No longer outnumbered!

Friday was the big day - I picked up the four newest members of our family on my way home from work, four molting 2-year-old laying hens.  Allow me to introduce...

Scratch, Peck, Beakless and Tailfeathers!

(side note: those of you who are my Facebook friends know that I had to explain to my 6-year-old son why it was not a good idea to name one of them "Pecker" - she's now just "Peck" and I'm pretty sure we narrowly missed some awkward conversations with unwitting strangers...)

Jason is completely enamored with the hens.  Since they are molting, they aren't in full egg laying mode right now, but we did get three eggs this weekend.  The first egg made it to just inside the door before the boys dropped it.  Ick!  The second one made it safely to the house in our basket dedicated to egg collection.  Jason ate it for breakfast and said it tasted "better and healthier" than the ones we get from the store.  He spent much of the weekend waiting for egg number 3.  Poor hens - I told Jason he is going to give them performance anxiety if he keeps waiting around for them every time they head up into the nesting boxes!

My mother-in-law did make it to our house this weekend.  I dragged her to the birthday party we were to go to on Saturday afternoon, and then Saturday night we sat up late around a campfire roasting marshmallows while she strummed guitar and we sang Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's "Our House" - I love that song!

Today was my 12th wedding anniversary - in 2 days it will be 19 years since I first met my husband.  Do you know that Brad Paisley song, "Then"?  That's how I feel about my husband, Adam.  I can't believe how I love him more and more every year.  Anyway, Jason and my mother-in-law shooed us back into bed when we got up so they could serve us breakfast in bed.  I then spent the rest of the morning hand quilting on the porch with my MIL - can you say "PERFECT DAY?"

After she left, I showered, whipped up a potluck dish and a going away gift for some friends (a matching crayon roll and travel tissue case for a mom of 3 boys age 6 and under), and we hopped in the car to go to their going away party.  If there are any of you who have never visited the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, I encourage you to put it on the list of places to visit.  Even just driving down the highway is gorgeous, but the back road route from our remote dirt road home to their remote dirt road home was just breathtaking.  I need to remember to appreciate the blessings I have, including living in such a beautiful place, and not take it for granted just because I see it every day.

(By the way, if you are wondering about the title of my post, a year ago, I was so outnumbered - the only female with a husband, two boys, two male cats and a male dog.  Now, the numbers are even.  Granted, my fellow females are a neurotic rescue hound and 4 molting hens, but I'll take what I can get!)

I'm still here!

I've just been busy.  Unfortunately, I haven't been the kind of busy that produces pretty pictures.  I've been:

- playing basketball.  Yes, I am just 5 ft tall and no, I've never played basketball before, but I decided it was time the Hutchinson men cheered me on. So I put together an intramural basketball team of women faculty and staff, and we've been whupping up on the sorority girls half our age.  What fun!  We are three games in and undefeated.  I've scored in every game, and last night I even hit a 3 pointer!  I didn't even realize I could throw the ball that far!

- building a chicken tractor.  Have you ever heard that term before?  It is basically a moveable chicken coop.  My kids have been begging for chickens for over a year, and I'm partial to free range eggs, so this weekend I sketched out a plan and we got started.  There are a ton of different types of chicken tractors out there, but the one I sketched out (based on my limited abilities and the materials I had on hand) looks most like this one:

Hopefully we'll have half a dozen chicks by this time next week. 

- reading.  Well, re-reading actually.  I had forgotten how much I love Earlene Fowler's Benni Harper mysteries.  I started at the beginning, and I'm on book 5, Dove in the Window, right now.  Oh how I wish there were a new book in that series on the horizon!

- quilting.  I'm still hand quilting the Charm baby quilt, but the progress is slow, as usual, and I don't want to bore you with more photos of the same old thing.  The same goes for the lap quilt made from bits of my Great Great Grandmother's salvaged quilt - I have just two borders left to sew on, but you've seen that quilt so many times already.

- mining the thrift stores.  I seriously have a problem passing up pretty pillowcases when I see them.  I bought 6 more this weekend, and made myself an apron to wear at the two fairs/events where I'll have a booth this year.  I finished at midnight last night, so no photos now, but when you've seen one apron made from upcycled pillowcases, you've seen them all, right?

- leading my Cub Scouts (of course!).  This weekend was the Pinewood Derby at our Pack Meeting.  We Tigers lead the opening using Sign Language we had learned to ask everyone to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.  Then, those wonderful little Tigers of mine sat still and behaved throughout the whole Pinewood Derby, bringing the Den of the Month honors home to us for the month.  They are such good little doobies!

So, I haven't been idle, but I haven't been doing anything that really warranted sharing, either.  I need to do something exciting so I can put some eye candy up on here.