Introductions

Emma took no time in naming our little fluffy pets. She's been into Greek mythology lately (thanks to those Percy Jackson books), and the chicks names reflect that. We have Selene, Athena, and Pan. We also have Pig, who is named that because she seemed a bit of a pig initially. She now seems to be the littlest of the four.

Here's Emma explaining who's who.

Chicks in da House

One of my big concerns with getting chickens is how our other animals would react to them. We've got 2 dogs and a cat (and a snake and some fish, but I wasn't too worried about them). Darrel said "It'll be fine." He says that whenever I express worry about anything. It'll always be fine.

So far, it's been fine. Jack (our border-collie mix) sniffs them a bit, then seems a bit freaked out and leaves quickly. Carmella (our cat) seemed more interested in the box than in the chicks. Rose (our poodle-maltese mix) is the only animal that shows any real interest. She will sit and watch them for minutes at a time, even when no one else is around their box. They've gotten pretty used to her too.

Below are some chicken/dog videos for your viewing pleasure.

A Chicken Christmas

The 2009 holiday season will forever be known in Rodriguez-Mayers family lore as The Christmas The Chickens Came.

A little background:

Darrel has wanted chickens ever since we moved into the 23 (as the hipsters are calling our neighborhood now, apparently) 12 years ago. He grew up with chickens and has fond memories of them. I didn't grow up with chickens, and assumed that they were noisy, smelly and annoying. When he insisted they weren't, I figured that since the house he grew up in sat on many acres of land, he probably just didn't notice it - they were most likely kept far away from the house. He continued bringing up the idea of having a little flock of our own, and Emma soon joined his side of the debate. I remained strong, however. Until, the Guinta-Moore family got chickens.

GG (Isabella) Guinta is Emma's best friend, and her family lives in Hyde Park. About 2 (?) years ago they got 4 chickens. They were little baby chicks, ordered on-line and send through the mail. Who knew? Emma fell madly in love with them, and, through spending lots of time at GG's, became an expert handler. Seeing Emma with a chicken sitting in her arms, my defenses weakened a bit. When we were told by Elizabeth and Weston that they were good pets, fun to watch and interact with, and not all that stinky, smelly and annoying, I began rationalizing. We do have a large back yard. It'd only be 4 chicks, max. I do LOVE birds, and will never be allowed by Darrel to have a conjure or a parrot, so maybe I should settle for chickens. OK, OK, we'll get chickens!

2 years later, we were still talking, but doing nothing, about it. In early December, Darrel came up with the idea of getting some chicks for Emma for Christmas. I tried to reason with him, and assumed he'd either forget about it or realize it was a crazy idea. He did not. He found out that Callahan's here in Austin sells baby chicks - some as young as a week old. He also found out that they'd need to stay in the house for the first 4 to 6 weeks of their lives, so we wouldn't need a coop yet. He brought 4 baby chicks home on Christmas Eve day while Emma and I were walking the dogs. We hid them in the music room, and assumed that Emma would hear them peeping away. She didn't. She thought we had bought her a new bed and that's what we were trying to hide.

Christmas morning came with the secret still only known to Darrel and myself. My folks were in town too, and we hadn't told them either. We opened all our presents that morning, and then blindfolded Emma. We led her into the music room, placed her next to the box and took off the blindfold. "OHMYGOD! CHICKENS!!!" She then squealed and laughed in a higher pitch than I've ever heard come out of her mouth. She couldn't believe it. Best. Christmas. Ever.


They are adorable. Tiny and fluffy and sweet and precious. We are all desperately in love with them.

Halloween

I've not posted anything here for about a year and a half. Most likely, I decided that it'd just be more fun to keep up with people on Facebook instead of writing long-winded stuff on this blog. But, Darrel came across my blog a couple of weeks ago and suggested that I start posting again. I figure it can't hurt anything, so, here we go.

This year, Emma decided she wanted to be a character out of the Mighty Boosh - a Hitcher Henchman. Darrel and I warned her that no one would know who she was, but she didn't seem to mind. I thought I'd do it too, since the Hitcher has 2 cockney henchmen. So, we bought some black hats, green face paint and peppermint life savers. I sewed some strips of white onto our black shirts, we made "polos for the eye" and we were ready.


Darrel took a quick trip into Spirit Halloween, and came back with a raven and a hat. He put the former onto the latter, a black mask onto his face, and donned a trench coat, and he was ready. He wasn't really sure what he was, but he looked really good.

We wore our outfits to a party at Holly, Shane and Chloe's house. No one knew who any of us were, but we had a good time anyway. Their parties are always great.


Halloween also means the Lee Elementary Carnival. Hundreds of children, hopped up on sugar, running around the school. Emma decided to lose the green face paint for the carnival. Darrel and I don't typically dress up for it, but did this year. I went for an easier witchy-type thing this time, as I didn't want to spend the entire night trying to explain to people about this obscure British comedy. I think I made the right choice.


We saw very little of Emma at the carnival. When she was in kindergarten, she was attached to my knee. No longer. She got her tickets from us and then she was off, running around with her friends.

Halloween day was spent getting the house ready and carving our pumpkins. It was Darrel's turn to take Emma around the neighborhood, so I manned the candy bowl in my witch get-up. Emma took over when she came back, and we had a pretty good crowd this year. A few little ones were quite frightened by us. A successful Halloween all the way 'round.