Halloween, Hockey, Hiking, Hillarity

So, Halloween happened. It was awesome. As far as I'm concerned, this town does Halloween right. Because the population where we are is so small relative to the geographical area, trick or treating in most of this town and the surrounding towns is infeasible and frankly, probably dangerous. Most homes are set far back from the road on large (5+ acre) lots, there are no streetlights, and most of the roads are twisty country roads that locals fly on. There are only a few pockets of town where houses are clustered in a "neighborhood", and luckily for us, one of them is ours. Our neighborhood is made of up four streets in the shape of an "E" and is located directly across the street from the K-8 elementary school. The police close off access to the neighborhood and then all residents of Salisbury, Amesville, Lime Rock and Lakeville (which are the four towns that feed into the elementary school) to trick or treat in our neighborhood only. It's a huge party. The police station takes collections of candy (so that we in the neighborhood don't have to personally purchase enough candy for 200-300 kids) and dropped it off at every house in the neighborhood Halloween morning. All we had to do was decorate the house, and enjoy the festivities. The kids went out trick or treating with Andy and our next door neighbor's kids, and I stayed home to pass out candy. Next year we need to step up our house-decorating. Years of being "the Halloween neighborhood" - our realtor referred to it as such a couple times during our house hunting, and we had no idea what she meant - have led the neighbors to an impressive collection of exterior Halloween decorations. Andy's mom made the kids absolutely adorable costumes - Woody from Toy Story and a dinosaur, and Andy and I went as "undecided voters" - he wore a leprechaun costume and I wore a unicorn costume:

People either really got Andy's and my costumes, and thought they were hilarious, or really, really didn't. Either way, we got a huge kick out of them and the boys had a blast. We also hosted a Halloween party on Sunday night for all the boys' preschool friends and their families, which was great fun and judging from the thank you notes I received, everyone had a blast. Halloween was a huge success all around.

Hockey has started up again, too. The team I play on started practicing in October, and as a gift to myself I treated myself to new equipment and am saving up for a new stick. I've also taken on a bigger role on the team and am the scheduler this year, which has been fun. I'm even considering going to ref school! I went to a hockey clinic this summer and a couple women in attendance ref at the mite and pee wee level - I was intrigued. There is apparently a big shortage of refs in our area. I need to look into the time commitment on that. The hockey season started up for Owen this weekend, too. I was unsure how Owen would do - last year, he was happy to go with public skate with me, but spent every single hockey practice (why yes, we did spend $250 for the privilege....) sitting on the bench in his equipment, watching but refusing to step on the ice or participate. He insisted he wanted to sign up again, however, and against our better judgment we again paid the fee and signed him up. I was expecting a repeat of last year but.....nope. He stepped out on the ice and did his best. Here he is, working with "coach Seth":



we were SO proud and excited for him. Last year it was so very clear that he wanted to participate, he really wanted to join in - but I just don't think emotionally he was there yet. Every single Saturday and Sunday, he would say "I want to go to hockey! Really! I do! I promise I will get on the ice!" And then.....you got it. We sat on the side and watched. I said it in my vacation post, but I'll say it again - what a difference a year makes. While there might not be that much difference physically in how he would have done from last year to this, emotionally it was a whole different ballgame. He had a blast, and was SO excited to go back again today. The hockey program here is very generous and a great deal. It meets every Saturday AND Sunday morning - one hour Saturdays, one hour and 15 minutes Sundays, for 16 weeks and at $250 I consider that a steal - and this morning he practically LEAPED on the ice. Somehow, I got talked into volunteering for the learn to skate program too, starting next week - so we'll both be on the ice from now on. You know what? Fine with me. I like being a hockey mom.

This weekend our friends Colleen and Bill came to visit, and in addition to enjoying their awesome company, which was a true highlight of the fall so far, seeing this area through their eyes a bit made me realize how despite all my complaining, it's actually really pretty nice out here. We have a lot going for us. This morning I met up with the group of three other women I've been running with in the mornings since last April, and I mentioned how much I've been undervaluing how nice it is here. My friend Jocelyn said "Yeah! We live across the street from an excellent public school. We live in a ridiculously beautiful place. Because we all work or live at boarding schools, our kids have access to things that most kids don't. We are really, really lucky." Yes, we are. I miss Boston, but I need to remember that. We ARE really, really lucky.

Speaking of ridiculously beautiful places, the boys and I decided to take advantage of it this afternoon. Last weekend I went with the same friend Jocelyn mentioned above to run the Kent Pumpkin Run, which is a 5 mile race through some of the most gorgeous scenery the northwest corner has to offer. On our way there, we passed a spectacular waterfall. I said "wow, what's that!" she said, "You've never taken your kids to the big falls? You have to!" So this afternoon, we did. It was a great, an easy, but beautiful 1 mile round trip hike up the waterfall and down the other side on a chilly, but lovely November afternoon.

Maybe it was because the kids were being particularly well behaved, brotherly and cooperative. Maybe it was because Jocelyn had just reminded me to be grateful this morning. Or maybe it was just because two little boys in the woods would put anyone in a good mood, but we had a great time. Happy Fall!

Tae Kwon Do. Why not?

I don't know who put karate into Owen's head, but it's been lodged there for about 6 months and so I finally agreed to go find Owen a class. The nearest one to us is in Great Barrington, which I initially groaned about but after having done the drive a few times now, I'm over - it's really not THAT bad. Around here we exaggerate how far GB is away from us for effect, but it's really only 25 minutes. In the city, you would spend that trying to get your kid to an activity in Newton, especially if you needed to get there around 5pm.

I was initially quite resistant to getting Owen into martial arts. I'm not sure what my objections were, exactly...they still seem kind of vague and more or less boiled down to "don't you want to do soccer like all the other kids?" I didn't feel like teaching my kids to be aggressive and/or effective fighters was really a good idea. I tried hard to steer him toward a tumbling and movement class in Canaan - but he reeeeally wanted karate. I actually couldn't find a karate studio anywhere near us, but Owen accepted Tae Kwon Do as a fair substitute after observing a class. Unfortunately, he continues to insist on calling it Karate, much to the owner of the studio's chagrin. Apparently, Tae Kwon Do and Karate are NOT the same thing. Don't mess it up. Owen has learned to (begrudgingly) call it "kowndo" in the presence of Master Brown, but at home, he's quite clear that he's learning Karate. Whatever.

Anyway, now that we're a few weeks in, my ambivalence about tae kwon do has largely evaporated. First of all, there's the cute factor:

The cuteness! It kills me. but I suspect you could dress up my kids in just about any outfit/sporting costume and I'd think they're adorable. What I really like about it, and what has surprised me, is the high expectations they have of a kid Owen's size, without being draconian or punitive or otherwise age-inappropriate. What's interesting about this studio is that - unlike what I had imagined - he does NOT take class with a bunch of other similarly adorable 4 year olds. At this studio (and I'm not sure if this is because of the philosophy of tae kwon do and they do this everywhere, or the rural area we live in - there probably aren't enough people here to have classes separated by age) everyone takes class together. EVERYONE. Here was the class yesterday:

yep. That's 5 black belts, (you can't see two of them) and advanced red belt (she's not wearing her belt for some reason) a purple belt, two yellow belts (there's one behind one of the kids in front you can't see - actually, it's the son of the yellow belt adult you CAN see, sitting next to Owen. It's a dad and his 12ish year old son doing it together and I think they're awesome. They're clearly using this as a way to "bond" - and it's working) and Owen. So you, like I, might think that they are amused by Owen, think he's cute, and largely ignore him while the rest of them actually learn martial arts and work on their skills. You'd be wrong. Every last one of the advanced belts and the instructor (Mr. Brown) take Owen as seriously as a member of the class as the black belts that are flipping and chopping and doing their tricks. If Owen is fooling around and not paying attention, everyone stands stock still while they wait for him to get it together. They expect him to participate, follow along, do what he can do, wait patiently while they're not specifically teaching him something or doing something he can do, and just generally treat him like every other member of the class. I have to say, I'm impressed. I thought after the first class he would find it boring, and be unable to live up to the expectations, but I was wrong. He's doing really well, and asks to go every day. The older kids who have achieved higher belts are remarkably polite, self posessed, and extremely patient, thoughtful and helpful in instructing the lower belts. Everything in the class is based on the level you've achieved, not age, so there might be a 13 year old green belt helping an adult orange belt, or a 19 year old black belt spending an entire class teaching a 4 year old white belt a single kick. Observing this, I was thinking to myself - is that 16 year old advanced belt going to be angry when they realize the class is over and they've spent the entire thing showing someone who has just started the same thing over and over? Don't they want to be practicing their advanced tricks? Then I started reading through the studio materials and realized that in fact, the point of being an advanced belt is participating in the leadership program and helping the less advanced belts learn. That was enough for me to buy into it, especially if Owen really wants to do it. We just need to work on him yelling "Ki-ya!" instead of "Hi-ya!" Apparently, "Hi-ya" is Karate. And Tae Kwon do and Karate are NOT the same thing.

First day of school

me: Owen! How was your very first day of pre-k?

Owen: great! The teacher said at the beginning NO WEAPONS. Weapons are like guns, swords, light sabers and stuff like that. So me, Oliver and Finn played guns on the playground and we didn't get caught! And I shot Oliver 10 times.



Ah. Great. You, Oliver and Finn are going to be quite the little prison gang someday.

We went on vacation and I didn't take any pictures.

Let's just get that out of the way right there in the title - I didn't take any pictures. I know, I know. It's much less interesting to read text on a blog than it is to look at cute pictures, but it is what it is. I am simply a lousy photojournalist, and what's more, I found it insanely frustrating as a kid when my mom would follow us around like a maniac with a camera insisting we reproduce certain activities, pose in front of various landmarks, and just generally pretend to have fun for the sake of taking a picture instead of actually having fun. So for the sake of posterity, I'll have to verbally recap our vacation and the last bit of the summer.

We went to the same place we went last year, and oh what a difference a year makes. In fact, this year's vacation was vastly superior to last year's vacation for two reasons. First and foremost, both kids are a year older. A year older, a year less irrational, a year more compliant, and a year less likely to plunge themselves to an untimely death at any moment. (Also! Both potty trained. We cannot overlook that.) Second, we learned that the secret to a successful vacation is going with another family. Kids have playmates that are NOT their siblings, and thus much less likely to instigate all-out brawls, parents have company AND can crib a little date-night time as a couple by switching off nights leaving one couple home with all the kids. In addition, while the ratio is the same when you have two parents and two kids as when you have four parents and four kids, somehow it seems much, much easier with four adults. For instance, in the morning: one adult can make breakfast and pack lunches, one adult can pack beach bags and organize the stuff for the day and straighten up the condo, two adults can do all the sunscreening and coralling of wiggly kids. It's great.

Newport was again, a great place to spend a vacation. The biggest highlight was the beach, as last year. I've concluded after this summer that there is literally no amount of time my children can spend at a beach (ocean or lake)after which they are sick of it. They can and do spend all day at a beach and still protest when it's time to go. We spent two full days at the beach, dragging all the children off only for lunch, during which they just demanded to go back to the beach. Easton's beach is great for kids, with the carousel, waterslide, playground and clean restrooms, but there is a significant red tide problem there that put a little bit of a damper on our second day at the beach. The kids also loved touring Fort Adams - I wasn't sure how a tour of a historic site would go over with a gaggle of four and unders, but surprisingly they were captivated. Owen became extremely into the idea of "listening tunnels" as a strategy to defeat his enemies (enemies TBD, naturally. He's just filing ideas away for later, I guess.)

We went back on the Amazing Grace Harbor tour. You might remember that we did this last year; if you do remember you're probably surprised to hear that we did it again. It was a pretty traumatic experience last year. Both children were waaaaay too young to be on a boat and it was all we could do to keep them from man-overboard. They ran around the boat, resisting arrest, refusing to wear life jackets, and just generally trying to drown. This year, they were both cooperative and loved it. Like I said before, what a difference a year makes. The other highlight of the week was the Newport Gulls baseball game. The boys LOVED it. The stadium is tiny (truly tiny) and it's not even a minor league team, it's a college wooden bat league. The staff was so friendly (the bat boys came out to the bleachers giving kids balls from the game, the announcer would announce whatever you wanted him to - he wished the birthday boy in our party a happy second birthday - and the whole night out was so cheap! Including tickets for our family, parking, and a bag of popcorn at the stadium, we spent $17. By contrast, we spent $28 that morning to play mini-golf - and the mini-golf place didn't even charge us for Elias! (BTW, if you find yourself in RI - there has to be a better mini-golf place than Mulligan's Island. We weren't impressed). We enjoyed taking the boys out for lunch, which we didn't even attempt last year. All in all, a good time was had by all.

Now summer is winding down, and Owen is so, so excited to be starting at the "big school" (the public elementary school across the road from us) in pre-k this fall. I have mixed feelings about it. After our week away, we went back and spent a weekend at our friend's houses in West Roxbury in our old neighborhood. It's true, summer here in Lakeville is great, but as the fall approaches, I'd much rather be back in Westie, with all the kids' old friends, our friends, and the city than here. I'm just a city person, honestly. For what it's worth, the kids have made new friends and if you asked them, I'm pretty sure they'd rather be here. And I do think that I'd rather live here than in a suburb of Boston - I'll take Lakeville over Needham or Natick any day. But it did make me a little West Roxbury-sick this weekend, I have to admit it. Maybe it's just because it was where our first real home was, but I miss it and suspect I'll always be comparing where we live to there. I do realize there are real advantages to where we are, however (great public schools being chief among them), so c'est la vie. And la vie rolls on into the fall.......

Summer

In today's news, summer continues to be great here in Lakeville.

Today, the town had a 4th of July celebration at the Grove (complete with guy in colonial garb showing up to read the declaration of independence and the town band - average age 75 if it's a day - playing a patriotic medley that was actually pretty peppy) and it was great. There were games for kids - old school potato sack and relay races, a parachute, and water balloon toss - and of course, the lake for swimming. Almost all of the kids' school friends and their families were there. We ended up having an impromptu potluck lunch/party with several other Housatonic Child Care Center families who are also associated with Hotchkiss. A good time was had by all. True story: I said to one of the other women there "I thought Lakeville was just AWFUL all year, until memorial day. Now I think it's totally great! It's such a great place to spend the summer!" She replied "well, that IS why most people don't live here year round." Ba dum, ching. Right. Of course.

Anyway, The past few weeks have hatched a different Cox family long-game. Sure, we still want to move back to civilization in a few years. But we want to try and do so in a way that lets us keep the house. If that means renting instead of buying for our next move, it might be worth it if we don't have to sell what we hope will someday just be our vacation house. I'd like to spend quite a few more summers at the grove.

Some photos from the day:

and this one, just because it's funny. It's an action shot of Owen throwing a water balloon - it's just the way the photo came out but this kid looks like he as a killer gym-chiseled physique in this shot, does he not? when I first saw it I thought "who is that teenager wearing Owen's star wars swim trunks?" (Immediately after, I thought "why the heck didn't I notice he was wearing his socks? Did he swim in those?"

After School Pickup, Before Dinner:

Have I mentioned how great it is to live down the street from the beach?

Curb Appeal

Andy had a commitment this afternoon but I really was getting tired of looking at our sorry window boxes:

So, despite my misgivings in trying to do any sort of project while in sole charge of the kids, I decided we were going to go for it. Surprisingly, despite the loss of about a cubic foot of potting soil (some was spilled while "helping me", some was deliberately dumped instead of helping me, and at least a handful was eaten by Elias) we managed to get it done. we cleared out the dead plants and old soil, and refilled them with shade loving flowers - mostly varieties of impatients and begonias, and a couple blue flowering vines that supposedly like shade. I ended up with 5 extra 6-packs of impatients, so I planted them around the stairs.


and after:

whole front of the house:

It really does make a huge difference from the street, but looking at these pictures it's not really appearing as a dramatic effect. The pictures aren't really capturing the extent of the improvement, but oh well. It really does look much better now.

In the back of the house, we have the truly awesome Hen Palace, built entirely by Andy and I have to say I am impressed. It's really nice.

Here are some interior shots of where the hens roost at night, for safety. you can also see the nest boxes he built with a separate hinged roof, to make egg collection easier:

The thing is a veritable 5-star hen hotel. It has indoor and outdoor areas. shaded and sunny areas. some grassy area, some dirt for pecking and scratching....and yet. One thing we didn't anticipate is that we would end up with the 5 dumbest hens on the planet. In all the chicken books I read, it just explained what sort of living environment was ideal for hens - some indoor area, some outdoor area, secure from predators, etc. It provided plans for building a luxury chicken coop just like the one we built. But our stupid chickens can't figure out how to get in and out of the coop (where, according to the book, it is their instinct to go in at night and roost, and come out during the day and forage, peck, wander around, whatever.) When the coop was completed, we put them in to the run, where they pecked around. as night started to fall, they showed no interest into going into the coop to roost. So we had to actually enter the coop ourselves, catch them, and put them in for the night. In the morning, we opened the door. surely, they would walk down the ramp into their fenced area to forage around and do what hens do. Nope. By noon, they were still all in the coop. I started to worry about them starving, so I moved their food and water (which is supposed to be out in their run) into the coop and tried to shoo them down the ramp. no such luck. they're STILL in there now, and it's 5pm. The door is open, they just can't or don't want to walk through it. dummies.

......I'd Be Rich

If I had a nickel for every conversation I had, exactly like this one:

Person: "So, how are you guys settling into Lakeville?"
Me: (politely, if unenthusiastically) "Well, thanks."
Person: "you guys are right in town, right? Do you LOVE it?!"
Me: "We're settling in. Getting the house in order. Starting to come together."
Person: (visibly consternated that I am not singing loudly the praises of the eden that is Lakeville) "wait, you guys haven't been here for a summer yet, right? you came in the fall."
Me: "right. well, technically we got out here mid august last year, but we were in a rental far from campus while we sold our house and got our bearings and figured out where we wanted to live. We didn't move to Lakeville until November."
Person: "Ahhhh. that explains it. Just wait till the grove opens and you're here for a summer. You'll love it. Especially where you are."
Me: (inwardly rolling eyes, outwardly polite.) "So I've heard. Can't wait! thanks!"

....I'd be rich.


Everyone told us to buy a house in Lakeville. Despite this, we started our house search in Great Barrington and Egremont, MA. I was dead set on living over the MA border. Our realtor gamely showed us houses, but kept hinting that if we were working in the Lakeville/Sharon area, we really should consider looking at properties in CT, because we'd really hate the winter commute and she was sure we were just going to want to be in Lakeville in the summer anyways. It's so great! So we looked at places in Lakeville and Sharon. We saw a huge house in Sharon that I was in love with, 2 miles from the hospital I work at, 5 bedrooms, being sold by an elderly couple who needed to go into nursing care and so priced lower than it was worth. We almost moved on it, but we kept getting nudged by well meaning locals in our house search back into Lakeville, to a house near the lake. We ended up in this little house in the middle of town 1/2 mile from the town beach, which everyone calls "the grove". It was really small, and didn't have a huge yard, which we assumed we would get since we were moving to the country. It was a little oddly laid out. The space definitely could have been used better in the original floor plan, and it would take more money than we want to put into it to make those changes now. It needs some updating. And yet, everyone - including our realtor, who would have made twice as big of a commission on the sharon house - kept telling us that if we were considering getting a place on Prospect St. we'd be crazy not to grab it, and so we did. I've been tepid on the house from the get go. I figured it would be passable once we did the necessary improvements, but I definitely didn't LOVE it and there were aspects of it I really didn't like. However, despite the fact that I come from a long line of people who are constitutionally incapable of admitting they were wrong under any circumstance, a character trait which I definitely inherited more than a touch of - I hereby announce to the great wide internets, everyone was right. Lakeville IS great in the summer. Today was the opening weekend for the town lake, so I put the kids in the stroller and rolled on down to see what this vaunted grove was all about. It's a great little beach - tons of sand, tons of grassy area, the requisite fries n' soft serve hut, docks for boating and swimming, grills for grilling, etc. There are lifeguards, a little kid section (blocked in by docks, supervised by a lifeguard, with water that only goes up to about Owen's waist) so you really can just let the littles go play. And the best part is that the grove is only open to people who either live here or rent a house for more than a month (and can prove it with a utility bill or a lease), and because the town is so small, it's always people you know and never crowded. Most of Owen's preschool class and their families were there - this is a small town, so that's about 9 kids - and the kids had such a blast that Elias went missing around 5:40 this afternoon, and after a frantic search we found that he had literally fallen asleep in a corner. All the summer people are here this weekend opening up their summer homes, the restaurants all opened up their outdoor seating, and there starts this weekend a series of festivals, fairs, and town/region celebrations that happen every weekend all summer to entertain the weekenders.

I 100% recant on wondering at times if this house was a bad idea. What I didn't realize about living in a town that is primarily a vacation town is that we now have a vacation house. Sure, it's a bit smaller than would be ideal, and needs some updating, but I definitely made a 180 on the whole Lakeville experience today. There are worse things than having a weekend house that you don't even need to pack the car and drive to on the weekend because you're already there.

Chickens. The first two weeks.

Why chickens? Most of the people aware of our little chicken adventure have been enthusiastic and supportive (backyard chickens are definitely an "in thing" right now - but you don't have to take my word for it. If backyard chickens ever had any hipster cred, they lost it all when Willams Sonoma started selling a line of $1000+ chicken accessories. not kidding. click the link) But some people are perplexed by and/or outright hostile to the whole chicken situation. So before I update my loyal readers on the status of the chicks in our basement, I'll try and provide a few of our reasons for getting them in the first place.

I'll tell you one reason we did NOT get chickens: To save money. If you think keeping backyard chickens is in any way an economical choice, you're dreaming. Take a walk over to your local supermarket and head to the dairy aisle. You can probably get a dozen large white eggs for less than two dollars. At that price, we're going to need to get 90 dozen eggs (that's 1,080 eggs) out of these biddies before we even recoup the investment we've already made, and they're two weeks old. Just to be clear, that's not counting any chicken feed, grit, bedding equipment and whathaveyou we spend on them going forward. Not to mention, chickens only lay for two years. Did you know that? They also don't start laying for about 6 months after you get them. After they're "layed out", you just have a passel of avian pets that do nothing useful for you. Luckily they don't tend to be long lived, but you still probably have about a 2 total years where the birds don't lay. Also, chickens are incredibly temperamental animals. They won't lay unless they have between 15-16 hours of light. That means, "naturally", chickens won't really lay in the winter. If you want them to, you need to light their coop on a timer so that they have the appropriate amount of exposure to light. They hate to have their feet wet. If they get "stressed" - and they're easily stressed - they'll lose their feathers, stop laying, or turn on each other. In order to keep them happy, fed, and healthy you need to put in a lot of time and energy. I read a 300+ page book on chicken keeping, and then used another as a cross reference. So if time is money, then we're even further in the hole. And our chicken coop is home-made from scrap lumber by Andy. Imagine how many eggs we'd need to break even on one of those spiffy Williams Sonoma jobbers? Obviously, there are lot cheaper ways to get eggs then ordering 6 silver-laced wyandottes from mypetchicken.com. So we certainly didn't do it out of some misplaced effort in frugality.

We did get them, at least in small part because I am highly uncomfortable eating and purchasing standard supermarket eggs (and dairy products and meat, for that matter, but those are blog posts for another day). I read Peter Singer's The Way We Eat several years ago when Andy and I were first married, and then I made him read it. Although I wasn't completely convinced (and Andy would never be) to adopt a vegan diet, I was forever convinced that I couldn't participate or support industrial agricultural practices. And the worst of the worst - believe it or not, truly the most inhumane farming practices of all - are commercial egg productions. I've read more and more the last few years about the conditions that make those supermarket eggs so cheap. If you missed that Nicholas Kristoff column I recommend you read it - once you do, it's hard to un-read it. It's horrifying stuff.

But of course, just because you object to industrial agriculture practices doesn't mean you need to turn into some crazy back-to-the lander trying to homestead with a chicken coop in your backyard and a dairy goat in the front. It's perfectly possible to buy cruelty-free eggs at the grocery store, which is what we usually do. (Actually, now that we've moved out to farm country, we generally buy them straight from one of the nearby farms, or one of our chicken keeping neighbors.)So the chickens weren't obtained because we have no other way to access eggs we're comfortable eating, that's merely a major perk. We got them, largely, because we wanted the kids to learn something about the relationship between humans and animals with respect to food, and a little bit about the effort required to obtain food, and a lot about the appropriate way to treat animals that provide you food.

I. know. You're rolling your eyes. Listen, in many ways, I am one of the most cynical people on the planet. But I do think that it's a shame that I got to the age of 25 or so before I ever had a serious thought about the treatment of animals in factory farms. And laugh all you want, but this is something that is important to both Andy and I. Am I aware that our kids will totally go through a rebellious oscar-myer-bacon-on-paper-plates-washed-down-with-high-fructose-corn-syrup-while-denying-climate-change phase? yes, I am - and that's fine, but I do believe that when they get over that,they will come out of it as adults with at least shreds of what we teach them now. It's really important to us to model a environmentally and socially conscious brand of consumerism. Some people feel strongly their kids need to go to church every week whether they like it/understand it or not, and we feel strongly that our kids need to recycle and go without hot dogs if we can't find ones we feel good about buying whether they like it/understand it or not. And I seized upon chickens as a bit of a teachable moment to that end. So far, the chickens have been an incredibly rich learning experience for the kids. We talk about them every day - what they need to stay healthy, how chickens behave, what their habits are and how they adapted those habits based on their environment, why they do the things they do (even when they all ganged up on the weakest one and started to attack it). Owen has made a lot of thoughtful connections and comments between the chicken that we eat and the chickens in the basement, and if we end up with a vegetarian out of this that's fine with me. We've talked a lot about how some people think it's ok eat animals, and some people don't, and that we do but only if they are well taken care of.

So, speaking of well taken care of, I'd say our personal chickens are, for the most part. We started off with 6 - and the kids named them Bossy, Chirpy (real creative, there), Rosie, Zebra, Jo, and Caboose. Caboose was so named because she was pretty runty and always seemed to be 'resting' in the rear while the other ladies were eating, drinking or running around. Sadly, Caboose's retiring nature ended up being a symptom of failure to thrive, and we had to remove her from the group so that she wasn't pecked to death. Andy's uncle Tim was thankfully here the day that Caboose needed to be put down and he knew how to do it humanely from his work at the Audobon Society. So now there are 5. 4 of them seem to be growing like weeds and seem larger every time I go down there. The 5th - Jo, we've decided, although the names are hard to keep track of for the other 4 since they all look exactly the same - is much smaller. I'm hoping this isn't a slower-motion version of Caboose's failure to thrive, because Tim isn't coming back to visit anytime soon and I'm worried I'm not up to the putting-down task. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

They're in the basement, still, and will be there another 2 weeks before they move outside. Let's bust some chicken myths: 1) do they smell bad? In a word, no. We have far too few chickens to have any discernible smell. They have pine shavings as litter just like a hamster or rabbit would, and as long as you change it every other week or so you won't have odor problems with fewer than a dozen chickens, especially those who, like ours, have access to the outdoors. In the books I've read, odor control is addressed when people have more than 20 chickens - 20 seems to be the threshold where odor becomes a problem. They certainly don't smell like anything right now. 2) are they loud? Well, you can hear them. They're not loud. they peep, they cheep. I did a lot of research and deliberately got a quiet breed so we wouldn't bother our neighbors, but in general only roosters are really loud, and we (knock wood) have none of those.

Otherwise, we are looking forward to getting them outside. Andy is still working on constructing their coop, a project which the boys have also been involved in and are loving. Once it's constructed, we'll have an enclosed coop for sleeping and nesting and a 10 foot run for the chickens to forage and enjoy the great outdoors in, safely. We're hoping to roof at least part of their run so that they can enjoy the outdoors in the winter, too, when it's not too cold. As soon as the chicks are outside I'll post more pictures, but it's hard right now because that red brooder lamp makes all the photos of the chicks look weird. So for anyone that's not totally chickened-out after this long post (ha! I slay me), stay tuned as the chicken adventure continues.

Healthy Shephard's Pie

Why am I posting a recipe on a family blog? A few reasons. The first one is, I get a LOT of requests for this recipe. This is my go-to recipe for a potluck, or a meal when someone is sick or just had a baby, and I also make it about twice a month, so I frequently end up serving it to guests or playdate friends. I think almost every time I make it, someone asks me for the recipe, which I take to mean it tastes pretty good. I'm also posting it because as far as I know, I made it up, and it tickles me that the most popular recipe in this house (by vote of our kids) is one that I make - although it should be fairly noted that daddy the professional chef kicks my butt at everything else, from pancakes to frittata. And the third one is, I have found a rare recipe that is both FULL of vegetables and truly kid friendly - there are some kids who are so picky that they won't eat this, but I've served it to many a child on a playdate and it goes over well most of the time. If you, like me, are always searching for vegetable-full recipes your children will eat, try this one. As an added bonus it's gluten, soy, egg and dairy free and can be made vegetarian, which is quite adaptable in this age of many food allergies and intolerances. Finally, a friend of mine with lots more blog readers than I have said I should post something on the blog people might conceivably be googling to find, which will direct them to my blog and introduce the possibility they will keep reading it. (to that end: healthy dinners, healthy kid dinners. dinners with lots of vegetables. etc. find me, google!) So here you go, this is my own version of shephard's pie. Make it, enjoy it, and snicker at your kids eating cauliflower with gusto.

Ingredients: (this recipe makes enough to feed my family of 4 hearty shephard's pie eaters for 2 nights)

5 lg yukon gold potatoes
1 head cauliflower
1 medium onion
1 yellow bell pepper
2-3 grated carrots or about 1 c. chopped baby carrots
frozen peas
1.5 tbs olive oil
1 lb ground beef, turkey, or 1 large can each (the double size ones) kidney beans and chickpeas (if you want to make it vegetarian)
olive oil, chicken stock, margarine, coconut milk or whatever you usually like to mash potatoes with (if dairy is fine for you, use milk and butter)
ketchup
soy sauce
worstershire sauce
spicy brown mustard

Directions:

In a large pot of salted water, place the potatoes and cauliflower, all chopped up into small pieces. Put the heat on high and bring up to a boil.

after you do that, dice the onion, bell pepper and carrots and saute in the olive oil about 5-7 minutes.

Then add your meat (or beans). Cook through.

when the meat is cooked, turn off the heat, leaving the pan on the stove. add approximately 2/3 c ketchup, 1/3 cup mustard, and a generous amount each of worstershire and soy sauces to the vegetable and meat mixture. unfortunately I forgot to measure how much I usually use. Anyway, just taste it and see it tastes good. those four things mixed together are hard to get wrong, really.

Then put it all into the bottom of your biggest pyrex because this recipe makes a lot. sprinkle a half bag of peas over it.

Finally, drain and mash your potatoes/cauliflower. I usually use either chicken stock, olive oil and salt OR unsweetened coconut milk (the beverage, not the stuff in a can) and smart balance, but you can use whatever you like. don't forget some salt. it just depends what I have on hand. Mashed anything tastes pretty good no matter how you do it.

Finally, spread the mashed on top of the meat and peas, put in the oven for 30 minutes or so at about 350, and voila. dinner for two nights. plus lunch for the kids sometimes too. I don't know precisely how many servings of vegetables are in each serving, but I'm willing to guess at least 5. onions, carrots, bell pepper, peas, cauliflower and potato in every bite, so you can choose not to count the onion or the potato as vegetables and still end up with 5 veggies per serving. And it truly is kid friendly - I think it's the ketchup.

Finished product from the side:

Clean plate club:

Enjoy!

Deep thoughts.

Owen: Mommy, what's a disability?
Me: Well....it's like when a part of your body doesn't work, or when you can't do something that you used to be able to do.
Owen: what does that mean?
Me: Well, for instance, some people are blind. they can't see anything. that's a disability.
Owen: Miss Marcie said a disability is like when you only have one leg.
Me: Um, ok. yes. that's also a disability.
Owen: So... she said if you only have one leg, you would get a fake leg.
Me: Um, right.
Owen: So, I was wondering, if you only have one leg, how would you get to the fake leg store?
Me: Well....someone would drive you?
Owen: Right. Well, how would they get to the car, then?
Me: They would...I think someone would carry you.
Owen: But what if it was a GROWNUP that needed to get to the fake leg store. How would THEY get to the car?
Me: They would get pushed in a wheelchair - I really don't think you need to worry about this.
Owen: ok. thanks mom. I'm a robot, anyways.

Happy Birrrrrrthday, Owen!

Owen turned 4 March 15th, but judging by the number of times it was celebrated this year he's approximately 8. I know everyone wants to get a slice of the birthday action, so you can't begrudge both sets of grandparents wanting to have a birthday party, and of course on his actual birthday they made a little to-do in his preschool class. So this was party number 4, capping off a month of birthday revelry. I was a little worried about hosting up to 12 preschoolers here in this little house, but I shouldn't have worried. We had a turnout of 8, which turned out to be just the right size, and a good time was had by all.

One thing I love about 4 year olds in general and my four year old specifically is their love of costumes. Owen wanted a pirate party, and luckily we have a pirate costume:

I found bandanas, eye patches, and pirate tattoos for ridiculously cheap at oriental trading company (ps: environment, exploited chinese laborers - lets just get this out of the way now. I apologize.) and as the kids came in we got them get dressed as pirates.

I started the party by reading "How I turned into a pirate". I saw this at another party and thought it was a great strategy. that was a superhero party and when we got there the birthday boy's mom read a superhero book, which got all the kids in the superhero theme. It went really well.

Next, I had the kids decorate brown paper bags with pirate stamps, stickers, and markers (to later use as goody bags when we broke the pinata). I spent a lot of time rounding up pirate art supplies, including stamps and stickers, and expected this activity would last at least 20 minutes. Definitely not. It was well recieved but the kids spent five minutes each on their bags and announced they were done and went back to swashbuckling with balloon swords. Oh, well. Either way it was fun, though I suspect if it were girls this activity would have lasted longer.

Next I had planned a beanbag toss and a pinata. The beanbag toss was fun although none of the kids paid any attention to the line we had taped on the floor to stand behind and throw the beanbags. They all stood about 6 inches from it and then expected to be praised for getting all three beanbags in. We did the pinata next, which was awesome. One kid ended up going bananas on it and it broke in a very satisfying explosion of more pirate tattoos, chocolate dubloons, ring pops and plastic dinosours (again, oriental trading company is a party planner's friend).

Next came cake. The cake! Andy had made this totally awesome pirate cake last night, which took him forever and was truly a work of art, with multiple poop decks and some serious cake architecture, but sadly: the weight of the two sides of the cake boat were too much for the frosting and the whole thing came apart spectacularly at about 9:15 pm. We had to completely redo the cake (and by we, I mean, Andy had to completely redo the cake and I drank wine, kept up a running commentary on how great the first cake was, and did a 10pm run to CVS for more frosting). The second cake still came out great:

I had planned for all this to take the 2 hours of the party. ha! all of the above took 1 hour and that's a stretch with me dragging my feet before cake trying to figure out what else to do. Lesson learned: NEVER overestimate the attention spans of 4 year olds. After cake came about an hour of wild running around, swashbuckling, and just general 4 year old hillarity - (also a couple meltdowns and one potty accident, but really, far less than might be expected in a free-for-all of 9 kids) and overall everyone had a great time.

After everyone went home, Owen said it had been the best time ever, which Andy and I took to mean the party was a success. And we gratefully wash our hands of any more birthday celebrations for a year.

ARRRRRRGH!