Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The prediction

Ten years ago today we bought our house and being the city girl I was at the time Kevin had great fun joking with me, saying, "One day honey you're gonna have chickens and do crafts! Mark my words."

"Pshawww, yeah, right!" I think was my response, "Chickens and crafts, I wouldn't know how to operate a hot glue gun if I tried!" And that is still true today, however the knitting needles, crochet hooks and yarn get quite the workout around here as you may well know. As for the chickens I never had poultry dreams or any notion that they would be a good idea. After all, we had already started gutting our farmhouse before we moved in and both worked full time. We spent months without a kitchen and a year and a half renovating all while living in a construction zone and loving (almost) every minute of it. Then came the kids. One, two, three, boom, boom, boom, just like that all in three years time. Chickens were nowhere on my radar screen as you can imagine, life was crazy enough.

But now that things have settled down somewhat and my youngest will go to big school next year, I'm looking at our life here through different eyes. Kevin has again joked with me that the chickens would be astronomically expensive ones had we to pay someone to build the coop that he built but it's really not about that. To us, it's about truly experiencing and actively participating in our lives here. The animals, the landscape, the garden, they all enhance our experience and we become intertwined with this place. It means so much more to me than the mall (although I really like having an Anthropologie close, don't get me wrong!)

I asked Kevin last night if he had any more predictions for me since he hit the nail on the head with his original two. "I have two words for you...churning butter...you wait and see" he said.

Ummm, I'll just leave you with that to ponder for a while.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yay for the chickens- aren't they so sweet when they're that size?

Churning butter, huh? Did he mention the dairy cows? (ducking from whatever you are throwing at me)

Mountain Home Quilts said...

Hum, churning butter? Maybe not with a old fashioned butter churn but if you have a kitchen aid stand mixer you can actually make your own butter quite easily. Maybe Kevin is right! :)

Jenny said...

I have made butter, with a mason jar and a marble. Put the cream in the jar (along with the marble) and shake, shake, shake! It's a great activity for the kids to help with. 10-20 minutes of shaking and you have butter!

Good luck with the chickens!