I don’t know what we’ll do if one ends up a boy (we have 90% odds of all females).  I told Charming, I couldn’t eat one of my own chickens.  They are my babies! 

I haven’t really posted anything lengthy or interesting for awhile so here goes….

I have been itching for spring lately.  Just wanting to get out of doors, do some gardening, get some sun in my face.  And my loving Heavenly Father has absolutely blessed me and many other folks here in the Northwest with some flat out gorgeous weather these past few days.  We have taken full advantage of this with going to the zoo yesterday and having a picnic lunch in our backyard today.

There is something about being outside in the sunshine that just allows me to take my life at a slower pace.

As we sat on our blanket in our backyard I just felt peaceful.  As Spider dumped upon the ground an entire bag of Craisins my first reaction was, ‘Seriously?’ and then as I watched the last bits fall, I thought, ‘that really does look kind of neat,’ and I suddenly understood why these people do some of the things that they do.

It really isn’t to make me angry, and it really isn’t always just to get my attention.  They do those things because they are fun, and interesting and they are just exploring their world.  When was the last time I dumped out a bag of quinoa to watch it waterfall down to the ground?  When was the last time I used a unique media combination to create a work of art such as marker on wall or pen on legs?  And when was the last time I used an eyeliner on my face to make angry eyes?  When was the last time my mom told me to clean up styrofoam and then in front of her eyes took a marker to the carpet to make "tracks" for them (the foam pieces)?  They call them children for a reason and I love that they are having the time of their life.

I love watching these people grow.  I love learning about them and seeing the choices that they make. I take pleasure in their funny little quirks and habits.  I love how Spider, my little Person Baby, loves to get under blankets, and today when I walked outside with our picnic, she was already all snuggled in.  I love walking in on her cozied up in my freshly made bed reading the Look (my Mary Kay catalog) and laughing.

It is the little unique day to day experiences that make life so worthwhile, don’t you think?  Rare things, like the moon not being in the sky tonight because of the eclipse or even freshly fallen snow.  Silly things like fourth of July parades.  Wonders of nature like deer showing up in our backyard or undpredictable animal things like this event that we witnessed at the zoo yesterday: (the large goat in the beginning was periodically breaking things up)

And just the wonder that children see in all of it, is so tender so precious, and so worth holding on to.  If we could just be more like them.  I think we’d be lot happier, don’t you?  Well, anyway, I think it is time for me to go take pleasure in bubbles or dumping rice on the ground or maybe even just snuggling in.

The first thing I noticed this morning was Engineer’s big, chappy lips.  They really looked puffy, red and well, chapped. 

Maybe his lack of lip hydration is what spurred him to push our cat Rosie, out the second storywindow this afternoon. 

Because I don’t know why else he would do such a thing.

Yep.  The cat is GONE and the fiver year old dunnit.  I sure hope she comes back, because if she is not in tonight, I really think she’s gonna get eaten. 

And my lips are starting to feel like Engineer’s look.  Raw.  I can see how the raw lips could push one over the edge… to want to push someone else over the edge.

I’m trying to make humor, but I really do hope my cat comes back soon. 

I am also grateful for this:

This fine lady was in my backyard this afternoon for a few hours hanging out with a friend of hers.  And I learned something very interesting about deer today– after a doe (maybe buck, too, who knows) decides to umm… relieve herself on your lawn she reaches back and licks herself.  Yes.  The place where the ermm… relief came from.

Hence the title of this post.