Clucking Nuts!

After my most recent injury, my husband declared, "Chickens are hazardous to your health!" First to experience this was Alex's mom, who has a small coop with a handful of chickens in it. One dark and rainy night was making her way out to her coop to close the ladies up for the night. It was cold and wet, and she was in a hurry. Zipping through the gate into the chickens' fenced run, she slipped. Her feet flew out in front of her, and the flashlight she was carrying swung up and smote her forehead. As she fell, she reached out and grabbed hold of the fence, which had a loose wire poking out. The wire sliced open her finger. In a bedraggled and humiliated state, she presented herself to her husband (who had thought this chicken scheme a ridiculous business in the first place), he had a little laugh and then took her to get stitches. A few weeks after his mother's injury, Alex went out after dark to close up our chicken coop. It was another very dark, cold,...

I find myself having little patience with people who think something is gross or beneath them, when they are simply coming from a place of ignorance. Sure, it is easier for people to not think about where their food comes from. But it is absurd to believe they are somehow better because they refuse to think about these things. I have even had people act disturbed by our eggs, because they did not like being brought to the realization that the eggs they eat were once inside an animal. Thanks to Disney movies and a consumerist lifestyle, we can have this distorted and glorified view of nature, without ever touching it. Not my family, we touch it, plant it, grow it, eat it, raise it, feed it, scoop its poop, butcher it, and eat it. From my high horse I like to pretend this does not phase me at all. We are connected with our food and the natural world around us, and I like to act like this is a higher plane of existence. But I have to confess, there are times that the city girl in me...

I am learning that a crude sense of humor may not necessarily be learned, but can also be genetic. Eden, my 3 year old daughter, has every ounce of her father's appreciation for rude humor. And we have been pretty careful to not teach her any of it. She is fascinated with certain body parts as was mentioned earlier in this blog. She likes to add the word butt to other words, and then laugh hysterically. She does these things to entertain herself, not to get a reaction out of other people. When she was "cleaning" her room one day, Alex looked in to see how it was going. She was pulling things out of her drawer, singing, "Naked Butt, Naked Butt, NAY-ked... BUUUUUTT!" One day we made the mistake of laughing when she pulled her pants down, stuck her butt in her brother's face and started chanting, "Booh-ut, booh-ut, booh-ut..." In our defense, it was hilarious, unfortunately she thought so too, and many serious conversations about privacy hav...