why is there so much poo?!

Owning chickens has pretty much been a delight. I'm not going to lie. A delight with a side of chicken crap. They're cute, pretty low-maintenance, and I love their little peeping noises, but seriously they crap a lot.

I don't know how this happened. I don't have children. I specifically chose smaller dogs so that they made smaller poo, but still somehow my life is run by poo. The dang rabbit poops his body weight everyday (I really don't see how he absorbs any nutrients), and Buster's size is misleading, because the turds populating my backyard are about the size of my head. Maybe (who still resides with us, coincidentally) hates getting her fancy tootsies wet on the morning dew, so she craps all over the deck. Heaven forbid you have to take the compost out to the backyard at night, because you best be wearing galoshes.

And now chicken poo. I had no idea chicks were such disgusting slobs. They're fluffy and adorable, and look as pure as the driven snow, but don't let that fool you. They poo in their water, in their food, on each other's backs, in your hand, everywhere. It wouldn't be so bad, except that you're supposed to touch them as often as possible while they're young so they get used to human contact (how else do you think they'll let me pilfer their babies?) . I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if they weren't confined to three square feet of space. But every day, I don my hazmat suit and cuddle the little crap fiends. Once they're banned to the backyard, I'll have to destroy this corner of my dining room with a controlled burn, but at least I'll get free-range, organic, local eggs! That's what this is all about, right?! RIGHT?!

nature is awesome

I love my chickens. I freaking love them hard and a lot. Maybe it's a sign that we need to have children, but I just love them so damn much. They're so cute, even though they poop on each other and scream every time I pick them up. I find it especially adorable that, even though Mitch won't admit it, he says "good morning, ladies!" every day when he checks on them. But honestly, it's making me wonder how, one inevitable day, I will eat them. Well, maybe only Mitch will eat them, but we'll have to have them butchered nonetheless. Frankly, it's making me nauseous just thinking about it. But chickens live for like, 15 years, and they only lay eggs for like two of those, so it's not exactly logical to keep them for the duration of their lives.

Like, imagine for a moment eating your cat. But your cat lays eggs. And you eat the eggs. Okay imagine that you eat your cat's kittens and then one day you will eat the cat when it stops having kittens. Maybe that's not quite the same, but that's what it feels like when I think about it right now. I know I only bought these chickens for sustenance and kind of because people didn't think we actually would, but I guess I should have known better. They're cute and pretty and have personalities and I can tell them apart and I've named them. It was trouble from the beginning. Let's just hope that they're terribly annoying and disgusting as adults that I can't wait to turn them into a casserole.

I'm not ashamed!

Okay, maybe I should be, considering I placed amongst a bunch of 45-49 year old power walkers, but I used to run at a pace of 14 min/mi, and have improved to a staggering 11:26 min/mi, according to yesterday's race results:

my Mercy Heart Mini Marathon - 15k results

Let me just put it out there that I hate running. Like seriously hate it. But it's the only thing that keeps me from being a fat ass. I love to eat, and I particularly love to eat rich, carefully prepared indulgent food. So I have to run. Yoga wasn't cutting it.

I've set a goal of running a half marathon in May, and yesterday was a little check in for me. I figured if I could do 9.3 miles without totally dying, I could do 13.1 in a couple months and be fine. And while I didn't totally die, I did find myself crossing the finish line in a state of confusion and exhaustion. Finish lines are a cluster f*** of people in silver heat blanket capes, medics, family members, and pallets of bottled water. I never understood why people crap their pants during races until yesterday. I also made the mistake of sitting down immediately after the race, and upon trying to stand again, found my legs to be about as supportive as wet spaghetti noodles. But even though I felt pretty pathetic, it feels good to have accomplished running a 15K. I've never been athletic, and I've worked really hard to get to this point. Now I just have to beat the fattest man ever to run a marathon.

So we did this...

So I don't know if it's my fear of the collapse of infrastructure, my need to be a bigger hippie than my neighbor, or my need to prove wrong the naysayers, but we went and bought chicks yesterday. They will live in our backyard in a coop, lay eggs, and poop everywhere. I guess they're cute and whatnot, but after about 12 hours of adjusting the height of the heat lamp so that the temperature inside the cardboard brooding box is EXACTLY 90 degrees, I'm starting to wonder how these animals would ever survive without us. We've domesticated them to the point that we have to feed them ground up oyster shells and tape pipe cleaners to their toes if they get too curly. We have created codependency in the animal kingdom. Regardless, don't be surprised if you get an Easter basket from me with a real chick in it.

We had a good run...

So Maybe's back. Apparently my brother wasn't allowed to have pets in his house. This also means we get to keep the crap-tastic humping bunny. My brother swears up and down that this is temporary. He'll take her back as soon as he finds a job. And an apartment that will let him have a dog. And roommates to help him pay for said apartment and that also love tiny snarky dogs.

It hasn't been so bad having her back, considering that now we don't really give a crap whether the dogs get along or not. All the training went down the tube the second Maybe crossed the threshold into single dog-hood. So we're just not even trying. We do shock the bejeezus out of her every time she attacks Buster in his cage (believe it or not, we were able to refrain from posting the $300 shock collars on eBay), and it's still satisfying, but frankly it's not a means to an end anymore. The means is her leaving and the end is us going back to having one (happy) dog and someone else having the other (happy) dog. I'll be making regular sacrifices at the altar until my brother meets aforementioned goals.