The Chicken Chronicles

I am a person of slow, careful consideration. Any decision I make has to be deliberately thought out, with every possible consequence weighed and balanced. There's a fair amount of good old fashioned fretting, too. Carl doesn't operate in this manner. He is a man of decisive action and sweeping passions, so that when we received permission to raise chickens from the landlords on Thursday, he had the fuzzy little buggers in his hands by Sunday. I hadn't even had a chance to read the chicken books I had checked out from the library. So here's our next grand project: four Rhode Island Reds named Erica, Brendina, Katie-hole, and Carla a.k.a. The Fury. Here they are at five days old (they were born March 31).

Bubba wasn't sure what to make of the new additions.Carl has discovered that he is the chicken whisperer, and is dead set on training them to be the perfect poultry.

I'm not quite sure what to make of them, either.My little sister Sarah was in town for a lightning-fast visit this weekend. We got to take a long walk around town, check out a Native American pow wow, eat delicious food, and yes, play with chickens.

Our little feathered friends are good for hours of entertainment.

Look how big they've gotten! Ten days old and growing by the hour. Carl wants to know when they're going to start laying eggs.

In other realms of life things are perking along just fine. We had our first clinic with the public at school and it went really well - it's fascinating to experience the sheer variety that humanity has to offer, because every body you get underneath your hands is a whole world unto itself, with a unique history, geography, and climate. We've finished kinesiology (which I rocked), and have started new classes like neuromuscular therapy, pathology, and business. Fascinating, frightening, and titillating, to be sure. My race training is also going well - I've worked my way up to five whole miles. In this town you plod uphill for half your required mileage, then turn around and run downhill to complete the course, or vice versa. It seems to be effective in countering the upper body bias of massage therapy.