Jealous of Rick and his girlfriends.

As you may recall Danny gave me 3 chickens for my birthday. The 3 chickens turned into 5 (2 are actually the Gleason's that just stay with ours) . Turned our summer into a "building a chicken coop project". Which turned our backyard into a construction zone mess. It is finally completed, thank goodness, but we have left many other projects slightly neglected. For example, we are completely re doing our basement.. gutting, re painting, carpeting.. the whole works. We are putting our office and play room downstairs and doing a new room for Whitney upstairs. Well good thing that we only have 1 month left until this little guy comes and we haven't done a DARN thing in the basement yet. Little Hank may be room less for a month or 2 until we can get things finished down stairs. That's true "Westenskow" style.. waiting until the last minute. Not to put all the blame on Danny though because I would consider myself more of a procrastinator than he is, he is just incredibly busy with other things and there is only so much my prego body can do. So if Hank has to sleep in a pack in play for a little bit, that's ok.

Anyways.. the chickens. They are kind of a touchy subject with me. In fact, the only arguments I can recall me and Danny having these last couple of months ARE about the chickens. Initially, I whined and complained that the chickens were in the house and too noisy so Danny moved them outside into our dogs kennels. Well, I whined and complained that I had to let them out every day, feed them, and catch them so he built a chicken coop. I whined and complained that it was taking too long to build and costing us a lot of money. (Just to preface.. Danny initially did a great sales pitch on me by saying they are really inexpensive and a great investment.. fresh eggs. We haven't received any return on our investment yet and building a mansion for chickens isn't cheap.) Rob and Danny finally finished it.. BTW they did a great job! But I was still whining and complaining because Danny didn't want them to be "stuck" in the coop all day. So I would let them out and their favorite place to hang out... on our cement under our table or perched on our chairs. Well, they do poop and poop ALOT! Our backyard cement area, where I like to hang out, is covered in chicken poop. They also like to eat in our garden and have eaten all of our cucumber plants. So Danny and Rob built a chicken run and now they have only a certain area where they can go.

Problem solved and pregnant lady happy.. Well so I thought. This morning while I was working I opened the window to get some air flow and instantly hear crowing. The "cock a doodle do" crowing. I had never really heard a rooster crow before but there was NO mistaking it. 6 AM every 3 minutes or so I hear a "cock a doodle do". I honestly could not stop laughing. We have a Rick amid 4 other female chickens whom I'm sure are ripe and ready to either lay eggs or re produce which ever will happen first. I sure hope that he hasn't impregnated any of the other chickens or we are really in a mess.

Danny bought the chickens at IFA and told me that there is a 90% chance that they are all chickens. I guess when they are babies you can tell by the way they poop if they are going to be chickens or roosters (according to Danny.) Honestly, you can tell by the way the poop? I'm sorry, I don't believe that. I'm sure its just a sales pitch. But we were unlucky and are in the 10% category. I don't know what Danny is going to do with it or how you dispose of a rooster?? There is no way I can watch him kill it and there is definitely no way I am eating that thing! When I told Danny about the rooster he said and I quote: "People would pay us lots of money to eat our rooster. It is really healthy, natural and it would be like eating organic chicken. It eats fresh vegetables and lots of grass." SICK! I am NOT eating a chicken that tastes like cucumbers. Um.. no thanks.

I have figured out, though, the "root" of the problem and why I so despise the chickens/rooster. I am jealous. I am jealous of Rick and his girlfriends. Sunday mornings Danny loves to go outside, sit on a chair and watch the chickens. He loves to watch them burrow in the dirt and loves to watch them run around the yard. He likes to hold them and even tries to discipline them. Maybe if I rolled around in the dirt and ran through the yard like a chicken Danny would love to watch me to?? Maybe.. if I had on a sexy outfit.. I could distract him from the chickens for a minute or 2. He spent hours building them a mansion.. well I want a mansion or maybe just my basement finished. But we have finally made a peace offering.. Danny and I. He says he does love me more.. whew.. thank goodness! :) And honestly, if Danny wants his hobby to be chickens then whatever. I'm going to let this one slide and let him do his thing.

Here is the coop and run. It isn't completely finished yet. I think they are putting siding up and painting it.