Monday, May 10, 2021

All Kinds Of Foolishness


 Remember when I told you that hens will add their eggs to a broody hen's nest? Well, here you go. If you look carefully, you can see poor Darla's tail feathers in the very back while Alice and Annie are piled up on top of her to donate two more eggs to the mother load. 
Quite literally.
When they were done and had left the poor brooding hen alone, I went and further tortured her by lifting her off the nest, taking the two eggs I THOUGHT were the Barred Rock eggs, and then proceeded to mark the seventeen eggs that were left. 
Seventeen.
And trust me- if all seventeen hatched, fourteen of them would be roosters and three would be hens. I seriously doubt that they'll all hatch and I may pull up my big-girl chicken-tending panties and rob the nest of a few more eggs because honestly, that's ridiculous. And I'm going to keep track every day of any new, unmarked eggs and those will definitely be removed. 

Ooh boy. I hope that Darla doesn't have anything on her calendar for the next few months because she is apt to be busy. 


There's a magnolia blossom on one of the lower branches of the giant tree in my backyard. It is at least fifteen feet in the air. Not the tree, the lower branches. It is definitely magnolia blossom time here in North Florida. There are some things that never, ever lose their charm for me and which awe me at each sighting. Magnolias and dolphins in the wild are two of those things. Each time seen a blessing. Each time seen a spark of the divine travels up and down my spine. 

Today was a busy day. Jessie brought those boys out to the house so that she could get some work done. We had a spectacular time. Well, it wasn't that exciting, truthfully, but it was fun. We read some books, one of them a coffee table book about mermaids that I've discussed before. They love the pictures of all sorts of mermaids (every culture seems to have their own version) and they are doing this thing now, the boys that is, where they want me to tell them what everyone in the picture is saying. 
With mermaids, sometimes what they are probably saying (especially to the sailors they are trying to lure into the depths) is rated X but I kept it age-appropriate. The fact that most of the mermaids have bare breasts doesn't bother them in the least. 
"Pretty," they say. 
How I love their little boy innocence. 

We moved on to the book that Gibson wanted yesterday- The Chicken of the Family. Although this is not the longest book in the world, it took us a good forty-five minutes because I was instructed to voice every chicken, every child, every dog, every duck, every bird, every cat, every bunny, and every horse depicted on the pages. Oh. I forgot to mention every flower and most of the clumps of grass. 


Of course at this point, they were just testing me to see if I'd do it. And why not? I think there was a worm in there at some point too. He was mostly begging for his life. 

And then there was lunch and TV and they ate a good amount of spaghetti and home made applesauce and got a cookie. After the TV time was deemed over, they thanked us politely for letting them watch. 
What good boys!
Next came jigsaw puzzles. First one of Noah's Ark. 


One of the pictures in the mermaid book had been a very old woodcut  of a Noah's Ark print which oddly had a mermaid in it (I don't remember that from the Old Testament) and I told them the story. We have a very cool puzzle depicting the loading of the animals and so that was fun. Levon lost interest but Boppy asked him if he wanted to help him dig potatoes. 
Dig? Are you kidding? 
Yes. 
So August and I finished that puzzle and then we moved on to another one with TWO HUNDRED PIECES. It's really interesting to see how his skills have developed into what I would call adult level in the past six months when it comes to jigsaws. We were working on that when Boppy and Levon told us to come outside and see what they'd done. 


 And oh, y'all- this is not nearly the total of potatoes Mr. Moon has harvested and has left to harvest. Here's a picture of what he's dug so far, curing on the porch. 


Potatoes galore. It's a very good year for spuds. 

So that has been our day. The kids have cracked me up a lot. August, especially. I put on a Keith Richards CD while we were doing the two-hundred piece puzzle and he said, "This is not pleasant."
I mean, really. 
He has no respect. First BB King and now Keith Richards. He better watch his mouth, that child. 
And then he was telling me a story about the hugest shark ever and how fast it could swim (500 mph) and I said, "You're making that up." Then I said, "Do I ever make anything up?" 
He thought about it for a red hot second and said, "Yes. Sourdough bread. You make up sourdough bread."

Levon and Jack sharing a moment. 


Lily reports that cars are lined up to infinity to get gas. I guess it's because of the pipeline hacking thing. 


Here we go with the whole hoarding-toilet-paper thing. Except that when people hoard toilet paper, the risk of explosion is statistically very, very low. 

I think I'm going to go cook some potatoes. 

Love...Ms. Moon



22 comments:

  1. Chicken school- I had no idea about chickens until i started reading your blog. Such a curious bird!
    Another day at Mer's house and the boys looked well pleased about it.Potatoes for miles under the table like the one that I have. Mine does not have potatoes, just dust.

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    1. Little dinosaurs is what they are.
      My little table has plenty of dirt on it and lots of junk. Birdseed, garden gloves, pruners, sidewalk chalk. It's a mess.

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  2. Future Appalachian Trail hiker. Boy after my heart.
    Happy mashed taters and butter.

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    1. Both of those boys will be hiking this summer in the mountains. They have always been amazing little walkers. And now they can definitely run faster than I can. Which, admittedly, isn't very fast.

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  3. OMG, what to do with all the new chicks in waiting.....and all those taters? do you have a root cellar or good dark storage? yikes. I see massive amounts of scalloped potatoes (my absolute favorite) on the menu for months to come
    Susan M

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    1. No root cellar. I don't know how we're going to store those potatoes actually. If I'd known it was going to be such a good harvest I would have saved onion and potato bags all year. As to the chicks- if we get any of those there are going to be decisions that have to be made with them too.
      Sigh.

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  4. WOW! That is a bumper crop of spuds! It has been good to have the Mr helping out in the garden. You definitely need a root cellar or just spread them around in the family, as you usually do. Sounds like another really good day. Sending love, x0x0 N2

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    1. Thanks, dear N2. Yeah, I'm sure that we'll be giving a lot of potatoes away. And Mr. Moon has made all the difference in the garden.

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  5. Yeah, go and cook your potatoes and while you are about it why not practise voicing clumps of grass? You know you didn't quite get it right first time round. I love Levon's T-shirt: "Future Hiker". He is off to a faraway land that you and I and most of your other correspondents will never visit.

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    1. You're right about Levon. And I should be practicing my grass clump voices because I will bet you anything that they'll make me do that all over again. Sometimes they correct me on what everything is saying which I find hysterical.

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  6. Thst day sounds pretty spectacular for the boys. All kinds of entertainment going.

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  7. Prolific down there, eh? First the chickens and now the spuds. Sounds like a banner day with the boys.

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  8. That is a LOT of potatoes! You must have a LOT of potato recipes, I bet! How do you keep them all fresh? I have trouble getting through a little bag of them without them looking moldy.

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    1. I don't have any more potato recipes than anyone else. We'll be trying to figure out how to store them best. And give a lot to the kids.

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  9. My those potatoes look just wonderful! And all that digging!!!! I don't know where my head has been these past few days but I only just learned about the gas pipeline being hacked. Oh my word, like you say, "here we go again"!

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    1. Right? What the hell with the gas thing? People have been posting pictures on FB of idiots filling up many, many plastic gas containers. This can't be good.

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  10. Pipeline hacking? I have no idea what you're talking about. I guess I better go read the news!

    Darla has always been a very motherly hen, hasn't she? I remember her sitting on nests (or trying to) several times in the past.

    "This is not pleasant" -- LOL!

    Oh, and your comment about the worm in the book reminded me of Richard Scarry. Do you ever read his books? One of the characters is named Lowly Worm.

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    1. Darla has indeed tried to hatch babes before. I should go back through the blog and see what the outcomes were. I know last year she didn't hatch a one but it was very, very hot.
      "This is not pleasant," about cracked me up. Poor child- I'm trying to educate him but he's not taking to rock and roll and the blues the way I'd like. Darn him!
      We just finished a huge Richard Scarry storybook a few weeks ago. And we went through another smaller book of his a few days ago. We're big fans of him! I love Lowly Worm.

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  11. Family times - the best of times. I remember my boys had a picture book - no words by design - the idea was you chose the story as you went along. They loved it, and especially repeating the same choices over and over - who they would be, what they would wear, where they would go, what they would eat... I loved it too.. Like I said, the best of times...

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  12. I would love to have heard the story with all the different voices myself.You must admit, it does make the story come alive! Love the Levon/Jack photo.

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