Raising Laundry Room Chickens

Uh…I meant to say…backyard chickens.

Except mine are currently living in my laundry room, since that is the warmest room in our house.  It makes a good brooder.

Yesterday, I got four two-week-old balls of fluff from our local feed store.  The store said they will grow up to be Rhode Island Reds, which are good, reliable laying hens.  I really hope they are all girls.  Knowing me, I’ll be attached by the time I can tell what their gender is, and will be heart-broken if I have to give away a little teenage rooster.   Hopefully that will not happen.

I planned on getting chicks as soon as we moved into our new house, but 3 ½ years later, I was still feeling nervous about it.  Making the decision to get chickens was a difficult one for me.  I was so concerned that I would somehow not provide a good home for them.  I can never take on an animal without thinking of all their needs, the responsibility of caring for them all their lives, and of course, every possible thing that could go wrong.  I wish I could be a little more spontaneous about getting pets, but that’s just not me.  If I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it well, and I’m going to worry about it the entire time.

<Sigh>

Anyway, my parents (probably realizing that my feet-dragging was getting in the way of what I really wanted), graciously got me a starter chicken coop at Christmas time.  And, seven months later, I got the nerve up to assemble it and put it in my garden.  Isn’t it cute?

 

So, now I have a coop in my garden and chicks in my laundry room.  I raised chickens when I was a teenager, so it’s not completely new to me, plus I have researched a lot online for the past few years.  I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing.  But the chicks survived the night and are acting like normal birds, peeping, strutting, scratching, and stretching their tiny wings.  So I must be doing something right. 

They’re adorable now, but I’m really looking forward to putting them in their new chicken coop.  That just seems where they belong. 

Not in my laundry room!

 

 

 

 

My Breakup with Coffee

Hi, my name is Allison, and I am a coffee-holic.

There, I’ve said it. 

For fifteen-plus years, coffee has been my flavor of choice, my love, my muse.  Every morning has seen me with a large, steaming cup in hand.  My favorite time of day centers around coffee time.  One of my favorite places is a cute little vine-covered coffee shop from my college days where I spent time studying and socializing.  Ask me if I would prefer coffee or chocolate—well come on, of course I need coffee with chocolate in it! (That was probably a bad example).

But coffee has its downside too, at least for me.  There are the jitters if I don’t eat something with my second cup, or the insomnia if I drink a cup after 5 pm.  There is the awful hotel coffee to suffer through when we go on trips, and the horrible, brain-crushing headaches if I skip my morning java. 

The time has come to break up with my coffee.

Why?

There are many reasons why I’m curbing my coffee habit, but the simplest is that I’m tired of being so physically dependent on anything. I want to get through a stressful day without thinking I need to visit a coffee shop in order to function.   I want to be able to visit non-coffee drinking friends without bringing a coffee stash with me.   I want to take back that corner of my kitchen where the coffee pot lives.

I want my life back. 

So I’m breaking up with coffee. 

Forgive me, my friends, if I get grumpy.  I’m sorry if the withdrawal symptoms make me do crazy things.  But eventually I’ll be a healthier, calmer me, if slower and quieter too.

Goodbye coffee, my delicious dark friend!

 

Starting Somewhere...

Blogging has been a dream for me for a long time.

I admire people who can sit down and write easily.  One of my friends has bookshelves full of journals she's filled.  Her freedom of expression--her creativity--are qualities I wish I had.

Throughout high school and college, writing was more daunting than anything else.  That empty blank white page--the horror!  It stopped me before I could even begin.  Somehow, I got through, and even turned out some pieces that I was proud of.  Later, in grad school, I started to feel more comfortable with my writing assignments. Once my research was complete, the ideas would flow out.  It was exciting to really get in and write something.  I even discovered, for myself, that what my creative writing teachers said is true: often we have to write so we can discover what we think.  

Flash forward to my "real life" (outside of school, that is), and I am back to the dreaded blank page and a mountain of writer's block and apprehension. 

 Where will I start?  What on earth will I write about?  Do I have anything interesting to say that people would ever want to read?  Will this be just another project that I start but never finish? Am I really cut out for this blogging thing?

I guess this is just one of those endeavors where "time will tell".  Please join me on this new journey of self-discovery!