Date Night

Dan and I had a wonderful date night tonight. It happens rarely so it is always a treat! We met up at Newport on the Levee in the parking garage and wandered up to Dewey's pizza. We proceeded to order calzones and enjoy each others company. Then we walked across the levee and stopped at Coldstone Creamery where we got a cinnamon bun batter yogurt ice creme with graham cracker crust mix in. It was superb! We walked to the edge of the levee and ate our frozen ice creme in the frozen air while watching the cold Ohio river flow by with the bright city mirrored on its surface. We then headed back to our separate cars and drove to the party source. We bought 7 bottles of wine and a liter and a half of buttershots. Four of the bottles are for Christmas gifts. The buttershots are for me. :) It's also very good in  my home made egg nog. After spending quite a lot in the booze store we headed home to crack open one of the bottles of wine. Now we're sitting in the living room, drinking wine, listening to Frank Sinatra, and looking for castles in Ireland to have our wedding at.

Sunshine!

Firstly, thank you to those of you who responded positively to my blog announcement. You guys rock!

I decided to get on before work this morning (I'm heading to the Grand on Madison Rd in Covington to set up lighting for a wedding today) so that I could see what people had to say, or not say about my blog. So here I sit smiling to myself and checking things out and trying to ignore my kitten, Westley, who was getting into trouble. Well he finally started whining so I looked at him. Apparently the edge of my netbook is shiny enough to catch the light coming in the window and throw it on the wall. The wall, which Westley was now trying to climb so he could play with the moving spot of light.  I know who is getting a laser pointer for Christmas! Maybe it will keep him out of the toilets....

Thanksgiving

Well Thanksgiving was delicious as usual. Definitely my favorite holiday of the year. This year I went to Seattle to visit some of my family. Well almost all of my siblings. Being one of seven with sibling scattered all over the United states (and one in Ireland) it is quiet an event when we all get together. We don't talk much throughout the year and often loose touch between holidays. Often at that point, conversation is just awkward. This year there was an interesting topic of conversation: chickens. I feel at this point I need to mention that I never had chickens, and never knew anyone with chickens, when I was growing up. Nor, as far as I'm aware, did any of my siblings. So it came as a bit of a surprise this year at thanksgiving that we discovered four out of the seven of us were now chicken keepers.  Birds of a feather flock together? Or were brooded together... Either way we passed some time talking about our chickens and telling stories of life on the "farm". Apparently my brother Marc's birds don't like treats. I saw with my own eyes him offering them french fries and they just walked away. My birds gobble up offerings first, ask questions later. Either that or his birds were watching their weight.

Also, an update, Betty seems to be doing much better. She is regaining weight and is very interested in the new chicken scratch I purchased. Whatever was blocking her up seems to have passed. Good news!


My sister Diana and I also went on a hike on Saturday near Skykomish, Wa in Wenatchee National Forest. It was raining and cold. We hiked through a forest that had been logged about 100 years ago. It was truly amazing to see the big stumps that were left from the loggers. It was beautiful to see the (slow) recovery that the forest was making. We got to a point where my brother AJ, my mom and Nadine were ready to head back down the mountain. My sister Diana and I decided to continue on a bit and we came across this. The picture only shows 1/4 of the falls. It was beautiful, amazing, cold, and very wet. Needless to say it was worth it.

Farthest left portion of the smaller side of the falls. Image shows about half the height. 

First sight of falls from bridge over the falls. Drops multiple times again in front of and behind where I was standing for this picture. 

Betty....

I suppose now is a good a time as any to introduce Betty, my white hen. She is a Dekalb Amberlink born Feb 28, 2011. Betty is a goon natured hen, not a bully by any means but not bottom of the tower either. Betty has a strong affinity for blue jeans and jumping.

Today, however, I have discovered that Betty is not at all well. She seemed a little lethargic, and when I picked her up I noticed that she was substantially lighter than she normally is. On closer inspection it appears that she has something stuck in her vent. (This is the part of the chicken where the eggs come out, and also the poo).

It comes at a bad time seeing as I am flying to Seattle Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday, and tomorrow I have a long day at work trying to get ready for the long weekend. I work work a company that does entertainment lighting and we have several events going on. (Friday is the big ceremony for lighting the Tree on Fountain Square for starters...) Either way, I have part of tomorrow to hopefully figure out what is going on with Betty. My neighbor is watching the hens while I am out of town, and I don't know that I feel comfortable saying, well, Betty might not make it.....

Hoping for the best!

How it all started

I never intended to write this down…

There were two reasons I started keeping chickens. The first was that my fiancée wouldn’t let me have a pet bird in the house, so I needed to work around that. Unfortunately for him the chickens did end up being in the house for about 8 weeks during which I raised them in a rubermaid tote in our second floor bathtub that was in process of being replaced.  The second reason I wanted chickens was that store bought eggs made me a little nauseous. I think that problem was directly related to the terrible documentaries and photos I had seen on battery farms. Luckily I now do not need to entertain myself by watching icky TV documentaries- I can just poke my head out the back door toss a piece of bacon in the chicken run and watch some good ole chicken football.

I am hoping by writing some of my hopes and dreams I fully realize how important they really are to me and it encourages me to strive to continue to follow my ambitions. In the meantime I hope you will find some entertaining antic-dotes about raising chickens, traveling, reading, and coming to grips with who I am. I hope that by writing my story down, you may participate in it. In a world of instant gratification and instant information, it will encourage me to write when I remind myself that I will be able to slow down and, after time, look back on the experiences that I write about....