Conversations with Pioneers: Episode 2

One of my favorite past times is imagining myself explaining our modern habits and luxuries to pioneers. Sometimes I think about how mind blowing it would have been for me, as a child, to see a cell phone from 2022, and then I think, How could a pioneer even fathom this? I mean... we have this little device that fits in our pockets, and it does everything for us. I remember thinking those shell-shaped walkie talkies that the Ninja Turtles used were the ultimate technological wonder! And now our phones have far surpassed that! (On the rare occasion I speak to my Apple Watch, I feel like I'm fulfilling my childhood Ninja Turtle dreams. Heroes in a half-shell!)

Anyway, here are a few conversations I've imagined myself having with Pioneer Pearl lately:

Me: Sorry I'm late. The line at the drive-thru was a little long.

Pioneer Pearl: What is a drive-thru?

Me: It's a place where we can have food handed to us through a window.

Pioneer Pearl: Why does it need to come through a window?

Me: Well, we don't always cook nowadays, so we have places where we can go and the food is passed to us through a window. It's fast and convenient!

Pioneer Pearl: What do you do with the food after it comes through the window?

Me: We eat it in our cars. 

Pioneer Pearl: Then what do you do with the dishes afterward?

Me: What dishes?

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Pioneer Pearl: Why do some people have strange shapes above their eyes?

Me: Oh, those are eyebrows.

Pioneer Pearl: But why do some of them look like they are painted on? Is it part of a costume? 

Me: Oh, we get to choose our eyebrows now.

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Pioneer Pearl: What are you doing with that contraption?

Me: I'm sending Scotty a message to let him know that if he's late for dinner, I'm feeding his food to the chickens.

Pioneer Pearl: Would you really feed his dinner to the chickens?

Me: No. I'm just being funny.

Pioneer Pearl: Well now you've made him nervous that he won't get any dinner!

Me: Nah, it's fine. I put this laughing face next to the message, so he knows I'm joking. I can pretty much say anything I want as long as I put a laughing face next to it. Oh hey! He just sent me a curse word face back! I guess he really wants his dinner!

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Me: Okay, Pearl, I almost have your email account set up. I just need to prove I'm not a robot.

Pioneer Pearl: I don't understand. You very clearly aren't a robot!

Me: Yeah, I know. But I have to prove it.

Pioneer Pearl: How do you do that?

Me: By clicking on traffic lights.

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Me: I think we're almost to the top of the trail. Let me check Google Earth... Oh yes! We're right here, and the end is right there!

Pioneer Pearl: Are you telling me that I walked 1,300 miles from Nauvoo on guesswork, and you get to look at the earth from above on your little messaging contraption?

Me: Only if I have service. 

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Pioneer Pearl: You have chickens? 

Me: Yes. Hei Hei, Chickaletta, Henrietta, Sophie, Princess, and Eva. 

Pioneer Pearl: You name them?

Me: Yes, but we've never been able to get them to keep their monogrammed sweaters on. 

Pioneer Pearl: Why would a chicken need a sweater?

Me: Well, they sell them on Etsy, so the real question is, why wouldn't they need a monogrammed sweater?

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Out of Doors

September Writing Challenge - Prompt #23:

Outside

Last week we had a nasty heat wave that kept me cooped up for several days lest I meet an untimely demise by melting. Yesterday we finally got a little bit of rain and some cooler temperatures, so I snuck outside to take a look around. 

I decorated my porch for fall. 

I put some cornstalks out - two batches on the gargoyle thrones, and one on the porch. I didn't think it through, though, and the stalks on the porch keep triggering the motion sensor on the doorbell. I might have to move them. 

I'm planning on repainting my front door in the next couple of weeks (just waiting for a day that's not too hot and where I can stay home long enough to leave my front door open while it dries). It will look much the same. I like the blue and want to keep it that way. It just needs a refresh. 

I planted three different kinds of pumpkins this year, and after months of growing pumpkins, here's what I'm getting:

There are two of them, and they're about the size of softballs. 

I don't really know anything about flowers. This year, I planted some zinnias from seed on the border of my garden. I had no idea that they can get up to 5-6' tall! (So... not a border plant, as I learned. Apparently I didn't read the seed packet). They were fun to have in the garden, though, and they completely took over and thrived! 

At the beginning of the gardening season, I found this strange thing at the thrift store and decided to buy it and use at as a trellis in the garden (I have no idea what it is or why it was wrapped in green plastic). 

This was the first time I've used a trellis, and it was fun to watch the plants climb it. I intended for it to be for cucumbers (which worked really well), but some tomatoes made their way up, too. 

Over the weekend, we integrated the baby chickens with the big ones. I always hate doing this because the Big Girls beat the crap out of the Babies for a while, so we have to keep a close eye on them. The pecking order is legit. Scotty added some extra perches to the coop and put some boxes and play things in there as well to help keep them busy during the transition. 

Zoe has been busy with chalk art lately. 

Nicky has been finding creatures. We are always abounding with creatures. 

And no visit outside is complete without finding someone's shoes and/or socks. 

Dang it, Nicky! You know better!

Portrait of a Morning

Today's cloudy, rainy, and just what I need! I wouldn't say it's cool, but it's not as hot as it has been, and I am so grateful for the respite. The heat lately has been wiping me out. I have so little energy, and I'm always sweaty and uncomfortable. I feel like the Swamp Thing.

Confession: I don't actually know what Swamp Thing is, so I just googled it, and ew! 

But yeah... I feel like I just crawled out of a swamp, and I look it, too. And now that I have a visual of Swamp Thing, I can only assume he's Vecna's older brother. Or younger. It's hard to assess the ages of the creatures. 

Anyway, today started out just right. I'm a morning person - most of my energy and enthusiasm each day is gone by 10:00, so mornings are very important to me. I don't have a set routine because each day is different depending on the schedule, especially in summer, but I do have some morning preferences. If I can achieve several of my morning "preferences," I set myself up for a better day. Some of my preferences include:

• Wake up by 6:00
• Read a Conference talk
• Do Wordle
• Go for a walk
• Drink water
• Sit outside for about 20 minutes
• Kids sleep til 8:00 (hey, I'm just stating "preferences" - this doesn't actually happen)
• Get a chore started (usually a load of laundry or dishes)
• Read or listen to an audiobook
• Check the garden
• Eat breakfast
• Update the budget
• Finalize a dinner plan
• Grocery shop, if needed

(Notice that showering doesn't make the list. I'm not sure what that says about me...)

This morning, I was able to hit several of my preferences. I woke up at 6:00 and walked three miles. 

I keep hoping to find the cougar, but my walking friends aren’t so excited about the idea

When I got home, I filled up my Maverik cup with ice water and went outside (I've been drinking out of this cup for two weeks because I'm soda sober again, and something about drinking from a soda cup helps me cope). 

I put my earbuds in and turned on an audiobook while I did my garden check, let the chickens out, and gathered the eggs. 

I sat in a chair under a tree and finished Wordle and enjoyed just existing. Sometimes it's exhausting to exist. Other times, it's rather delightful. This morning it was delightful. I watched the chickens scavenging around the yard, admired the flowers I've grown from seed (a huge triumph, as I am not good at flowers), and basked in the not-too-hot temperatures, and I recognized how simple bliss can be. 

Then my kids came outside and started fighting. 

THE END.

Feathery, Little Antidepressants

Last week I met up with my friend Lynsie to have lunch for her birthday. Lynsie lives about 40 minutes away, so we’ve developed a tradition of meeting for lunch in the middle. 

It’s like the old Diamond Rio song…

I start driving your way…

You start driving mine…

We meet in the middle…

‘Neath that Chinese food sign…

On the way home from lunch, I had a little bit of time to burn, and then I needed to check Daisy out of school so she could go to the junior high to tryout for the dance team. I have some suet cage bird feeders in my backyard that I wanted to get some new suet bricks for, so I went to IFA to pick some up. 

Every year, the IFA sign, visible from the freeway, reads “Pick up chicks here.” (You are funny, IFA). As I drove past the sign, I thought, “I could get some chicks while Scotty's in Mexico!” 

You see, Scotty wants to be done with chickens when our current ones pass on. I kind of don’t. A few years ago, I was ready to be done with chickens, but then there was a pandemic, and it was hard to find eggs. We live right by an egg farm, and cars would line up for hours to wait for an egg delivery, and the police would have to come direct traffic. With all of the things that were short on supply as the pandemic rolled in, I was incredibly grateful that I could go out in my backyard and get eggs. It made me never want to live without chickens. 

I wasn't really going to get chicks at IFA, but I circled them again and again. “Just looking,” of course. “For informational purposes.”

I ended up with three in a box on my passenger seat. I dunno what happened! But I do know this: a chicken costs less than a carton of eggs right now (darn you, avian flu)!

One by one my kids came home from their various schools and activities and discovered the chicks, which I had put in our living room. They all fell in love. As did I. 

Chicks are magical! And wonderful! And so very special!

I have loved having baby chickens around the house. And I’m just as bad as the kids. I got out an old dollhouse, and I was all…

“Daisy, put the gray one on the couch!”

“Now put one on the toilet and one in the bathtub!”

“Now put one in the house and pretend the other one is coming to visit!”

I also pushed them around the living room in a Barbie car while singing, “They see me rollin’… they hatin’…”

BEST. THING. EVER!!!

And then we all went out for pizza.

I decided to name the chickens after antidepressants - Celexa, Paxil, and Zoloft - because they lifted my mood so much. Then my kids overruled me and named them Princess, Sophie, and Eva (Zoe picked the name Eva, and she doesn't know that her little sister goes by Eva on this blog. So now I have Eva the chicken and Eva the pseudonym).

Scotty wasn't thrilled about the chicks, but I think he has forgiven me. I can sense loving vibes coming out of him as our children shove the babies in his face. I've even caught him hanging out with them in the backyard.

Worth It!

In the last month, I've made two ridiculous purchases that have been worth every penny.

Ridiculous because the items were silly and way overpriced.

But worth every penny because they have afforded me much joy.

Item #1: Billy Bob teeth with fake braces

Cost: $10

I've gotten multiple uses out of my fake braces. First I used them for my Halloween costume, which I'm now realizing I never showed you, but the reason for that is that I didn't get very good pictures of it. I'll give you what I've got, though:

Here are Scotty and me at my mom's Halloween party:

I went as Sara with no 'H' because H's are "Ew!" and Scotty pulled together a last-minute Steve Irwin (note the inside-out scout uniform. Ha!)

I won the prize for best costume.

The following week I got to use my fake braces again at Pack Meeting to be the assistant to the mad scientist. 

Fake braces? Worth it!

I am already looking for opportunities to use them again.

Item #2: Chicken Suit

Cost: $20

I found the chicken suit in the pajama section of Walmart (next to no less than five other "suits" I would like to buy someday). 

I couldn't walk away. I needed it. Partially because my friend, Shannon, had bought a cat suit a few days earlier, and I felt like our friendship would be enhanced if I, too, had a ridiculous animal costume. (Shannon is currently in mourning for not buying a squirrel costume she stumbled across while perusing Halloween clearance - it even came with plush nuts. I didn't want to have any regrets, so I bought the chicken suit).

The night I bought the chicken suit, I told Scotty that I had a surprise for him. I then went into my bedroom and suited up. He was watching the CMA awards, and in the middle of a Carrie Underwood performance, I jumped down the stairs and yelled "Chicken suuuuuuuit!" then ran a lap through the living room and back up the stairs. I did this three times in a ten minute period. Scotty wasn't happy about me interrupting Carrie Underwood. I think Carrie would think it was funny, though. No doubt she has my back.

Last week I wore the chicken suit while I took my stats test. Then I wore it for my group meeting (done online via Google Hangouts). My group liked it, and at our next meeting, they were disappointed that I didn't have it on, so I put it on again. It's now routine to wear my chicken suit to all of my statistics meetings. My professor has yet to comment. 

Chicken suit? Worth it.

It has become my lounge wear of choice. 

Meet the Girls

I didn't mention much about Christmas around here after it had happened. In addition to finding out that we're having a girl, Christmas brought one more change to our household... or three.

Nicky has been asking for chickens for a while, and Scotty and I have wanted some as well, so we thought Christmas would be a great time to get some. It's not every year that your kid asks for something somewhat practical. The gift that keeps on giving, and all that! Definitely better than electronics!

The problem was, we didn't have a very good place to put a coop. Most of the perimeter of our yard is used up. Adding a chicken coop to the yard would require us to move sprinklers or transplant a perfectly good raspberry bush, which we didn't want to do. Then Scotty had a great idea. We ended up removing the picnic table and the sandbox from under our playset and turning that area into a run. We borrowed a house temporarily from my dad which we will replace in the spring with one of our own. This made it possible for us to go from zero to chicken coop overnight. 

Boy, was Nicky surprised when he found a note from Santa on Christmas morning saying that he might have left a few gifts outside.

For now, because of being re-located and because it's winter, "the girls," as I call them, aren't laying eggs, but come spring, we will be happy to have their eggs (we've opted to not have a lamp in the coop). Meanwhile, I am begrudgingly buying eggs from the store and looking forward to the day when the chickens start earning their keep (I am also looking forward to the day when we have a lot more vegetable scraps to feed them via the garden. That was always one of my favorite parts of having chickens as a child - preparing them "gourmet meals" from our garden) (Did I mention that I grew up with chickens? And my dad breeds and raises them? And he might have helped Santa with the arrangements for getting Christmas chickens? Cause Santa's workshop doesn't make chickens. It's a supply and demand thing). 

Nicky has done a great job taking care of the chickens so far. In fact, all of the kids are quite fond of them. They all love feeding them and playing outside while the chickens are out wandering. Zoe is especially a fan. When she sees them outside the window each morning, she yells, "Dih-dih!" (which is "chicken" in Zoe-ese), and then she goes and gets her purple boots on so she can go outside and bond with the girls. Zoe climbs right in the coop with them, puts her hands in her pockets, and just watches. She also likes to feed them and ride her bike in circles around them on the patio. Whenever we go anywhere, Zoe has to go in the backyard and say good-bye to the "dih-dih" first.

My only complaint is the poop, but that comes with all living things, so we're used to it.