Rain here...and a job!

It's amazing how quickly things change. It was only a few days ago that I was agonizing over how I was going to keep my sanity here. Grandpa was fine in his normal ornery ways but I was starting to go stir crazy and was far from fulfilled with my "work" here. I found myself spending a ridiculous amount of time checking my email and facebook just waiting for something to happen in Cyberspace as there was very little going on here if I didn't create it myself.

Then...by a crazy streak of luck and random circumstances I ended up with a job....a PERFECT job. It took less than 24 hours to hear about the job, interview, and get offered the job. Today I worked all day and it's been the strangest, greatest, most exciting three days I've had in a while! I'm sure that my new gig mentoring new teachers will provide me with piles of "Sweet Eggs" of reflective new ideas, I'm afraid I won't have nearly so much time to keep up with them here. Irony of ironies I guess.

To update everyone on my chickies, they're doing great and getting big. Rhonda is starting to get stubble of feathers all the way up on her head. Even Donna and Berenice are starting to get tail feathers and fill out on their wings. They're still absolutely stinking cute. Donna got "lost" today on our trip out to the coop. She managed to escape from the garden cart we use to cart them to the coop and was left 30 feet behind us peeping in the grass and looking for her flock. The flock, stayed in the garden cart even when I tried to dump them out so she could see them and I had to herd the poor peeper back. It was pretty funny to watch them all and all were much happier when they figured out how to get back into the coop after such an adventure.

It's funny how much they crave the comfort of the coop (even with the door open). It may just be because they're still so small but they would rather battle each other for perches in the coop than run around in the yard and garden. There's something to be said there for the power and comfort of home, even if you do all drive each other crazy there.

Rain on the Horizon

This weekend it began to rain in earnest. Although it cleared up before dark on Saturday and Sunday had moments of clarity too, it was an overall gloomy weekend and a hint of things to come. Getting out and about on both days I feel like a foreigner in a strange country trying to fit in with all these "Ducks" of native Oregonians. Just as I have done while traveling, I attentively watched to see how the locals do it with hopes of picking up tricks and not looking completely stupid when I leave the house in the rain.

In my first oversvations, I was amazed to see people walking (with full confidence at a slow pace) around town without any sort of rain gear. These folks strolled as if it were a perfectly sunny day and like they had much more serious things to worry about than the rain. They didn't scurry, they didn't cover, they just walked. WHAT? Who does that? Who has had that much time in the rain that they simply submit to getting drenched through without any visible effort to stay dry. I was baffled unitl I realiezed that all of these first "calm walkers" were in fact dumb teenagers who were too concerned with strutting their stuff to risk looking dumb in the rain.

Later in the day, I observed sane adults who did, in fact show changes in their behavior on account of the rain. It turns out that when it rains in Oregon Oregonians:

• wear hats. It's amazing the difference a dry head can make. I have a sneaking suspicion that my lovely sun hats (the ones with big brims) may also double as rain hats before long.
  
• wear jackets. It doesn't have to be a rain jacket per-say but any kind of light jacket will help keep the rain off your skin. A full rubber suit, as it turns out, is not necessary for a trip to the grocery store.
  
• wear plastic baggies on their heads...OK, that's only something I saw an old lady at the grocery store do but it had been a long time since I had seen that number so it made me laugh.
  
• wipe their feet well before going inside. It seems polite enough right? I'm amazed that all businesses and homes aren't shoeless in the winter as it must be a HUGE pain to wipe up the tracks even when people do wipe their feet.
  
• go camping. OK, it was Labor Day Weekend so I guess people were just determined to have one last hurrah before fall but still, they were out there. Based on what we saw in the campgrounds most folks came prepared with their satellite dish RV entertainment systems but there they were nonetheless.
  
• fight forest fires. While you'd think that the rain would douse those flames, we still saw lots of forest service folks bustling around town in the rain.
  
• otherwise go about their normal business. Drew and I thought we were really tough for venturing out for a hike in the rain but ran into more people (3) on that trail than we have on sunnier days. Rain, apparently, is no reason to stay inside.
  

So, although I'm well prepared with varying weights of rain jackets, rubber boots, a new umbrella, and sun/rain hats, it appears that the best way to fit in, in an Oregon rain, is to take simple steps to stay dry and get the heck over it. With that said, I'm still working on my own little survival guide for rain and have created the following list of things to do to help myself keep sane through the winter. I had a great time making 3 batches of jam on Saturday but don't think I can do that all winter long.

Top 10 things to do on a rainy day in Oregon

10. Wear a brightly colored hat...and shirt...and skirt....and sandals. Inside.
9. Listen to Jimmy Buffett and sing along...loudly.
8. Dehydrate fruit in the oven. "Accidentally" leave the door to the oven open.
7. Make bread, jam, cookies, soup, and all other things homey and warm.
6. Say, "Yeah! It's raining!" over and over until it sounds convincing.
5. Admire how peaceful the lake is without all the motor boats on it.
4. Give thanks for not having to water the garden anymore.
3. Pet your chickens and tell them you love them.
2. Pet your husband and tell him you love him.
1. Make a cocktail with the blackberry liqueur you made when the sun was shining and sing more Jimmy Buffett. Boat drinks...the boys in the band ordered boat drinks....:)

Two Days of Chicks

THEY'RE HERE!!! After many weeks of anticipation we have 5 new family members. Yippie!!! Clockwise from the left we have Berenice (a buff Brahma), Annette (an Australorps), Donna (an endangered Domanique), Rhonda (a Rhode Island Red), and DeDe (a Delaware). The 5 breeds all get along great and pile up in little heaps (as they are in this picture) when they sleep. The greens are my little attempt at giving the "peepers" treats but they haven't shown much interest yet.

Personality wise, DeDe is the most mellow by far. She will make some effort to escape when I reach in to pick her up but is usually quite happy once she's in my hand. She's curious and the most likely to come to my hand to check something out. Berenice is the smallest but she's quite spunky and independent. She'll be the prettiest when she's grown with big showy feathers. Annette is the fastest of the group and will be the biggest when they're grown. She will also probably be the best layer. Donna is the most shy (notice how you can't even see her face in the picture). The poor thing likes to wiggle underneath the other birds whenever she can to nap. Rhonda is Donna's favorite butt to snuggle with but she is a bit of a bully. Rhonda is a week older than the other girls and makes the most fuss when I pick her up. She has the loudest peeper and the biggest wings to show how much she dislikes my attention. This makes me pick her up more so she can get over it. Sadly, I have a hunch SHE may be a HE . Last night she made quite a show of "yawning" and attacking her shadow in their box. Time will tell on that one. Who knew it was that hard to figure out the gender of a puff ball?

The following are my first two days of Chick Observations:

• Chicks are like babies. The eat, peep, and poop...that's pretty much it.
  
• Since they're so fond of napping, chicks will sometimes fall asleep in the middle of things. These narcoleptic puff balls sometimes fall over as they fall asleep. Thankfully, they're short and don't have far to fall. Other times, they'll settle down nicely but end up so relaxed that even their heads end up on the ground. Imagine a chicken, all stretched out with her head on the ground. It looks awkward but they don't seem to mind.
  
• Chicks are not interested in order or neatness. They will poop in their food and push wood shavings into their water all day long. They also poop on each other. Thankfully, their instinct to peck at odd things they see means they'll peck the poop off each too. Once they discover that the object of their attention is poop, they seem to leave it alone but they may go back and investigate it again later. They are not very smart critters.
  
• Even the little chicks do like to preen and they're up their with cats and yogis for flexibility.
  
• Chicks, like children, like to be higher than their peers. They currently use their feeder to "roost" on and will push each other around to get a spot on it. This puts them in good position to poop in their food and on each other.
  

So, after two days with chickens, that's the latest and greatest. I'm having a ball loving on them and can't wait for Februrary or March when they'll start popping out eggs. I've found the Internet to be a wealth of information for raising chicks and discovered an entire subculture of chicken fanatics out there. Really, I recently joined the BackYardChickens forum and you wouldn't believe the passion these people have for their peepers! MyPetChicken.com is another good site for information if you want to go into the chicken business yourself. You don't need much space and they're AWFULLY fun. Peep!