Bigger Chickie Chook Chooks

We have had the chooks for 2 weeks and they have grown into feathered things. Only Chippie has much down left. They spend the nights indoors under the heat lamp but most of the day they are outdoors in their coop. We have yet to update the latches with racoon proof versions but other than that and another 10 degrees of heat overnight, we think they will do well there.

They are [from left] Chippie (an Americauna), Sylvia (a light brahma) and Ruby (a rhode island red). Chippie is by far the smallest of the three. We estimate that Chippie is now 2.5 weeks old and the others are about 2 weeks older. Its hard to know exactly because Chippie will be around 5lbs fully grown while Sylvia could be a 9lb chicken.



They love being outdoors but we have to be careful of the cats until they are larger. The cat (our remaining pet) and the Bad Kitty who lives over the back fence (aka Neighbor Kitty, New Kitty or That Cat) both like to hunt them through the fence as they run around cheeping. Happily, as time passes the chickens are becoming bored with the cats and react far less to their presence. They are much more excited by dust baths and invisible particles which they peck from the dirt.

Eating cough drops because they taste good

I had a funny conversation with Frost today when he started to confide in me what he likes (and dislikes) about the parents of his best friends.

He likes Alex's mom because she always gives him compliments and makes him feel good, she is very funny, she lets them do fun stuff like running outside and playing noisy games but he doesn't like one thing. She does not let them have lots of screen time.

He likes Isaac's mom because she lets them play wild games and they have so many cool things to make up games with. She even let them play a tinkertoy game where they made a guy out of tinkertoys and then kicked him off the deck! BUT she sometimes gets cross with them, like with "the barf incident".

"The barf incident?" I ask.

"We went to red mill burgers and we made some barf in a cup. We mixed up ketchup and mustard and vanilla shake and salt and pepper and mayonnaise and stuff and then we mixed it up and we spilled it on the sidewalk so it looked like barf."

"And she was cross?"

"Yes, and she made us clean it up." [damn right!]

Another friend's Mom apparently is beloved for allowing them to do even crazy things like eating cough drops because they taste good and she sometimes lets go of the steering wheel while driving and goes "whee!"

Finally, I asked him about myself. He likes me best but "I also have the most complaints about you. I think that might be because I know you best and I have spent the most time with you and also I am your kid so you get me in trouble when I am having a playdate at my house but other Moms are nice. I like it when you give us sugary food and let us have screen time but I don't like it when you get mad if we make a big mess and dump out toys all over the yard and you say "clean up" or if we get all wet in the yard unexpectedly you say "OH NO THEY ARE ALL WET AND MESSY" and you get cross if leave a big mess."

I guess I do. I shall aim and calm control in future.

Folklife Performance

Frost is having a 4 day holiday weekend because they had the day off on Friday to sing at Folklife. Wren missed nap to come with us and watch. We had Alex over for a sleepover the night before and the boys were up at 5.15am so Frost was exhausted and started to yawn and lean by the 4th song. Still, he sang and took part in all the hand motions which is the first time he has not been overawed by the spectacle.

As you can see from this picture, the room was quite full and there were many people listening. Wren is in the middle of this picture (near Tara) sitting on a little plastic chair. He is also exhausted and kept suggesting we "go home now."


Once the music started Wren stopped complaining and watched attentively. After the performance we drove out to the pool. Wren surprised me by becoming brave at the pool and letting me hold him in the water and later even kicking his legs while I pulled him along. He liked to jump off the side and into my arms with a bit of a splash. We would have stayed in the water longer but both boys were getting cold.

Eating too much fennel

I asked Frost if he would come with me to the Farmer's Market on Saturday. He said he would come if we went by bicycle. I love to ride and Wren was ecstatic - he ran about saying "go NOW" even though he was in his pjs.

The problem with going by bike is that its hard to buy anything because the child-seat on the back prevents me from using panniers so we had to be quite picky. We bought some squeaky cheese, honey sticks, cannoli, BBQ sauce, morels, fiddleheads (fern fronds), local artisan cheese and some fruit and veggies.

Here are my shopping team on the bikes stopping at Whole Foods for some choc-chips to make cookies.

Frost with the BBQ sauce. They were holding cooking demonstration with BBQ sauces and Frost liked this one but ate it on a piece of bread because he is becoming increasingly vegetarian, retreating even from hot dogs and teriyaki chicken.

The next picture needs some introduction. Wren has a mouthful of fennel. I think I mentioned that Wren is interested in edible plants. He has learned to recognize mint, fennel and tomatoes and sees them along the road. Fennel is particularly large and prolific in the area and whenever Wren spotted a bush he yelled out "FENNEL" and we had to stop for a handful. The amazing thing is that he eats it all up!

Jumping in the Sun

Its the Memorial Day weekend and its SUNNY here which is quite exciting. I went to Fred Meyer this morning and bought all the essentials for summer - a wading pool, charcoal briquettes and some new deck chairs. The chickens went out early because it was so warm.

The wading pool was used immediately . Frost stripped off and Wren and he played a game where Wren squirted Frost while he slid down the slide screaming. Here Frost is hiding under the lid of a big tub so he doesn't get sunburned.


Wren is 'Brave'
Today , Wren asked if he could jump off the deck. I said "no" but Joshua said "yes." I suggested that he start jumping off one step and then the next step. By the time he was jumping from the third step I agreed that he could jump off.

Here are some pictures of Wren jumping. "I am brave" says Wren. He was brave MANY times.




I had a lovely day. I managed to install our new clothesline, clean up the yard, plant some flowers and do some weeding. Josh repaired the hose pipe line which burst during the cold snap last winter. We even BBQ'ed some chicken and had an early dinner. Frost refused to eat the meat so he had baked potatoes.

I am thinking of taking Wren for a weight check next week because he's not eating very well. He'll have an egg for breakfast but the rest of the day its hard to know whether he is eating enough and today was typical. Unless I am chasing him around he nibbles a bit of tomato and cheese.

The narrative of life

Wren is incredibly chatty thesedays and he has me in stitches with her commentary on life. This evening we had a rare thunder storm and a particularly loud clap of thunder sounded while Wren, Frost AND I were in the bath together. Frost and I were talking about lightening and thinking that we should get out the bath in case it STRUCK the house and then us. Even though we were laughing about it we scared ourselves so leapt out of the bath. Wren was very confused and kept asking "why we get out?" "Is thunder big wood fall?" "Why we get out, thunder?" It took an hour to get it out of his system.

Meanwhile he loves to torment Frost. He chases him around the house saying "I PINCH YOU" and holding out his tiny little fingers in a threatening pinch from which Frost runs, screaming. They run around the house using furniture to block and scramble over. Add to this picture that Wren is usually naked or shouting "why I got no diper, can't play with no diper!" He has no diaper because we have been half-heartedly potty training him again and he does 3-4 pees in the potty daily. If I put a diaper on him he will generally use that out of convenience. Potty training is not ideal because he will have 3 or so false-alarm trips to the loo in addition to those successful ones.

A few days ago we went for a walk and Wren found this mini-garbage can. Its one of the new 'small' bins that you can choose if you produce less waste. Wren was thrilled. He said that he had found "small garbage can for kids".

His favorite game is now zooming cars. On the weekend we went down to Tacoma for Sarah's birthday and Wren spent a long while in the garage zooming hotwheels cars. Half the time they roll and half they time they kind of tosses them.

Drawing the Family
Yesterday Wren started drawing people. First person he drew was Daddy. I don't have that picture yet because its up on the wall in Wren's room, and he is asleep. I asked him to draw some more people and here are his drawings and what he said about them:

"I drawed Heather. She is look like MONSTER" He laughed a lot about this. She looks like a monster because Wren tried to draw her teeth.

"I drawed Mum. I draw numbers and I drawed Mum. I drawed what you have on that big head - a hair!"

"I drawed Granny and Roy. I drawed her hair!"

The drawing of Frost. "I draw his arm. I draw his other arm. I draw his eye. I draw his eyeball. He has his own hair. He has SPIKES. He has leg. I draw his other leg."


While we were in Australia Frost draw his own cartoon warning of all the things Wren should not do. Here it is. The sign says "THINGS WREN SHOLD NOT DO. KICK ME. BITE ME. HIDE MY STUFF. TELL ON ME. MESS UP MY STUFF. PULL MY HAIR."
As an elder child myself, I feel for him.

Sushi party

Our school holds parties as one of its fundraising projects. Families offer to host an event (called a party) for anyone who buys a ticket. Other families bid for the events they or their kids want to attend.

This afternoon we hosted 7 children age 6-8 years old (+ Frost for an 8th) for a sushi making party. I prepared the rice and cut the difficult vegetables while they peeled cucumber, washed rice, peeled, pitted (that was fun) and sliced avocado and made unagi dipping sauce. Eve and Megan (the only girls) were the most help with preparing the vegetables while Isaac was intent on making unagi dipping sauce and stirring in the sugar because "that sauce is always quite sweet."

Then we were ready to roll.

I had set out 8 mats within reach of all the fillings and condiments and plopped a lump of rice on each nori sheet. It was clear that some kids are sushi veterans while others were confused about whether to put down the nori first. Eve, Megan, August and Oliver were competing for the tobiko while others had eyes only for the carrot and cucumber. Isaac and Evan were very methodical and specific in their tastes and wanted to eat straight away. Megan made 3 rolls before others had done one.

The rice spreading was the hardest part. You have to brush the rice into place gently with slightly moist fingers. Kids decided to THUD it flat (that one was in the bin) or slosh on so much water the nori became elastic (that was was also compost) - rice was soon underfoot (it is not nice walking around with sushi rice on your feet) - and Frost said "this is IMPOSSIBLE!!!" Finally everyone had a good covering the fun began. The first ingredients to be finished off were the tobiko and unagi (flying fish roe and bbq eel). Who would have thought? The black sesame and sea salt seasoning was also hugely popular. Everyone used cucumber and carrot but avocado was less popular. Only the adults liked smoked salmon and cream cheese.

There was a bit of difficulty with how much to put in the rolls. Some kids put a huge pile of their favorite ingredients on the first roll. I caught Oliver with 4 slices of unagi and 5 carrots in his first while Eve used 4 teaspoons of tobiko leaving only half a jar for the rest of us. I actually scraped a bit off to avoid a riot among the other lovers-of-roe and rehabilitated some of Oliver's unagi into my own roll.

I think that 8 kids meant I had less chance to do my pedagogical piece and explain each ingredient. I'll try and do it again with fewer kids on a playdate.

After the rice was all used up (I cooked SIX CUPS and it was gone in moments, I cooked another TWO CUPS later and they ate that up as rice balls with black sesame seasoning on) they went outside to play with water guns and the party evolved into a super soaker fun fest the legacy of which is 7 soaking wet muddy towels in my laundry closet along with 5 pairs of wet muddy shorts which I leant to kids concerned about their clothes. They all clambered up into the fort and strung the hose up there and ran it down the slide to create a water slide. The lawn at the bottom became a mud wallow so they smeared mud all over themselves and then slide even faster. Evan and Frost were awfully totally soaked and looked as if they had plasted themselves into mud cannonballs.

It was super super fun apparently although there were some tumbles, lots of screaming when Frost flashed his bum and Wren chased the big boys with weapons and was taught to say "you suck" by Frost who is in the dog box over that. They also made 'sun tea' by mauling my herb garden and mixing the leaves with water in a big jug.

My kitchen floor is now a mixture of caked on squished rice and muddy footprints but all will be well after a mop tomorrow. So far, the coffee brown marmoleum is holding up well!

Wren also joined in the sushi party. He ate lots of sushi and made a roll with help from Joshua. For breakfast Wren ate smoked salmon and scrambled eggs and found it delicious. We have plenty left for that again tomorrow.

Walking in the rain

We are having a lovely sunny weekend with real pre-summer heat and Frost is running outside in shorts. It is a great day to plant out the tomatoes and the baby chicks are having a whole day in the coop with their heat lamp - the sun.

It wasn' t like that last week. It feels like everyone we know has been sick and its been rainy and dark during the day. Even Wren who typically hates "raincot" was willing to wear it to go for a walk. Here are some our our pictures from the walk. I allowed Wren to dictate some of our subjects but this one was mine. Its a peony. I have always wanted a peony and this week I bought one at Costco. This is our neighbors peony which produces giant flowers every year. I am hoping to do a painting of this foliage. It feels so substantial and reminds me of the art of the English crafts movement which so beautifully depicted acanthus leaves, artichoke and sinuous vines.


Wren is in a dangerous stage of wanting to taste every plant he finds. He walks up the street asking "its idble?" (aka "edible") and breaking off leaves from rose bushes, lavendar, trees and other shrubs. Today he ate honeysuckle. Whenever he passes a thyme or fennel bush he tears off a handful and chomps it with drooling green saliva. "I can eat it?" he asks, after the fact. I have told him to check with me and he is always excited when we find a new herb or vegetable hiding among the garden plantings on our walk. Here Wren tastes some fennel.


This picture shows Wren asking whether he can eat fern fronds and "why they curl?" I didn't tell him that you can eat fronds cooked but waited while he tried to uncurl each frond and became frustrated when they ravelled up again.

This was a picture Wren asked me to take. He told me "this is fire hydrant. It is where fire comes out!" I told him that water actually came out but he insisted that "it a fire hydrant. Fire is coming out!" Whenever we pass one he tests me by saying this again. If I don't want to get into a fight I keep quiet. I mean, I can't make water come out of it and he can't make fire come out of it but it is called a fire hydrant not a water hydrant. Right?


I love the rockery succulents that grow here. They explode in summer and burst into flower. I have lived in other places where I had succulents but never have they been so profuse and easy to grow. So much for Seattle the rainy city.

Wren is anxious about getting wet when it rains. On this walk I wasn't even wearing a raincoat in the light misting of rain but Wren wanted a 'brella and his raincoat. He annouced that the "raincoat DOES have pockets" as if this was a significant factor.

Welcome to the chickie-chick-chicks

This weekend we drove out to Monroe Farm and Feed and bought some chicks for our backyard. They were living in big tin bins sorted by breed. We bought one Americauna, one Rhode Island Red & and one light Brahma. The Americauna is the smallest - still fluffy and without feathers while the other two have some feathers on wings and tail and are tufting out elsewhere.



Here is their home in the basement. We have a heat lamp which we are keeping angled to ensure a part of the box is around 90 degrees while there are cooler areas.

The chicks have names. The tiny one is Chippy - short for Chipmunk because of her striped back. The Brahma is named Sylvia (by Joshua) because "it is a nice name and means something abou the forest." The Rhode Island Red is named Ruby - because she is reddish. Here are Sylvia and Chippy in their box.


They enjoy periods of outside playtime when they lurk in the herb garden or shrubbery. They are cautious and remain undercover if possible. They also peep loudly if separated from their friends. They copy each other - if one pecks at something they all investigate and if one startles they all leap up and try to fly.

We are going to keep them sleeping indoors until Chippy is 6 weeks and it warms up. Meanwhile, we are going to cool down their heat from the light as times goes on.

Farewell to The Fat Cat

Yesterday, I had the cat killed. It was budgetry euthenasia after I did the math on how much it would cost and the effort required to care for a diabetic cat. There was the monthy insulin and syringes, the twice daily shots (within an hour of breakfast) the weekly blood sugar tests done at the vet (at 1pm), the prescription catfood that cost $90 a month for both cats, antibiotics and checks for UTI and then the extra costs for medical boarding at the vet if we ever decided to go away overnight. The vet said it was conservative to estimate a cost of $2,000 per year.

And its not as if we don't have enough going on.

Still, it was a hard decision. I had a vet appointment to have a blood sugar checkup. I picked up Kasharoo from her warm spot in the sun and put her in the catbox. She miaowed loudly. That's when I realised I would never be able to pick her up to have her put down on purpose. The moment would always be too poignant, too difficult, too painful. She's lived with us quite a long time after all and even though she was not a good cat, we had come to terms.

When I arrived I discussed it with the nurse. She explained that there just give the cat an overdose of a sedation and they 'go to sleep' quietly. We could either pay for private cremation ($128) and receive the ashes back or for 'public' cremation (among other pets) and receive no ashes. I wasn't offered a symbolic bag of mixed pet ashes although that might have been nice.

I didn't pick an option as such but I went to talk to the vet. He was very understanding. He said it can be very hard to keep diabetic pets within their blood sugar range and it was very expensive. He also said that it was unlikely that the neurological damage already causing her to have trouble walking and climbing would be reversed. I discussed the idea of just not treating her diabetes and he said that was not a good idea because she would get 'ketosis?? and acidotic" and need emergency treatment at the pet ER some Saturday night.

So I signed the form to have her put down right then.

I decided to stay with her till the end. I held her and then laid her down on a towel. The vet had a small vial of blue medicine which he injected into her back leg and I stroked her head and talked to her and she 'fell asleep' almost immediately. I expected him to do something else but he just listened with a stethoscope for a while and said she was gone.

I was very sad. As I said, she was not a great cat but that doesn't mean we don't miss her. She was a real habit around here. She was fat (Before diabetes), a bully of other cats, bossy with our own cat, grumpy with the kids and didn't like to be petted except for brushing. If she ever settled down to lie on you she started sucking at your clothes until you had a big wet patch of cat saliva and she dug her claws into you at the same time. She ate too much (even before she was sick) and never stopped demanding food with insistent mewling. We adopted her when she was 6 or 7 and she was already a really fat cat - about 17 lbs back then - and she fought with our first cat, Kitty Haiku, so much at first that we were not sure we would be able to keep her. She was fierce and strong. She would get in catfights and needed treatment for 2 absesses. Still, she never bit or scratched our kids and would just stalk off at the last minute if provoked.

Now the neighborhood cats are breathing a sigh of relief and looking to take over our territory.

Here is Kitty Kasharoo with Wren in happy times.

RIP Kitty Kasharoo.