Yard Chicken

Instead of the expected dog or a cat for a pet, my children have one goldfish, Fred, whom they don't care about, and Henny Penny, the quirky chicken that roosts on the back porch.*

Henny Penny is a Rhode Island Red that was pecked to near death by the other chickens in the pen. Jason rescued her from their beaks and freed her to roam in the yard. After weeks of dazed, skittish pecking about the grass and keeping somewhat close to us humans, she laid her first egg. I don't remember where that first egg turned up, but she now has a preferred laying spot.When we hear Henny Penny's characteristic pre-egg bawk-bawking, we open the garage door so she can get in to lay her precious. Sometimes she even flaps against our sliding door to let us know it's time.

Following her loud post-egg clucking, the kids will check to see what she's produced. They love to discover that small, clean, warm egg. Jack shouts, "Hay-Penny AI!!" We pulled in the other day mid-act. We waited around, but she was too shy.

*We now have a kitten added to the mix, but it's only been two days. Pictures to come.

Time flies, especially if you're an alarm clock

If there's one thing I hate, it's an annoying alarm clock. The blaring start to the day can trigger some instant rage, and my arm goes a-whacking for the snooze. I'm an extremely light sleeper, and Jason is not, so when it's HIS alarm going off, well, sometimes I have to apologize for my rude shoves.

A long time ago, before the overhaul of the downstairs bedrooms, I bought new, grown up, non-battery-operated alarm clocks for guests to use. Not long after, our remaining travel alarm clock surrendered to its regular beatings, so one of the new clocks migrated up to Jason's side of the bed. Since I don't have very good uncorrected vision, I wanted a closer target to squint at in the middle of the night if I awoke for some odd reason, so the other got plunked on my nightstand.

But we soon noticed something funny about these two clocks--they gained time. Every day. We didn't pay much close attention at first, because who notices a minute or two here and there? When we would realize our clocks were wrong, it would be by a good half hour or more. It was easy to blame the kids, because we knew their penchant for clocks and other electronic devices, and we considered Timex to be a trustworthy brand.

Not so much. I got slightly more investigative with it and figured out mine was gaining about 1 1/2 minutes per day. What a nice, polite amount of time, hmm? Not over-indulgent, just a slight mincing of my getting ready time, a little nudge-nudge to hurry it up in there already. But 1 1/2 minutes a day turns into nearly 10 minutes a week, and if I reset my alarm clock as often as I dust my bedroom furniture, it could quickly become an hour or more--fast! I'm all for setting clocks a little speedy, but the changing time has been getting on my nerves.

I'm going shopping tomorrow after my 28-week check up and lovely glucose tolerance test, and as much as I hate plunking money down for a new set of alarm clocks, I just might. I am that fed up.