"I will myself go find some herbs for you That will be good for health and pecker too." - "The Nun's Priest's Tale" - Chaucer

How cute is this little chickie?
It’s a Chantecler (Yes, I am a dork, I like the literary reference), and they lay 4 eggs a week. That’s pretty good laying, especially if you had two or three. They are not broody, meaning they are not physiologically disposed to sit on eggs or hatch chicks. They’re relatively rare, but you can get them from a couple different hatcheries. They are expensive, at four bucks a chick.



This is a Buff Brahma bantam (bantams might be preferable for city chickens, as they tend to be smaller). They will indeed sit on eggs to hatch chicks, and they lay about three eggs a week. I love their color, and I like that they’re not crested. Crests sort of squick me out a bit. They run about 3-4 dollars a chick.



The Wyandottes are really pretty and plump too, don’t you think? This is a silver-laced Wyandotte (they come in gold- and blue-laced also). This breed lays about four eggs a week; they are apparently pretty darn laid-back, too. The hens run about $2.20 a chick.




I really adore the Rhode Island Reds and Whites (this one is a hen; the males are almost black). I don't even mind the crests. They will lay a whopping five eggs per week, and are very rigorous and sturdy. The New Hampshire Reds, equally attractive, are derived from this breed, but they only average three eggs a week. The Rhode Islands are about 2 dollars a chick; the New Hampshires are about the same.

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You can pick out the breed that would best fit your lifestyle and backyard, right here:
Chicken Breed Selector.

Did you know that it is legal to keep chickens within the city of Pittsburgh limits?

I just dare anyone to complain about chicken noise (there’d be no roosters, so no crowing) when cars routinely drive down this street with radios so loud as to make my windows rattle.

"I totally have no other talent and I would be totally out of work if I did anything else." - Neil Young

Our annual church book sale began last week; because I buy so many books from them, at ridiculously low prices, I am feeling compelled to donate some. Although I heartily regret the weeding of my collection when we moved three years ago, it only seems fair that, with all the thousands of books in my house, I should rustle up at least a few to donate. Here's what I found and decided I could part with, with little or no regret.

• Some book I picked up somewhere called An Egg on Three Sticks. No idea why I thought I might want to read it, because, in addition to its ridiculous title, it’s written in the breathy, melodramatic voice of a teenage girl, with little clarifying punctuation, lots of run-on sentences and “you knows” and “likes,” and it drove me BONKERS. The reviewers on Amazon seemed to love it, but I tried three times to read it, and got disgusted very quickly all three times. The time has come to inflict it on someone else.
  
  
• Riding the Bus with my Sister; but Sarah Louise has first dibs on it. Lemme know, SL; I can get it to you if you still want it. Otherwise, to the church sale it goes.
  
  
• A copy of Jane Hamilton’s The Book of Ruth and a copy of Timothy Findley’s The Telling of Lies, both of which I picked up from the free paperback exchange at work, and then lost interest in almost immediately.
  
  
• Duplicate copies of Touch and Feel Farm (It’s a children’s book like Pat the Bunny, get your minds out of that gutter!); Robert Munsch’s Love You Forever (one of the creepiest children’s books ever written, and at least the fourth copy I have given away. Note to gift-givers: It is NOT an acceptable or appropriate baby shower or baby gift. It is CREEPY. And icky. And ew-wy.); Magic Treehouse’s Vacation under the Volcano and Tigers at Twilight (these two duplicates are due entirely to Joke’s son, who generously and kindly sent all his MT books to Primo).
  
  
• I Want to Know About the Holy Spirit; and its companions, I Want to Know About the Church, and I Want to Know About Jesus.
  
  "The best way to learn is by seeing, doing, and exploring things for yourself. And what better way to learn about the Holy Spirit than this fun, informative book!...It's packed with full-color photos, cartoons, and graphics. And it's ready to guide you into adventures in faith and fascinating discoveries...Learning about the Holy Spirit has never been this much fun!"
  
  Um, I am not sure I WANT learning about the Holy Spirit to be this much fun. And exactly what sort of full-color photos do you suppose it contains? I have to go home and look, to see if perhaps they captured part of the Great Three-in-One on film.
  
  A friend gave these to my kids in a big bag of books her two teenagers had outgrown; even when she handed them to me, she almost seemed embarrassed by them. She is NOT some sort of religious freak, and I am sure these books are very informative and well-put-together; they’re just not my boys’ cup of tea.
  Or Communion wine.
  
  
• Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography. By rights, this is not mine to give away. The drummer in H’s band lent it to him more than two years ago, and it has been riding around in MY car for the past ten or twelve months because H keeps “forgetting” to take it to return to B. I find it on the floor, in the hatchback, in the CD storage case, under the seats, and jammed in the glove compartment. My boys have stepped on it, sat on it, and dropped Cheerios and juice boxes on it. I am donating the damn thing just to get it the hell out of my car.

So there you have it. The Great Weed of 2007.
Of course, with the half dozen books I dragged home already last week from the sale, I am almost even already. We do NOT believe in Zero Population Growth, or Zero Book Growth, in THIS family.

"How would Elvis Presley know the going rate for a tooth?" - Priscilla Presley

HOLD!
THE!
PRESSES!

My baby, my first-born, my eldest son...

Just lost his first tooth.

It's all downhill from here: puberty, acne, college, girlfriends, marriage, grandchildren...I may cry.

“A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who has never owned a car.” - Carrie P. Snow

NO, I DID NOT FIND MY EARRING.

C’mon, people, this is ME. Not some lucky, lottery-winning babe who is always in the right place at the right time, and wearing the right clothes to boot.

My family’s favorite joke (ha ha fucking HA) is that we have a black cloud hovering overhead, and H and I often hope that the Babe good luck will offset the Maiden-Name-of-Babe family terrible, horrible, awful, no good, very bad luck.

We shall see. But in the meantime, I did NOT find my earring.

Here is its lonely mate:
WANTED: single earring for long-term relationship. Cute, classy, confident. Must like puppies, long walks on the beach, and cuddling by the fire. If you are silver and amber, and dangling from a French wire, I would love to hear from you.

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I have, however, hit the jackpot in book-reading lately.

I gobbled up Sheridan Hay’s The Secret of Lost Things, which I loved, and never wanted to end, and which also prompted some very disturbing research into the disorder of albinism. And you all know how I love that sort of stuff.

I have embarked upon Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which, for those of you who don’t follow this sort of thing, is her account of living off the land for a year. Well, if not off the land like some latter-day Grizzly Adams, at least eating locally, being aware of the provenance of the food she is putting in her mouth and her family’s mouths, and the challenges and joys of said enterprise. The book is interspersed with horrifying but fascinating little info-sketches (written by Kingsolver’s husband, a biologist) about the industrialization of food by the giants of agribusiness, among other things. You may never put a mass-produced, feedlot-raised hunk o’ cow in your mouth again (which I have had a hard time doing ever since I read Fast Food Nation ANYWAY).
So, the three pounds of asparagus in my fridge is singing out to me to be cooked for dinner tonight.
And the farmers’ market is warbling away, starting up for the season on Monday. (And my CSA starts soon, as well.)

I can never give up bananas or avocadoes (for Gina, it’s bananas and pineapple) but I can be more responsible about what I and my precious guys (oh, and H) are eating. (I suppose this means I should no longer feed them chicken nuggets from a box? OK, let’s not get CRAZY.)

Anyway, it’s a beautifully written book, and if a wee teeny tiny bit hyperbolic, also speaks to me and my food-loving heart. Kingsolver accurately points out: "Food is the rare moral arena in which the ethical choice is generally the one more likely to make you groan with pleasure."

(The downside of the book is that I feel *really guilty* that my three tomato plants, basil and rosemary sprigs, and three blueberry bushes are languishing on my front porch, and are not in their lovely raised bed yet.)

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Lurking in the wings is Mr Y, almost finished, and Dead Clever - it may just be that I am not at the moment in the mood for Scarlett Thomas.
I am however in the mood for Bright Lights, Big Ass which, while mildly annoying at times, and sometimes causing me to want to snap, “Oh for God’s sake GROW UP!” also happens to be falling-down, laugh-out-loud funny a LOT. I can forgive a person – and their book – an awful lot if they make me laugh. And it may well be that Jen Lancaster is the only writer I know of who can make me howl just talking about a routine (for most of us) visit to the gynecologist.
Now THAT'S funny.

"...and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD.” - Hosea 2:13

I have discovered the downside of walking to school.

If, upon arrival at the bus stop, you realize your right earring is missing – a cute little silver-and-amber dangly number – and you must retrace your steps because you have sentimental attachment to these earrings (brought back from Russia for you by one of your best friends from college), you have a fucking LOT of ground to cover.

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." - Annie Dillard

You know, I want to post, but I also want to read the new Barbara Kingsolver so I can discuss it with Jess and Gina.

So, a quick recap of my weekend:

Friday night: invited to a friend’s impromptu birthday celebration; other friend calls me to pick me up but I am asleep on couch and punk out on her.

Saturday: work in stiflingly warm library while other people revel in the sun and balmy spring air outside. Spend lunch hour devouring brought-from-home caramelized onion pizza with gorgonzola and spinach, and The Secret of Lost Things, which I wish would never end.

Saturday night: putz around house and feed boys breakfast for dinner while H takes his mom out for dinner and the symphony as her birthday gift.

Sunday morning: frantically edit a dissertation proposal my client needs by noon, to submit to his advisor. At 10:55, send boys off to church with H, shower, and then rush to church, only 15 minutes late. Take communion for only second time ever as official Episcopalian. Am still in awe of the sense of community and peace I feel doing this; feel like a bit of a religious nut saying so, but it’s true.

Sunday after church: allow boys to eat two pieces of chocolate cake each for lunch while I scout out the church summer book sale. I come home with the following haul, for $22 (would have been far less, but felt guilty only paying hardcover price of $3 for Audubon book).
The Double Bind - Chris Bojhalian
Blessings - Anna Quindlen
Awakenings - Oliver Sacks
I Know This Much Is True - Wally Lamb
The twelfth edition of The Fanny Farmer Cookbook
Too Many Tomatoes - Lois Burrows & Laura Myers (because I am hoping to get a garden planted in a raised bed sometime this week)
and the score of the day: an almost-pristine hardcover copy of The Art of Audubon.
Gorgeous.
And well worth the resulting sugar rushes and crashes.

Early Saturday afternoon: field several phone calls from my client who cannot seem to open my email attachment containing his edited proposal. Open edited document in Word, accept all my own changes, email him resulting document. He can open this one, and tells me he is sending it to his advisor as is. Oh gosh – half my remaining notes were missing citations. Oh, well.

Sunday afternoon: attend a First Communion party for H’s first-cousin-once-removed. While children are engrossed in animal balloons and amateur magic act, I spend the entire two hours self-consciously picking at my food, as H’s cousin has dropped 3 dress sizes and now looks like fashion model. I feel like a heifer, and am sure H thinks so as well.

Sunday late afternoon: pour very tired children into their beds for brief naps. Take Punto out for my run (2 miles) and then let him loose to jump in the duck pond and doggy-paddle after delicious ducks. He fails to catch a single duck.

Sunday night: everyone goes to bed by 830, leaving me in peace and quiet, to drink a cup of coffee and eat an avocado sandwich and read and write blog post. Wish cat would stop scratching window to be let in. Wish dog would stop farting. Wish tomorrow were beginning of long, solitary beach vacation for me.