Our lovely tree! :)

Note that we paid for this tree, and did not steal it. I will post another picture when its dark so the lights show better.

Look at all the presents! :)

What a nice Birthday!

I had a lovely birthday.

Birthday eve became birthday a little after midnight and we were still up, so Jim gave me the present that he had wandered down with the other day (a cardboard box) and started wrapping in birthday paper. I was all "Who is that for and why are you using birthday paper"? & he just looks at me and I say "HEY!" and he cracks up and says I *thought* you'd like that. Well there were a selection of dry-erase markers in all the colors of the rainbow which is *awesome!* I thought no one was going to get me any after William asked for suggestions & I suggested those and Jim got all mad because he was going to get them for me.

Then I went to bed and slept and got up for the rest of the birthday.

I slacked off all day - mailed some gifts, worked on some other gifts, hung out at the chicken pen a little. I did a tiny amount of work to fix something easy.

Jim came home early and brought me food of vietnam for lunch, by which point I was reaaaally hungry. Then I slacked off some more while Jim cleaned up the house all Sweetie-like.

William showed up with a hand-delivered bouquet of flowers. Awww! :)

Carla showed up around 3 something and we hung out talking about what our Arisia decorations will look like and looking up pictures of the star trek bridge. Jim went out to get food of thailand and Andy showed up too, just before Jim came back with the foods and me and Jim and Natalie and William and Carla and Andy ate up piles of thai food. Birthday of Asian delicacies, yay! :)

At some point Jim was over at the counter secretly frosting the cake he baked earlier, which came out really nice! Yellow with brown - my favorite.

There were presents from Mommy & Papa - thank you for the flower & pretty crystal rock - I love gardeny things!

We all played rat-a-tat cat which I lost miserably in 5 rounds - doubled Jims score and was the overall loser. Then I demanded the presents Jim was holding on to, and here's where it really got fun.

********
Jims first present came with the comment "No one ever checks those Amazon wish lists. Well I checked yours and got you something from it." Which was a CD which turned out to be some sort of Arabic yodeling. (Ayre). We laughed and laughed and kept waiting to hear which track made me put this CD on my wishlist. We haven't heard that one yet.

Jims next present was -yay- a game! Tiny mens to kill! I opened it up and went "HEEEYYY! are you just trying to FORCE me to upgrade to XP?" and Jim was affronted "No! read the box! - it will work on Windows 2000!" So I was all suspicious for no reason.

Finally Jim gives me a lovely card with sentiments in it, and I'm reading the nice prose about how old I was when we met, and how old I was when we started going out, and how old when we got married, and how he can't wait to see what happens next. All suspicious from before I say "this is a little creepy. Like stalking." Jim protests "It *can't* be creepy, we're *married!* Are you going to read the other side out loud?

And I wailed "But I wasn't sure if that was some sort of naughty euphemism and I shouldn't read it out loud!" And Jim's says "What??? How could it be?"

The right hand part has a single line:

"Wanna make some toast?"

...

Jim pointed out I've been complaining about the toaster a lot and for my birthday I may order that heirloom-quality blue one I've been looking at. That it's NOT some sort of dirty slogan :)

But when I drifted downstairs to look up toasters Jim was astounded at the prices of the models I liked - the models he'd been looking at were the "lite" model by the same manufacturer which are already very expensive.

So we compromised - they have 2 slot and 4 slot models which are extremely expensive, but on Amazon the 3-slot toaster is much less expensive than either the 2 or 4. (Plus there was a coupon.)

Nobody wants to make a prime number of toast!!!

It's my Birthday and I'll Blog if I want to!

Well hello campers, geez it's been ages! I'm sooooo busy! :(
Nevermind that, I'll now post all the things I've been thinking of posting for the last month.

First: Our second snow. Pics from Dec 12th. The first snow was just a couple inches and it melted before I got to take pictures. I was sure this one would stick:

But no, it didn't stick.

Second: LOOK at it LOOK at it I've been making presents and not being able to post them because people could SEE them!

I made this little guy for Sarah, isn't he the cutest??? He's a Wallace and Gromit bunny ornament!

(I lightened the bunny for you Mommy!)

Whoah!

I just got out of a three hour meeting. That's a three hour *phone* meeting. And you know what? It was the slickest thing ever. There were 4 people in the meeting which was run as a class for the first two hours. We all call a 1-800 number and connect to the audio portion in a regular-old conference call. Then, we all connect to a web site (gotomeeting.com) with the link we were sent in an email yesterday.

And presto, we can all see the presenter's desktop, where he pops around to different slides and waves at stuff with the cursor while talking about it. One of the guys is somewhere down South, the rest of us are in Vermont, all connected to each other through this super nifty technology. I mean, c'mon - a cross-country meeting of minds, and no one had to catch my COLD.

I was better, then over Thanksgiving I caught Aisha's cold. Triple damn!!!
Thanksgiving was very nice except it seemed really short. We only saw the parents thursday and a little on friday morning. We only saw Steve & John & Lori and the kids for about 4 hours on friday until they all went to the tree lighting ceremony in Burlington, which Jim & I were not really up for. Nancy and Aisha stayed until Saturday morning which was nice to see them for a little while. We played Rat-a-tat cat which Natalie picked up also and likes very much. It's for ages 6 and up so anyone should be able to play.

The turkey was very tasty. We missed Kagan.

Sunday Romni swung by and admired our attempts at bathroom remodeling. We were distressed to discover that the existing fan vented - wait for it - directly into the attic *insulation*. Not even all the way up into the attic. The awesome new fan Jim installed is whisper quiet and moves so much air it's pretty cold coming out of the shower... if you don't turn on the included hot air blower. Pretty sweet.

Monday (yesterday) We saw Morgan, who drove all the way up from Rutland to hang out with us and enjoyed the Mussamam beef curry I made (with ingredients from importfoods.com) so much that she ate more of it instead of dessert, and called me today for the recipe. Apparently it was very very tasty, but alas I could not really taste it. I will have to make it again when I have kicked this cold too. Which is a puny cold, nothing like that last one, I don't even have a fever HA!
We played some rat-a-tat cat with Morgan and watched a movie that had a pretty good twist ending that she slept through. And didn't believe us that there was a twist ending.

Anyway back to getting some work done. Check out this site I've been updating lately (I also designed the entire thing a couple years ago) - it's mostly current and coming right up too. This is a fun festival to go to. VIF

PS I love Kagans new blog - but he posts so often it begs the question, to whom was he making all these commentaries before? :)

OK So I've been Sick...

Yeah so I was sick practically forever. It started right after our *super* awesome Halloween party, the one where the power was out. We didn't tell anyone the power was out in case they wouldn't have come then (well, except Morgan because she had to sleep over and it wouldn't be fair to at least not warn her.)

I had been cleaning all week so that I wouldn't have to clean all day Saturday and be exhausted for the party. Jim stretched out on the couch after breakfast, looked around and declared "Well, I can't vacuum without power, and it's too dark to sweep." He looked all pleased with himself while I swear I went supersonic.

So we cleaned in the stormy half-light of a Vermont wintery afternoon, lit a ton of little LED candles in party favor plastic pumpkins that threw no light at all, and real candles that did. Then we went over to William's farmhouse (leaving Susan and Keving holding down the fort) to cook beef stew and cornbread for our impending guests. We showered at Williams (thank *goodness*), came home and Jim filled 5 gallon buckets for toilet flushing purposes. Guests were met at the door by Susan hollering "If it's yellow let it mellow!!!", and "Oh yeah, welcome..." And we really had a wonderful party. There was no music or much light, but lots of libations and conversation.

And, not that Sunday but the following monday, all that wine and getting dressed in the cold caught up with me and I fell ill. I didn't go to Sarah's for Halloween to give out candy, instead I watched one of the vampire movies we had rented to have as background ambiance at the party. I felt miserable monday, worse tuesday, OK enough to visit Papa on his birthday wednesday, and just downhill from there.
Finally, a week later (last monday) I went to the doctor.

This pleasant looking kid with Drew Carey glasses walks into the little hospital cell.

Me "_You_ are the doctor? You don't look a day over 28 to me."

Dr "Yes I'm the doctor. I am far, far older than 28.
I am 30. So no one can call me the young guy around the place anymore."

Me "Only I'm 31 and when someone younger than me has a doctorate, it makes me feel like maybe I was slacking off."

Dr "Maybe you're a slacker. Did you ever think of that?"

Me: "Hey I have my degrees, they're just in Computer Science so I don't have to deal with people."

Dr: "That's good thinking. People Suck."

... we talk about my symptoms for a bit.

Dr: "Do you smoke?"

Me: "Hells no! It makes you smell bad, and it's bad for your health, and worst of all, it's expensive!"

Dr: "So far you're giving me all the right answers. Would you mind going out in the waiting room and yelling out those things?"

Me: "Well, if those people haven't already heard all that they just aren't listening."

Dr: "Yes, well sometimes a voice of authority, such as coming from the elder in the room..."

Me (Smacks Dr in elbow) "Hey!"

... we have a lively conversation about more stuff all about me

Dr: "You have a cold."

Me: "Well I told the girl at the desk when I called that I have a cold and asked if they had a cure for it yet, and she told me I should come in!"

Dr: "Yes, they're trained by the people who count the beans to do that. You're going to have this cold for 1 to 3 weeks..."

Me: (wailing) "3 weeks!!!"

Dr: "What are you doing for it now?"

Me: "I'm sleeping as much as I can, taking lots of vitamins, plus elderberries in honey and grapefruit seed extract."

Dr: "That's all good, keep doing that. Herbal remedies probably help and they can't hurt."

Me: "Can I do anything else?"

Dr: "Yes, do you know about those neti pots for rinsing out your sinuses? Go get one of those or make one out of a detergent squirt bottle... those pop tops fit perfectly in a nostril. Then you lean over the sink and squirt saline into your nose... of course it makes a terrible mess and it's more for my amusement than anything else..."


And that's how I came to smack the Doctor.
Just a little.
But he really really deserved it.
:)

Vanity, thy name is Natalie.

Yes, use my mascara without permission. Rub stolen lipstick all over your face. That's really sanitary that is, and it's a great color on you. NOT! :)

Caitlin's Garden 2006

Well, hopefully I'll do better next year... I say that every year!
I never got my tomatoes staked and had to pick them off the ground. I had a ton of cucumbers but didn't pickle any. And my giant tower of beans made a lot of beans, but not as many as I would have expected for such a looming structure. Next year maybe bean teepees. What's left of my entire crop of delicious turnip-shaped carrots is in the fridge in a bag - I had to pick them all because deer were. We ate some and they were delicious. The deer have moved on the the beets, which I guess I care less about. Not my carrots! :)

Pirate Doggy!

Just the cutest doggy ever! He hardly minds the torture he's put through, I swear!

Pics from the Tunbridge Fair

Our first trip to the Tunbridge Fair.
Boy that dumb-looking woman in front of Mommy and Papa ruined the picture, but I cut her out, which helps a little. :)

Devil Chicken! This is a polish chicken. The farmer said they're real bastards, but after he keeps one in a cage by itself for a few months it calms down a fair amount. (!) Then he reached in to pull one out so I could see up close and the thing practically took his arm off. Look, Devil horns! Anyway, perhaps despite their coll hairdo, a breed of chicken that wants to kill me may not be the one for me.

Desk Decor :)

While searching for some guitar music in one of our many bookshelves this weekend, Jim came across a little clump of desk decor that I had up around my desk before I started painting the office. I thought I'd share :)

Click this to see it bigger. Totally worth it. :)

Happy Birthday Alexe!

Happy Birthday Alexe! Kagan better get you nice presents and pamper you even extra, after making you sleep in a truck bed for a month with no running water!
I believe (Happy Wife = Happy Life) and I should think the inverse would be true as well. *kisses&love!*



So Saturday morning I wake up, crawl over and curl up pretty much _on_ Jim, wrap my arms around his neck...

Me: "tell me you love me!"
Jim: "I love you."

Me: "Whisper me sweet nothings!"
Jim: (thinks for a minute) ... "Frequently, you smell nice."

Me: (screeching) "HEY! That means that SOMETIMES I SMELL BAD!"
Jim (smug as can be) "Well that's what you get on a command performance."



And now, for your viewing pleasure, photographic evidence of us muuuurdering chickens. The extra roosters - not the pet birds. Thank Natalie for the unauthorized paparazzi presence. Through the kitchen window - we had no idea. :)

Talk Like a Pirate!

I promised myself I would figure out my new camera and make dozens of posts of the stuff we've been up to - the week in cape cod, Carla & Andy's Pirate Party, the FIRST EGGS from our hens (sorry we ate those, no pics :) ) Harvest Market, New flower beds, Kagan & Alexe's Cabin-inna-woods... but I haven't figured out getting pictures off of it yet. Or how to use the fax machine either. But here's to cheatin' - pics taken by our new pirate mates after giving us our new pirate names (not our fault) on our pirate day outing. I daresay we were a lot of scalliwags, though Jim n I had by far the least rum!

Pirate Fookinandy

Pirate Bazoom

Well, I didn't die, so Here's a post. :)

I guess most of my readers should already know that I had a close encounter with the medical staff at Fletcher Allen at the end of July - a burst ectopic tubal pregnancy that almost killed me. *surprise!* Even though it would probably have been an easier diagnosis if we had known ahead of time, Jim and I are glad we didn't know because we didn't have to go from "Yay we're having a baby" to "Shoot it died and almost killed me!". Instead we went basically from "Yeah medical people, let's not congratulate me until we figure out what's wrong" to "Dude, in retrospect, let's name it Damien."

Anyway I have mixed feelings about the whole hospital visit - while they did technically save my life, it took them about 9 hours to figure out what was wrong with me before surgery, and my GOD the sonogram lady was bitchy about being called in at 3 am. When I told Peach that he said I should've said "Geez I'm so _sorry_, next time I'll try to DIE at a more convenient hour." :) Anyway the lady in the ambulance had already called ectopic pregnancy while they were loading me up. I wonder if they have a private pool & someone calls the next day to find out who was right.

I've heard from a few friends that the St Albans hospital really has it together, and being a non-teaching hospital has more actual staff on hand. I wasn't really shopping for medical options at the time though. "Yes, I'd like to see your quote and that of a few competitors.. what? This isn't Geiko?" Still I am not dead, so FAHC did alright in my book. Well, specifically the xray guy, the first doctor, and the surgeon. Some of the other folks over there I am neutral on, and that ultrasound tech gets an F for bedside manner. Plus, we have decided that passing out = hospital right away, just for future reference.

So I've been gimping around for a week and a half, with little cuts and huge bruises that are starting to be tender now, where they weren't really before. Mama came up last week & cleaned *everything*, then left because I was getting too mouthy. :) (Oh Mama that bread mix rose fine with new yeast, so I think it was just old and Amazon or their vendor did us a disservice sending us aged Hodgeson Mills products.) I thought I'd spare you the photograph I have of my internal organs, unless I get some requests. Instead, here is a picture of our other demon child - Balthazar. :)

(one of these things is not where it should be)

Eww, doggie kisses!

Picture of the day: Natalie gets some loving, about a month ago while Andrea was still visiting. Andrea! We miss you! You two need to kiss and make up, just like Caesar and Natalie are right here.

*poke* the weasels! =)

Oh, the Hair-manity! :)

Jim & Steve and John went down to North Carolina a few months back to bring up the contents of their Moms storage locker to her so she could stop paying monthly storage fees. Well Jim got some dulcimer-making supplies that his dad had bought, and his Mom promised to send up the plans if she could find them as she sorted through the piles of stuff.

Yesterday JimE got a box of tidbits that his Momma thought he might enjoy - trinkets from Korea we can't identify, a yellowed news article about him working at the cider press in West Newbury... and this undated yet clearly amazing homage to the eighties.

Yay! :)

Pretty Kitty - Naked Belly!

The kitties are doing much better now, to our enormous relief. They still have lost their voices, so when they try to meow Morgan is completely silent and Griffy squeaks like a mouse, but they are sooo much perkier, hungry (for the soft, non throat-scratching food), lovey and much much better. Poor guys.

Anyway, now that Morgan has had a sonogram (to find he was 100% empty and had not swallowed string) his naked little belly has led to a new, very dangerous game around here. You stroke the kitty once starting at his head and going all the way down his back, whispering "Pretty Kitty", which is what we always tell him, but then you alternate this with tickling the naked belly while chirping "naked belly!"

*Swish swish* goes the tail. So far, no one's been mauled playing this game, but no one has dared to play it more than 30 seconds straight, either. :)




In other news,

• raspberries that Alexe helped me plant are ripening, not very many but I can see them out the office window and I keep ducking out there after work to eat a few yummy berries. Yay!
  
• The beans twined around the string trellis I put up sunday... by monday morning. Jim called this "creepy".
  
• I have been very uncomfortable in the hot hot work room (vermont is experiencing a heat wave in the 90s and most of us aren't set up to handle that sort of thing), and Jim set up that portable heater slash AC unit in the office for me today, which I actually turned on despite the cost and it's helping a little.
  
• I'm making a new flower bed out back against the house. Natalie and Will dug a hole near the house for my plastic pond I had at Green Street. Natalie said: you should bury the pond! I'll dig the hole! ... an hour later we've got the pond in the ground, dumped in the pond buckets with water hyacinth & we're standing next to it going huh... OK now there's a big hole. Maybe we should have slept on that. :)
  Anyway, it's full of little frogs. FULL. There must be 20 of them in there, I have no idea how they found it (it's about 3 by 4 feet) but if you walk out next to it on the (brown, crispy, weed-whacked in preparation for making a flower bed) grass 5 or 6 jump back into the water. And at night, while we're sleeping, we hear little froggy noises. It's really wonderful. :)
  

Kitty update + flower pics

I'm just back from my third morning spent at the vets.
I dropped Griffin off at the vet this morning on my way by with Morgan headed for a sonogram in Essex (my vet doesn't have sonogram & the xrays didn't show anything). Griffin was in a good mood but still gagging this morning so I had to bring her in. In the car she usually yowls bloody murder and this time she could barely squeak, so I knew she must have a very sore throat. So a sonogram of Morgan and poking and prodding of Griffin later, Morgan is empty - he didn't eat any string. They both have very inflamed sore throats and must have shared something very bad that Balthazar and Caesar did not get into at all. Racking my brains I can't figure out what, but the doc gave them a steroid shot to bring down the soreness and we'll give them pills when they feel a little better. I only wish I could figure out what they got into to make sure they can't do it again. At least no surgery for Morgan, which is a big relief.
*whuff* :(

On a lighter note, here are some pictures of the biggest scarlet monarda (bee balm) ever! If Jim looks a little wacky, it's probably because he didn't *want* to be used as a ruler. :)

Progress on the Office!

Here are pictures of the office in progress. It's coming along!





On a worried note, Morgan is at the kitty hospital right now because he is very sick with heaving and not eating or drinking. The doc says the xrays showed big gas areas but no foreign objects that Morgan might have eaten. Then, last night Griffin started to feel bad, barfing a little all night - but I think she is sick from being a pig and eating a big pile of catnip and then a bowl of oil on tuna which was meant to help Morgan pass a hairball, not as a one-cat treat.

Anyway, I'm very worried. :(

Natalie the Debate Team Captain.

Caitlin (to deck slaves): "All that grass on the deck is Natalie's fault. She mowed AT the deck.

Natalie, from kitchen: "No I didn't. Prove it."

Caitlin (yelling back): "You were the only one who mowed, and there's grass all over the deck!"

Natalie (stuffing face with candy from jar): "Well... you got me."

:) Those deck boys better do a good job - the only reason I hired them is because they underbid on the sanding. I would never have paid good money for painting, which I'm great at - I just didn't want to sand it.

Happy Birthday To JimE!

How was everyone's weekend?
Oof. :) Kagan got home in 8 hours and 15 minutes tuesday.
That's interesting, because despite Alexe and Kagan travelling up from DC, we spent over 50% as much time in the car as those two youngsters this weekend. Argh.

To Cuttingsville, then Springfield, then back to Underhill, then to Brownsville and back - we spent over 10 hours in the car this weekend. And we *live* in Vermont. :)
That last one wiped us out & we stayed put on the fourth, did a little puttering around the house, had some yummy sandwiches, and went to bed.

by the way everyone,

Happy Birthday to Jim!!!

Awww! ... and not so much :)

Cute when Doggie does it.



Not so much when boy does it. But notice Andrea's kitten, up by the face. :)

Kagan & Alexes Weekend Itinerary UPDATED

Here is my synopsis of Kagans & Alexes AND OUR weekend plans.
It sure sounds like a lot of work if you ask me, and not enough relaxing.
I'll help pick out a cabin spot, but I'm not hauling logs all weekend. =)

(Inexplicable, unremovable white space again, just scroll down...)

Kagan & Alexe	Caitlin & Jim (tentative)	Natalie (guessing)
Friday 6/30 Drive all day, eat whatever feast Mama & Papa offer, go to bed.	Friday 6/30 Work all day, pack for weekend trip.	Friday 6/30 Sleep, hang out
Saturday 7/1 Go to land. 1) Choose a building lot (Caitlin estimates 4 hours) 2) Pick which trees to build with. (Caitlin estimates rest of day.) 3) cookout hotdogs on a fire. :) Camp out or sleep at Mommy & Papa's	Saturday 7/1 Go to Kagan & Alexes land. 1) Watch choosing of a building lot. Complain about bugs. 2) Watch about 5 trees get cut down before getting bored & throwing ball for dogs. 3) cookout hotdogs on a fire. :) Camp out or sleep at Mommy & Papa's	Saturday 7/1 Sleep late. Drive to land and hang out for a little while. Leave to go party.
Sunday 7/2 Cut down trees. Maybe go swimming. Sunday evening at mama and papa's?	Sunday 7/2 Relax, with Kagan and Alexe if they are not cutting down trees with a chainsaw, or at the parents or home if they are. We will need to feed our chickens at some point. Maybe hang out another evening if we can get chicken sitters or Natalie leaves earlier.	Sunday 7/2 Fight all day with William for having to hay instead of doing what Natalie wants.
Monday 7/3 * Pieter van Sheik's party at some point. * Visit the grandparents sleep at mama and papa's Monday night.	Monday 7/3 We were not invited to Pieter's, or to the grandparents. We may head to downtown Burlington for fireworks, don't rightly know.	Monday 7/3 Do fingernails. Bake something and eat it and let William have firsts, but NOT seconds, because he will still be in "the doghouse".
Tuesday 7/4 Drive home	Tuesday 7/4 Book Sale!!! Relaxing! :)	Tuesday 7/4 Hang out with Andrea. Meddle in other people's relationships.

I'm sure you've all read this, but just in case

I love this poem so much that I will tuck in in here, just in case one of my loved ones hasn't seen it before.

"The Lanyard"
by Billy Collins

The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the pale blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past --
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift--not the archaic truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Mystery of the Rare Breed Chicken

Doesn't that sound like a Nancy Drew title? :)

I have figured out what my rare chick is! They throw a mystery rare chick in with your order at McMurray Hatchery (along with extra roosters evidently) and it turns out that mine is an "Egyptian Fayoumi"! :)

Here is a good picture:



He is the liveliest of all, holds his tail straight up, and swoops in to grab every worm I offer anyone. He also has started trying to crow, and looks rooster shaped although smaller than the others. If I'm right he may stay as small as 4 lbs!

The chicken chart I like says "Precocious scavenger and escape artist. very economical eater; does not like containment; lively; flighty, known for wildness, but varies."

McMurrays says: "These small, active, lovely chickens have been raised along the Nile River in Egypt for centuries, and even though quite common there, are practically unknown in this country. We got our start of this very rare breed from one of the state universities whose poultry department was using them for special studies in genetics. No other breed matures quite so quickly as these do and the young pullets are apt to start laying their small tinted white eggs at 4 to 4-1/2 months while the cockerels will start to crow at an unbelievable 5 to 6 weeks. They are attractively marked with silvery white hackle and white bars on black background throughout the body plumage. Leg color can be either willow green or slate blue. Baby chicks are highly colored in brown, black, and white markings on the back and a brownish purple head color."

As a chick he did have a brown head, the only one who did - and then it came in white, but the whole time I was distracted by the big white chicken who has a hen comb and looks like an eagle, but has started trying to crow so is probably an Auracana male.

Here is McMurray's Fayoumi page: click here

And here are more chicken pics, look how they've grown! :)

Whoah! Happy Father's Day to ME! :)

So, instead of my giving Papa a nice present, for Father's day he & Mama came up on friday and gave US an *awesome* present! Look at these wonderful desks! I bought paint & will be painting the shelves to go on the brackets this week. Also, I am moving forward with suing the floor people, but because of the ingenious wall-mounted design of these counters I can move into the room while still suing the floor people. Thank you Papa! :) (And thank you Mama for buzzing around and cleaning the whole house while we were working on the shelves - please let me know where you get your "mama's little helpers" for all that energy! :) )





Today:

This kitty will smack at a great Dane, but BEWARE the mini poodle!!! :)
This is my friend Bev's mini poodle named Ozzie, and this is Balthazar upon spotting the menace (plus, there was hissing.)