Chicken Coops, Chicken Runs--a lot of work for non-existent eggs

As Simon mentioned in a previous post, I am busy working out how to reorganize our yard to keep my flowers safe from chickens. They don't even eat the damn things, just pluck off the petals and toss them to the ground. I saw one walking about with a whole tulip leaf in its mouth obviously with no intention of eating it--it just did it to show me it could. So, here is the start:

I did not buy these fencing bits new but acquired them from our neighboring Grandma who wanted to get rid of an old fence running along her driveway. I went over Sunday expecting to carry home my fence pieces tucked under my arm. I did manage to pull down the fence panels, but after digging a foot deep around each post and still not being able to pull up the posts, I gave up. Simon went over a few hours later to give it a go and then came back a few minutes later to collect a pick axe. Some time later (a long time later) he came home carrying two 8 foot long posts, which had been sunk 4 feet into the ground. I am amazed he was able to remove them.  I decided to be good to myself and lopped 2 feet off each post and am only sinking them about a foot into the ground.  The wood is old enough that I feel we all need to be honest about how much we can reasonably expect this fence to do and for how long.  If it lasts 5 years, I will be very happy.

Here is one section that did not weather the dismantling experience.  No matter, I will put it together and secure the sides tomorrow (using my favorite tool: the nail gun!!).  The idea is that this set of lattice fencing will be a small winter retreat that keeps the chickens contained in serious weather. Their house--which I haven't even starting building yet--will be inside this space, too, backed up against the wall.  Since there is likely to be two feet of snow on the ground there is no reason for chickens to be wondering loose about the yard.

However on nice days, such as today, they will be allowed out of the lattice fenced area but required to stay inside the picket fence area (no, that does not yet exist), which will run all along the big green wall, from the lattice fencing over to the compost pile (their favorite place).  That way they get exercise, treats to eat off the compost pile and they can't get to my flowers or ruin grass (since none grows there anyway).  It's a win/win.

It's all very complicated and Simon doesn't even pretend to understand my plans.  He will just have to wait and see like everyone else.

Frederick at the cutting edge of trends

Apparently these things are the latest craze. They are called "fidget spinners" and for reasons not entirely clear to me, they are sweeping the nation. Children and teens are craing them, snapping them up by the dozens. If you try to order them through Amazon, you have to wait 6 weeks at least. The only place one can by them is local gas stations, strangely enough. Frederick's grandma got him one (and a few more were added for good measure by parents and Emily) for his birthday and he's been spinning ever since:

More poultry updates

Jami's a little annoyed that the chickens are systematically destroying all flowers in the garden like fat flightless locusts, so she's going to build them a fenced-in section to roam around in.  In this picture you can see a section of fence that she has already put up (that used to belong to Grandma and was carried over by me and a complaining Thomas).  The bad news?  The chicken on the roof of the hen house, who just *jumped* there.  As you can see, she is at the height of the fence.  However, that one is Zippy, the most active and agile of the chickens, and none of the others is capable of such feats, and they're all scheduled to get heavier and more gravity-bound, so we'll see.

Cock up

 So after wondering about it for weeks, trying to convince ourselves that hens have head and chin gear like this too, we are forced to concede that Chimples is a he.  The kicker was that he has started to crow in the morning.  The first time it happened I thought it was one of the cats because it is still a bit weedy and more like a bleat than a crow, but he does it every morning now, and we've actually seen him do it.  Jami is stubbornly insisting that our neighbors won't object.  That remains to be seen.

 However, he is certainly an endearing character.  He follows us around and likes to be picked up.

 He's a lap chicken.

Collecting Thomas

I woke up to loud tweeting and bucolic Indiana countryside.  Thence it was on the road.  All the usual NPR channels seemed to be religious channels instead, but I found a Blues channel and drove on remarkably empty roads (love Saturday morning) into Chicago:

Amazingly, the cheapest parking lot right next to Thomas's building (that's it in the background) was pretty much empty, despite everyone having to move out by Monday.

Here's my car in its first parking spot, near an exit...

...but I moved it right next to the building (across a little side road) so that I could trundle a big cardboard box on wheels full of Thomas's stuff up to the car easily.  I may or may not have dinged another car while moving it, I'm not saying.

Here are all the boxes.  Clearly we either beat the rush or were after it (Thomas's roommate had already moved out, leaving Thomas with a tray of little pastries baked by the roommate's mother, presumably for putting up with her deadbeat son (Thomas could tell her tales that would curl her hair)).

Then, after two box fulls were wedged into the Prius, Thomas insisted on taking the wheel and we were off.  I took this picture because of the helicopter.  See if you can spot it.

Thomas wants to own stock in this stock exchange.  Or so he claims.

On the way to pick up Thomas

As before, I'm stopping off in Michigan City, Indiana (last stop before Gary, Indiana - too scary even for a Flint resident). Unlike before I looked up the cheapest motel and it was this place, which actually turned out to be a couple of miles into the countryside:

It says "no vacancy"... but I have my doubts:

Here's the view from the car parked in the spot as above:

The room comes complete with standard motel artwork:

...and of course a TV and fridge:

Having checked in, I headed back into town, passing this on the way:

I was told to go to Panera Bread, but I spied a sign for this, and decided to treat myself:

Good call!

Happy Birthday Frederick!

Frederick had a birthday party at Emily's house with Ava and all three made a very colorful three layer cake. By the time Frederick got home, not much was left. Simon and I helped polish it off. It was delicious!

Here is just a small sampling of his presents.

And here is the couch piled high with movies. We've been watching a new movie every day and night since.

This evening it's The Sound of Music.

Moving Thomas back to Flint, part 1

After tomorrow Thomas will have finished all his classes and just has finals next week to get through. He started expressing anxiety about getting all his things home a few weeks ago. Simon's car was stuffed to the gills when we moved Thomas out to Chicago in August and, when I think back on all his trips to visit us during holidays he certainly did seem to carry piles and piles of stuff back with him, so after mulling it over, I decided to move him in two stages: I came out today in my car, and said we could load it up and then next week, after finals are done, he and Simon can deal with the rest. I told him to get ready and have things packed so we wouldn't have to stress over it, and after we had dinner together we both headed up to his room. I have a very clear memory of what his room looked like when he moved in at the start of the school year, including its relative emptiness. Either the room shrunk 75% during the year or his things have quintupled in quantity in that time. I can't put my finger on what all the new things are but there was a HELLUVA lot more stuff in there today. I did see a small cabinet I have never seen before but mainly there just seemed to be piles and PILES of: computer games and gaming systems (yeah, I saw those go back with him during one of his visits), the bassoon (yep, I know that well), plants and more plants (those must be from Chicago), lots of xylophones (all hand crafted by Thomas, he claimed, in his physics class--one of which is made with copper pipes and is a diatonic scale)...But even accounting for those things, the room just seemed absolutely vacuum packed with stuff. We made one trip to my car (which is, of course, parked on the absolute top floor of an old parking structure and the only access to my car was a super skinny unlit cement stairwell with steep narrow cement steps) and Thomas was done in. (True, he was hampered by the several pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream in his gut that he forces himself to eat ever few hours (because he has $300 in "flex dollars"--cafeteria money that he has to use or lose before he moves out next week--and the only thing they sell for take away that he likes is ice cream). Thomas had a play date with one of his high school friends, playing some computer game that I don't understand, I am sure. (For those who are interested, I suggest checking out Thomas's YouTube channel, where he posts videos of their games. Sigh.) There is Thomas's dorm (as seen from my hotel room window) and behind one of those lit up windows is Thomas, steadfastly shoveling ice cream (Chunky Monkey or Cherry Garcia?) into his mouth while playing a computer game: And somewhere in that parking structure is my car, resting after a long and tedious drive from Flint today. After we finish loading up the car tomorrow morning (including, of course, the cabinet) I will be heading back to Flint. Good luck to Simon who gets to deal with the rest of the stuff next weekend, including the many, many xylophones.