Popcorn Chicken

That's a pretty crazy picture of Peanut Head up there, isn't it? In it, he's at work, and you're going to love the explanation.

Recently Peanut Head acquired another job duty and that is on the Safety Team. In the past, the Safety Team has always done a Popcorn Friday dealie where they solicit safety suggestions from employees in exchange for popcorn.

Sort of demeaning, isn't it?

Well anyway, while we were camping earlier this month, another member of the Safety Team burnt their cornea popping popcorn. Seriously. I don't make this stuff up.

This is why there is even a Safety Team to begin with. Remember the whole McDonald's Hot Coffee lawsuit? It's like that. Sort of.

Anyway, after that incident it was decreed that all employees making popcorn must wear safety glasses  in order to protect them from themselves. I mean popcorn.

The irony was just too much for Peanut Head to resist and he dressed up for Popcorn Friday in the get up you see above. He's wearing a fire retardant smock, by Kate Spade I believe, fire retardant potholder mitts, and a face shield with safety glasses.

Now he's ready to dish up the popcorn.

If only the employees could take him seriously and respect him enough to offer safety tips instead of mock him for his fashion sense.

That's the Popcorn part of this post.

Here's the Chicken.

Our chickens make me laugh on a daily basis. What I'm laughing about today is the way that Stinkerbell holds the chickens.

The funny part is that the chickens don't even seem to mind. They don't squawk or flap their wings, or even wiggle. They just lay there as if they are chillin' on the couch.

So there you have it. Popcorn Chicken.

The Year of the Chicken

I've decided to name 2012 "The Year of the Chicken" in our house. 

I truly didn't expect these creepy birds to nestle themselves so comfortably into my heart, but they did.

I can't quite put my finger on what it is about them that I love so much, except that they just make me smile.

I like to smile.

I love the little chicken prints in the snow. Yes, it's partly because the snow is covering up all the chicken poop they've scattered about my porch, but still, I love their little feetsies.

In the mornings when we have to get up before the sun comes up, and in our Idaho winter that's after 7:30 a.m., the chickens are on our porch as soon as they see our kitchen light go on.

They trek on up to the back door to say hello.

And poop, of course.

They also like to peck at the door.

As if we would let them in.

Often Gunny Bunny is on the outside looking in with them. I regret to admit that he is a big fan of chicken poop.

The man has no class.

He also eats Almond Roca out of the cats' litter box.

No. Class.

It is perhaps the biggest reason why he gets no lip kisses from me.

Never mind that I loathe dog slobber, it gives me hives.

That's neither here nor there though. I came here to talk to you about chickens.

I want to share with you this ornament that sums up our year. It's a little chicken coop, and it was given to Peanut Head this year by his mother, The Barefoot Contessa, and his cousin, Alison.

The two of them have mad ornament bestowing skillz.

This is Stinkerbell's chicken ornament.

And Zoe Bug's.

And mine. I always get the last word around here, and this ornament proclaims it to the world.

Love. Love.

Thank you BFC and Alison.

 

In other news I happened upon this alarming scene today when I returned from work.

At first I noticed all the fancy riding jackets and breeches, and my sharply honed observational skills told me that Zoe was responsible for this scene. She's the fancy one in this house.

Before Christmas there was nary a riding jacket or pair of breeches to be had in this house.

Cue the relatives. 

It seems we are now up to our ears in breech and jacket clad, fancy horse riding people. And now Zoe Bug has a fancy jacket of her own, thanks to Aunt Barb. Zoe now loves Aunt Barbara best.

I have been banished to the chopped liver department.

I'm not sure what the nearly-big-as-a horse-owl is up to, but he looks like he's up to no good.

And what is in the cage? Is it a chicken? Or perhaps another owl? Or maybe it's an owl pellet? The latter would be expected in this house.

Chicken Run

I do believe it's time for a chicken update. It was May when last I introduced you to our new friends and their cute, fuzzy chicky faces. Clearly much has changed.

Now they can only be called cute if you qualify your definition with "in a Creepy Chicken sort of way."

They are very creepy with their beady little angry eyes, blobs of extraneous flesh glomped onto their faces, and their jerky bobble heads.

All that creepiness aside, I do quite enjoy them.

They were game for chicken races many evenings over the summer. Ha, ha, game. Get it?

Never mind.

The girls and I held the chicken races at dusk on lazy summer evenings. We would start by catching ourselves a chicken . . . half the battle was catching the chickens. Once each of us had a chicken, we we would release them at the starting line, and whichever chicken made it back to the coop first was the winner. 

Even though we have four chickens, Peanut Head never joined in any of our Chicken Games.

He's much too classy for such chicanery.

In spite of the forced racing, the chickens had a peaceful summer in their backyard chicken coop, coming out to free range in the evenings while Gunny Man was locked away inside the house. 

Gunny Man has self control issues.

The cats were very interested in the chickens before they got creepy looking. After that, they just kept their distance. 

One evening I caught Jo Jo stalking a chicken at the back door. The chickens like to hang out on the back porch and poop all over it, why, I have no idea. Perhaps it's Chicken Art. Anyway, Jo Jo looked like she wanted a closer look, so I picked her up, opened the door, and flung her out to the birds. Just like that.

She slightly freaked out, but only for a moment. After that moment passed, she regained her kitty composure and started stalking the chicken like a proper cat.

Well that was a bad idea, because Mr. Creepy Chicken turned around and chased that cat right out of the yard. I think I peed my pants, I was laughing so hard.

Jo Jo doesn't gaze at the chickens from the back door anymore. At least not when I'm around.

She has trust issues.

Chicken Butt.

It's like a photo bomb, but it's a chicken butt.

Triple Chicken Butt. Super obnoxious.

This blog is going so down hill.

 

We got our first eggs from our fine feathered friends this past week. Their little eggs are so adorable next to our from-the-store extra large eggs.

Um . . . one of these things is not like the others. 

Peanut Head read on the internet that chickens need to be trained to lay their eggs in the nesting boxes and not where they poop. Which is, obviously, everywhere. So, apparently golf balls are going to trick them into not pooping in their nesting boxes.

Because chickens are so stoooooopid.

Peanut Head has been waiting for this day for a long time. I almost feel sorry for the could-have-been chicken babies. Sniff.

Snarf.

Chickens in the House

The girls have been wanting to join 4H for awhile, so we've been mulling the idea over and contemplating what sort of livestock we could legally raise in our .3 acre back yard. Notice the decimal point there. It's important.

Rabbits?

Too reproductive.

Goats?

A goat is like a dog, right?

Sheep?

Too clingy.

Chickens?

Chickens!

How hard can chickens be, really? They're cute. Sort of. They're dumb, but not as dumb as our dog. Surely they wouldn't eat cat poop!

Chickens lay eggs. Hey! We eat eggs! 

It was settled. So we bought a chicken book, because that's what teachers do when they need to learn stuff. They buy a book.

We told the girls that they had to read the chicken book and then we could get a chicken.

They read the chicken book. We were bound to honor our promise. There were only eight baby chicks left at Cal Ranch. We bought four.

The only problem is that we don't know if the chickens are hens or roosters or a combination of the two. I wasn't too worried because I figured the Renaissance Woman could sex the chickens for us.

Apparently the Renaissance Woman doesn't know everything, and she cannot sex our chickens. It's outside the boundaries of her skill set. It took eight years for me to find something that the Renaissance Woman doesn't know how to do, so I think I'm going to let her keep her title. However, she is on probation.

I probably don't need to say this, but if it turns out we have any roosters, they all must die. We cannot have them waking up our neighbors. That's the dog's job. From the teeny tiny little bit that I do know about chickens, from reading the young adult book Smiles to Go, chickens require a rooster to remain motivated to continue to lay eggs.

Enter Peanut Head and the Rooster Suit. I think this can work. Gunny's head will probably explode when he sees His Man in it, but that could hold some entertainment value. Video footage to come.

Currently the chicks are living in a cargo box which Peanut Head has most excellently fit with a cat/dog proof lid that still allows the chicks to breathe the precious oxygen of life. In the few days that we've had chickens, I've learned a thing or two about them.

They poop and eat constantly. That is all.

And okay, they are pretty cute too. I wonder though, at what point do they stop being cute and start looking creepy? You know what I'm talking about, right?

Is it me, or does this little guy look like he has a bobble head?

The girls spend a lot of time "playing with the chicks." The chicks spend a lot of time pooping on my babies.

Stinkerbell has gotten wise to the habits of chickens and now comes armed with a pooping pad.

Peanut Head has also put them to work building the chicken coop.

I begged for a chicken mansion that I could decorate like a sweet little playhouse in the backyard. Peanut Head pooh-poohed my idea and said "We will have something on wheels that we can roll around the yard and evenly distribute the fertilizer of perpetually pooping chickens."

It's a wonder I can maintain my positive attitude when my visions are discarded like used candy wrappers.

I am left to accept my fate of the mobile chicken coop. Perhaps I can still work with this vision. I'm thinking low rider with a hydraulic suspension. Where shall I mount the speakers with which to crank out War's Low Rider?