Simple pleasures

Last night I read that if you could no longer look forward to the small delights of everyday life, like waking up to a cup of hot coffee or cuddling up with a book after a long day, you were in trouble. That it's not always the grand, huge things that get us up in the morning; it's the mundane joys. Today I'm looking for those simple pleasures. Here are a few I found:

1. The smell of fall in the air. Yellow leaves swirling, blue skies, chilly nights, a new bag of loose-leaf black tea, the crunch of leaves under your feet, thick cozy socks, the first fire in the fireplace, pumpkin everything. The other day I made this autumn mood board on Pinterest and it perked me up. My dear friend Jonalee used to call me Nymph of Autumn and I called her Spring Maiden (from Anne of Green Gables). It's good to remember that sweet innocent girl I once was, starry-eyed and silly, and how much she loved every changing season, but especially autumn.

2. No school today. I was kind of dreading it because I have so much work to do, but it's been a wonderful day. The boys and I walked to breakfast at Snooze. I had to do some online work for my new teaching job at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, which starts this week. I had high hopes of driving out to a pumpkin patch or a corn maze this afternoon, but all the boys wanted to do was hang out in the backyard and play in the mud-box. (Let's not even pretend it's a sandbox these days.) Fine by me!

3. Our hilarious hens. They're so fun to watch. The horrid squirrels destroyed my pumpkin porch decor, so we let the chickens enjoy the remains.

4. Watching my boys read so happily. I love that they know how to find comfort in a good book. If only I could convince Owen to move beyond comic-book-style Ninjago books....

5. Pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin. Here's a picture of a pumpkin cake I made in a fancy Bundt mold a few weeks ago.

6. Miami-pink fingernails. And my ring. Daniel designed it himself, using his Grandma's diamond. I feel so honored to be wearing the diamond Persis wore all the years of her beautiful marriage to Les. It's amazing to think she wore this diamond as a bride heading off to Angola to be a missionary doctor's wife.

7. This wonderful book called Hands-on Home.

8. Bright lipstick. I'm loving this Aveda lipstick in Cana and Wild Fuchsia.

9. Fair-trade Guatemalan coffee. That woven fabric floods me with Antigua memories.

10. The sound of the boys practicing the piano with their teacher.

I highly recommend this little practice of noticing the simple pleasures--especially when you feel overwhelmed. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:

Spring in the garden

These babies are tough! We had not one but two late-April snowstorms, after they'd already started blooming. The poor daffodils were bowed to the ground under the weight of the slush and snow. After each snowstorm, I watched with amazement as little by little they lifted themselves out of the snow--a little battered, a little bruised--and perked right back up.

Chickens in print

It's happened! I have published my very first magazine essay! "Diary of a Hen Owner" chronicles the joys and trials of raising backyard chickens. It appears as part of a big feature on urban homesteading, called "Backyard Bounty." It was so fun to write. Plus they used Daniel's photography. Enjoy!

the downside (or is that backside?) of backyard chickens

Mucking out a poopy coop isn't exactly high on my list of fun jobs. Trying to nurse two frail chicks dying at a miserably slow pace, then figuring out how to discard their lifeless, still-warm bodies? Definitely not enjoyable.

Taking a chicken with a prolapsed oviduct (don't even ask) to the vet in a borrowed dog carrier? Pretty high on the list of awkward moments. Yes, move on over Bruno and Fifi. Here comes a.... Wait a minute, is that a chicken?

But last Friday, I may have experienced the pièce de résistance. I got the lovely job of de-poopifying a chicken butt. Yes, you heard that right. For several weeks, Ameraucana Poofy-Cheeks has had a wee problem with her backside, i.e. the entire thing is a waterfall of calcified poop. It seemed to go along with her molting extravaganza.

chicken weirdness

trying to see the good

Sickness continues.

Curious George is my soundtrack.

Nobody feels good. 

A few spots of bright to cheer the days, though.

 look what arrived from Uncle Jon-Marc!

Chicken phở. Recipe here. SO good!

 

sick

We seem to all have varying degrees of a bad chest cold/cough/sore throat. Owen has been sick for a week. I really thought he'd turned the corner Friday night but by Sunday night the rest of us had it, too. Yuck. Daniel continues to drag himself to work.

There are some perks. Green eggs and checkers with this cutie rank high on the list. But I will be glad when we're all healthy again. There's nothing like a round of family sickness to revive your gratitude for the good health we take for granted. 

guess who finally laid an egg?

More of an olive green than blue as we hoped, but I'm just glad that crazy hen finally dropped the Peter Pan syndrome and laid an egg already!

introducing...

...the chickens and their winterized coop!

 Goldie

 Baby Zebra

 Blackie "Cluck Cluck" Cleopatra

 Ameraucana Puffy-Cheeks

Just missing a picture of Red, aka Julep.

Thermostat-controlled, roof sealed, sides closed up with plexiglass or special black paper (ask Daniel for details). Here's hoping they survive the cold turn! We've had a week of nights down in the teens and even colder nights are on their way.

eggs for the neighbors

fresh eggs

What a treat to go find warm, fresh eggs each morning! The kids LOVE finding eggs in the nesting boxes. It's like a daily Easter egg hunt. Well, sort of. The fake eggs worked like a charm and the hens now lay their eggs reliably in their little nesting boxes. Now that they've figured out the purpose of the boxes, they keep them nice and clean, which is funny because they have no such scruples about pooping everywhere else. It cracks me up to find them sitting like plump, self-important matrons on piles of faux eggs, keeping them toasty warm. 

Three of the hens have been laying regularly for almost a month (yielding ~2 eggs per day). Baby Zebra just laid her first egg today to great acclaim. (Her adorable fluffy Victorian bum is front and center in the above picture.) Nothing yet from the leader of the pack, the fearless Ameraucana Puffy-Cheeks (the first name is her breed). This crazy bird has been known to fly up to the top of our six-foot fence and wobble along like Anne Shirley on the schoolhouse roof. She shook out her wings as if to fly off to the greener pastures of our neighbor's yard and scared me half to death. Getting her down was a delicate operation. Maybe she's having too much fun to settle down and start laying those blue eggs we've been waiting for.

Daniel has been winterizing the coop--sealing the roof and adding plexiglass to the window, plus installing an elaborate thermostat heating system that will switch on and off as needed. The hens are supposedly hardy down to between 20 and 32 degrees, depending on breed and size.

We've had a few nights down into the low 30s already, plus two light snowstorms (one in early October, one this morning), so it's time to get ready for the wild fluctuations of Colorado winters.

lazy Sunday afternoon

look what we found this morning!

weekending

Labor Day weekend! After two weeks of school, we were all ready for a three-day weekend. We did a lot of nothing, plus a few projects, a couple of spontaneous get-togethers with neighbors, and a fun neighborhood Block Party, complete with fire engines. Oh, and Owen lost his first tooth! (More on that later.)

Our chickens have been making really deranged-sounding noises and digging up "nests" all over the yard. We're thinking eggs might be on the way? We read online that you should put a fake egg in the nesting boxes so they learn to lay them there. The boys got to work painting some rock "eggs."

We've been checking every day, but no eggs yet. Just weird squawkings and groanings coming from the coop.

Meanwhile, I hauled out my sewing machine and made this tunic from an awesome pattern I've used once before. The fabric has been sitting in the closet for months, and I decided to just go for it. Definitely easier the second time around. It looks really cute on, and I can't wait to wear it with skinny jeans and boots once the weather turns chilly.

Daniel got itchy for a project, too. He tackled the garage. He painted all the trim with a fresh coat of white paint, then made some matching trellises for our roses. Love it!

It was such a relaxing, low-key weekend that waking up to real life this morning was rough. Jack brought a friend to breakfast to help him face the day.

Hope you and yours had a restful weekend! Labor Day always feels like turning the page on summer, but with our record-high heat (in the high 90s and 100s but no humidity so I won't complain) autumn feels a ways away.

a good man is hard to find...

...but I've got one!

Look what Daniel did (after work) while the boys and I were in Maryland!

The entire left area is new. The fence line used to go straight across, with a concrete patch behind it. To extend the yard, Daniel:

1) dug out deep hunks of concrete for fenceposts and spots for shrubs

2) filled in the area with tons (literally!) of dirt

3) made a stone path/patio

4) transplanted the lilac bush

5) moved the chicken coop

6) built a new fence

When I got home, I had so much fun putting in plants and vines in the "patio" area and on the coop roof. The girls seem pretty happy with their new digs.

Oh, and then Daniel got all cute and creative, too. This is the view from our alley. He built the coop with a reclaimed window. We were sad that moving the coop meant it would no longer be visible. Daniel found a way around that.

He also painted our nasty deck. Hurray! No more splinters, and it looks SO much better.

 

 

Talk about an over-the-top welcome home present!!! Thank you, Daniel!