Parenting with chickens

My girls are endlessly creative.

My 14-month-old is especially creative when it comes to food. I think the Hunter-Gatherer in her has begun to come out now that we are pretending to be farmers in the city.

Do you see this face? It's not innocent, let me tell you.

In the past few days, she has hunted, gathered, and eaten (what I wasn't able to scoop out of her mouth) varying quantities of the following:
- grass
- egg shells (fished out of the compost)
- dead bugs
- leaves
- dry chicken poo
- wet chicken poo (she finger painted in it first, then gave it a lick)
- duck feathers
- dirt
- burnt wood
- an old apple core
- fresh oregano (good choice, I must say)
- rocks
- bottle caps
- plastic wrappers
- dog poo
- seeds
- dog food
- cat food
- and the list goes on...although I do think she may have a taste for poo. No wonder she's becoming such a picky eater. Good thing it's organic poo. (LOL)

Just for the moms out there, I DO worry sometimes that she is going to come down with some crazy disease related to her poo consumption. It's not like I encourage her to do this. Like I said, she's endlessly creative. And for those of you who are wondering why on earth there is so much poo in my yard, that's what happens when you turn your city lot into a "farm-yard"?

Lexi is equally creative, like the other day when she thought it would be a good idea to sit on a chicken. Do you already see how this ends? After the sobbing stopped, we cleaned up the three inch scratch on her arm with the slightly obvious, but none the less needed wisdom, "That's what happens when you sit on a chicken." Both the chicken and the girl are doing fine, albeit slightly scarred (pun intended) from the event.

And she shall be called "Beady Eyes!" Taken in early June, both the chickens and the gardens are now much more plump and full.

Thankfully though, when it comes to food she has a more sophisticated pallet that prefers goat cheese spread on toasted crackers and cherry tomatoes dressed in balsamic vinegar rather than animal poo. Love that kid. She is crazy, though. One minute, a room in the house will be tidy and have that "just cleaned" satisfaction, and thirty seconds later, I look in and can't see the floor. This morning I was watering the garden and came into the house to find that my kitchen had been turned into an imaginative space, where Lexi was mixing up her own concoction of leftover green smoothie in my salad bowl, and picking greens to put in it from off the floor....
Yes, the kitchen floor was now growing grass.
Kidding.
It was just covered in freshly picked grass and oregano leaves.

You might be wondering why she was in the house alone? You can ask her the same question. Clearly it's way more fun to be creative when Mom is distracted with something else. This happens, um, a lot.

I can't get this pic to turn for me. Either way, she's an alive one!

In farm news, Ice Cream is continuing to woo the ladies with his manly waddle and swaggle, and Oreo and Cookies & Cream are continuing to lay eggs. I believe in the two nest boxes, we now have a total of 12 eggs. By the looks of things, we should have ducklings by the first week or so of August! And speaking of babies, LOOK AT MY CUTIE BABY PEAS!!! In a mere handful of days, they emerge from their flowers and dangle on their vines like little green Christmas ornaments.

Also, this steaming beauty came out of my new bread machine (yay for Craig's List!) today. One more check off the list to make Real food a daily reality. Love.

It's what's for breakfast.

Last weekend, on our way home from our weekend away in Door County, we stopped at a quirky farm in Lake County, which Eric had found on Craig's List. We were after one thing (well, four, as it turns out): Muscovy Ducks. 

A funny looking breed of ducks native to Latin America, these ducks don't really need swimming water, barely make any noise at all, live peacefully with chickens, lay eggs, and make an excellent meal (when that time comes).   

We purchased four adults, one drake and three hens, put them in cardboard boxes, set them in the trunk of our car and drove an hour home (yes, this is inevitably how our romantic weekends end...purchasing fowl and pretending to be farmers in the city. I love us.).

So far, the ducks seem to love it here. 

Two of our ducks started laying the other day. We are planning on letting at least one of the Mamas hatch a clutch of ducklings, and see how that goes (plus my daughters are already ecstatic about the thought of baby ducks running around the yard...as am I, who am I kidding?!), some of their eggs are also destined for our tummies. This one we found outside of the nest box. Voila! Breakfast.

Compared to a chicken egg, the yolks in duck eggs are HUGE! 

 Duck eggs, it turns out, are thick, rich, and SO FLAVORFUL. I have never eaten a more delicious egg in my life. Granted, I've really only eaten chicken eggs from the grocery store, so I don't have much to compare to, but really - they are SUPERB.

 I ate my egg with some homemade whole wheat toast and fresh strawberry jam (not made by me, but still lovely). Eating a whole foods diet (or Real Food as some people call it) takes extra time and effort, but it is SO WORTH IT. Food tastes better, because it IS better. And you can appreciate what you put into your mouth so much more because not only do you know where it came from, but the extra effort to prepare/grow it adds to that appreciation as well.

Meanwhile, outside in the coop....

Meet Cookies & Cream, one of our Mamas, who has been hovering around the nest box all morning

Ice Cream, the big white one here, is our drake. He takes full advantage of his harem quite often. And still the ladies won't leave his side. Machismo in duck fashion.

Ice Cream is in the back, herding two of his ladies, Yogurt and Oreo back into the coop since it started to rain (btw, my three-year-old claimed naming rights. Don't you love them?!)

Silly chickens. 

A weekend away...

Five happy years. 

One lovely weekend 

- with just the two of us - 

in Door County, WI.

Here's a small glimpse of our fun. 

[*The following pictures are a mix of phone and camera pictures - hence the random quality change]

Sturgeon Bay

Peninsula State Park

All boys have to show off a little...

At a lookout in the park

Breakfast in bed

Our private porch

Feeding baby goats at a local dairy we visited

Our favorite place in Ephraim

Kayaking out to Horseshoe Island

On the shores of the island

Hiking on Horseshoe Island

I fell in love with all the wild Forget-me-not's covering the forest floors. They look so ethereal.

Our sweet rewards for kayaking there and back again. Mine was french vanilla and black cherry double scoop.

Light dinner of fresh produce and local bread, wine, and cheese on our porch

In the gardens at the bed and breakfast

This Sturgeon is covered in cutlery! I forced Eric to pose by it...

Already missing it. 

So thankful for a time to get away and be with my best friend. 

No distractions. Nobody small to care for. Nothing to do, except anything and everything.

Looking forward to hopefully visiting again next summer! 

Choosing Joy

One of the things I hate about myself as a mom.

Sudden raging anger over the simplest things.

She doesn't come when I call her.

She gets out of bed for the millionth time.

She hits her sister.

She loses control.

Why do you have to act like you're three? Why can't you be mature? Why can't you act like you are supposed to? How many times have I told you not to do that?

And there I am. Yelling again. Filled with anger at a child that I asked the Lord for, whom I love so very desperately. And suddenly I'm the one who has lost control. 

Perhaps I'm the one that is not acting like I am supposed to. 

I read this today, written by another broken mother (who also happens to be Ann Voskamp). Here we are trying and trying, and yet we still forget why we were created.

 http://www.aholyexperience.com/2013/06/what-all-mamas-and-us-need-to-thrive-this-summer/

And so I am thankful for a good Father. Who forgives more than we deserve. Who loves more deeply than we can fathom. And who longs for us to give ourselves over completely.

Battle for joy, or lose your life. Or other's lose theirs.

I choose joy.

What will you choose today?

Under construction

My blog is currently under construction. Sorry for the delay and goofy layouts. Eric and I were working to develop a new format and accidentally did it live (and then couldn't get it back, obviously). And then of course, we took a wonderful weekend vacation. Pictures and more posts on all that to come. :-)

Eye of the Tiger

Today I did something that I honestly never thought I would do. 

I ran a 5K.