Happy Birthday, Kevin!

Meet Rainbow, Dave, and their children; and the Play-dough Alien Family

The Play-dough Alien Family rides around on wheelchairs. They cannot talk because they don't have mouths. They all wear helmets. They have two pets: Alien Pig and Alien Dog. The pets also have wheel chairs.

Rainbow is a purple sparkly Pegasus found at the consignment shop down the street. She is also know as "Super Pony." She is able to fly, and fights bad guys with her super powers. She prefers to throw mud and dirt at bad guys, and then put them in jail. Dave was discovered at the Good Will last week. He cannot fly and does not have super powers. However, he does like to throw mud and dirt at bad guys. Because he cannot fly, Super Pony lets him ride on her back. Yesterday, Rainbow and Dave had babies! One is white, one is brown, and two are miniature purple "My Little Pony" Christmas tree ornaments. They cannot fly, nor do not have super powers (bummer genetics). Rainbow carries them in a converted yogurt container with a pipecleaner harness, with Dave on her back. She is very strong. While Rainbow goes to work fighting bad guys, Dave stays home with the babies and feeds them milk from a bottle because he can't nurse.

Helmet days

Second only to his obsession with all things yellow, Jesse has a new passion for his bicycle helmet. All day. last week, he wore it church, daycare, dinner, and almost to bed. Unfortunately, it is a love/hate relationship-- as much as he loves to wear it, he also has a tantrum every time he can't find it, tries to put it on, buckle it, or unbuckle it. Finally, I conveniently left the "humah" at Miss Amy's house and we have been spared the drama of on-again-off-again for a few days.

Sea anemone!

The mystery creature is a sea anemone! I actually saw it paralyze and slowly devour a tiny plankton today in the tupperware container.

Mystery creature

This weekend was one of the lowest tides this spring, so we headed down to Golden Gardens Park to do some exploring! Lots of folks were there, though in true Seattle form, all the over-educated white folks were the ones having "fun" learning about nature, slathered in sun screen and gore-tex, but not actually interacting with each other; while the Asian and Black families were the ones having an awesome time BBQ'ing and hanging out with their huge assortment of family and friends. I know this sounds totally bizarre, but seriously, we have photos to prove it: white people in Seattle just don't know how to let loose and have fun without it being educational, physically strenuous, and planned three months in advance! We kept wishing we were with the Korean clan nearby, complete with easy chairs and plates food galore, instead of huddling around our sandy blanket and tupperwares of organic pineapple and whole wheat pretzels. (I will post our anthropological photo-essay on racial division in Seattle after I have talked with my lawyer.)

Anyhow, we did manage to see (and learn about!) some very cool wildlife (and even had some physically strenuous moments wading through tide pools and climbing rocks) and brought home a tupperware container with a tiny star fish, a hermit crab with shell, and a mystery creature! We also scooped up a tiny fish, and some random floaty things. Elena and I were up early this morning to go check on our new "habitat" (yes, she knows that word!) and admire our new pets. Unfortunately, the hermit crab had eaten off a leg of the star fish! We tucked the baby into a rocky cave and told the hermit to mind his own business. So, now the $100 question-- what is the mystery creature??? When you touch its tentacles, it curls in, as if to catch you and eat you! A Medusa head of multi-colored tentacles atop a gelatinous stem. Weird! Marine biologists, please post!

Reclaiming my hippie roots

My latest culinary adventure (other than eating Duke for dinner last night-- yes, he was good, but a bit gamey... tempered in part by a super slow roast and fresh terragon ala Julia Child) is making homemade granola. I had an incredibly strong granola craving and ended up buying a box of chocolate granola at the grocery store (generic "Eating right" brand at Safeway-- not bad!!) and finishing off the entire box in three days. So, I looked up some granola recipes online and after a couple attempts, got a super duper amazing batch. I used maple syrup, brown sugar, and applesauce as sweeteners and wetten-ers; almonds, oats, familia meusli, whole grain flakes, and raisins as filler; and cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg for spice. Then the crowning glory: shaved semi-dark chocolate on top. Add vanilla yogurt, bananas, and strawberries and I am in granola heaven. How is it that I have lived in Seattle for 13 years without making my own granola?? Not to mention,  child of uber liberal Berkeley-educated mother? It is so easy, so completely satisfying, so quintessentially everything that is right and good in the world.

Unfortunately, Kevin was completely non-plussed (like eating dirt, chunky dirt) and Elena claimed it to be "too hard!!" But my boy, Jesse, asked for more and more. Atta boy, Jesse. Carry on the family tradition.

In which Kevin slaughters Duke

Well, it finally happened. A neighbor complained about Duke crowing to the police, so we had to get rid of him or risk losing all the chickens. After thinking about it for a while, we decided that if we were going to be meat eaters, and keep chickens, we should be prepared to slaughter our own birds. We couldn't imagine another family killing and eating our Duke while we went to the grocery store and bought some random dead chicken for dinner. We also felt that killing him humanely and eating him in celebration of his life would be the most honorable way for him to die.

So in true Kevin-form, he did extensive research on the quickest, most efficient way to slaughter a chicken. He still felt pretty freaked out about the whole thing, so he enlisted the help of our friend Peter who has had lots of hunting experience, and his always-curious and helpful son, Weston. I think the pictures are gory enough as is without a detailed commentary on how they did it, but rest assured that Duke was calm and clueless up until the moment it happened. Then it happened fast, and cleanly; no chicken running around with his head cut off.

I'm not sure if this link works, but Elena provided some hilarious commentary on the whole ordeal and I uploaded the 2 minute video to my blip TV account. (If the link doesn't work, go to
babythink.blip.tv and choose the "Elena discusses Duke's death" episode.)


http://blip.tv/dashboard/episode/3619884

One happy bear

For those of you who remember Berry... it never felt right to put him in a box somewhere, so he hangs out with all the other "animal friends" in the kids' room. I tell Ellie stories about him every so often, and recently showed her how I used to tuck him in every day before I went to school because he liked to nap all day, then cuddle with me all night. I also told her that Berry would be so happy if she cuddled with him one night-- it had been so many years since he got some love. So my sweet girl kindly obliged. What a happy bear. 

Getting ready for the wedding!

Not a day goes by that Elena does not inform someone that she is going to be a flower girl at Auntie Amy's wedding. And that she has a new dress and it the same dress as Josephine! She wanted to wear it so much that I finally had to hide it so that it wouldn't get dirty. Here is an outfit that I picked out for Jesse... I hope it passes inspection.

YELLOW

Jesse is in an intense YELLOW phase. Some kids this age like balls, or trucks, or a special stuffed bear... not Jesse. He loves all things yellow. He wakes up looking for yellow things, and then will shout with unbridled glee "LELLOW!" when he finds them. (Strangely, he always points out the color yellow correctly, but then when asked what another color is, he usually says, "lellow," though we are working on "blue" this week.) Tonight, he was protesting putting on pajamas until happened to find a yellow-ish shirt, and he immediately calmed down "lollow shirt. yeah."

Jesse, 19-months-old

Who's the roo?

Clue 1: Chick on left has thicker legs and larger feet.
Clue 2: Chick on left has pinker, larger comb. Chick on right has small, yellow comb.
Clue 3: Chick in back has more of a mound/hump of tail feathers, whereas chick in front has a sprout.
I read this somewhere: when scared, a roo will rear up and a hen will hunker down.
Clue 4: Left is stretching, right is hunkering!
My best guess: Jesse is holding the cockerel and Elena is holding the pullet. The signs seem pretty clear to me, but only time will tell! The proposed rooster is also the oldest chick, so it's possible that in another couple days, chick #2 will have caught up developmentally. Good Friday, the baby, is still much smaller than the others, though he/she seems to be growing in feathers in a potentially roo-ish way!

We have been optimistically playing around with girl names for the potential hen. A friend suggested "Fern," Kevin likes "Fay," and Elena likes "Flower." We also spent about a half hour with her inside with us to try and domesticate her. The first time we brought her in, she cheeped nearly the entire time, but tonight, she very calmly cuddled up to us and seemed very content!!

When I returned her (and her brother) to the coop, Maybelle had apparently decided that the effort of giving up her roost for just one chick was too much, and she had returned to her old spot up high on the roosting pole next to Duke, leaving poor Good Friday to fend for himself! It is quite apparent that Maybelle is not tending these chicks because she particularly likes it. I am certain that she is driven by some powerful instinct to tend and protect, and she knows that it is not time for these chicks to be without a mama. I swear, when I brought the others back, Maybelle actually grumbled, and with a heavy sigh, jumped down to the nesting box to usher them under her wings and keep them warm. I have read that at about 6 weeks, the hen totally rejects her chicks and seems to completely forget that she raised them, treating them like any other chickens lower in the pecking order. I guess Maybelle is getting ready to wean!

In the meantime, this mama hen is playing musical beds each night, heeding the cries of my babies, cuddling and nursing them back to sleep, sacrificing comfort and manly company, and feeling a deep sense of empathy with the speckled Wyandotte out in the coop. No, Jesse is not yet weaned. Yes, I am ready... but is he?