Fall Surprise

It's been awhile since I posted, primarily due to the total lack of anything interesting happening.  We've been playing the waiting game in terms of finances and all related projects, and I saw nothing interesting about continuing to detail it.


Last week, I heard from a friend who was eagerly awaiting the next chapter in what should possible be renamed Misadventures in America.  He is in luck, because the Universe was poised to give us our next lesson in surviving adversity without a whole lot of hassle.


Here in the U.S., autumn is often referred to as fall because the leaves fall from the trees.  Last week, the term fall got an addendum.  Not just leaves falling, but snow. It was first forecast early in the week by some European meteorologists - meteorologists who were greeted with amused disdain by reporters here in the U.S.  


I know better.


Not because I have more faith in European meteorologists.  From what I can tell a lot of meteorologists from across the globe throw in a bit of psychic prediction to make up where the science is lacking, and so I don't usually trust any of them more than a day or two in advance.  But this time I did my research.  There has only been snow accumulation in this part of Virginia in October on five different occasions in the last 130 years, thus making it highly unlikely, thus convincing me that it would definitely happen, because if it's an unlikely weather pattern and my husband & I are in the vicinity, you can just about bet it will happen - unless we want it to.


Examples include: 

• One of the worst bushfires in recorded history 
• The hottest day on record shortly after arriving in Virginia 
• An earthquake in Virginia where they rarely happen, also shortly after we arrived 
• Really bad flooding in Queensland, known as the Sunshine State in Australia in the middle of summer when it's not supposed to rain, right as we decided to take our first vacation since our honeymoon

I'm sure I could come up with more, but the important thing is that I was certain it was going to snow long before the U.S. weather service started warning us.  And snow it did.  We got between four and six inches here. It started Friday night.  It was beautiful, right up until Saturday morning when the power went out.  

You see, it's supposed to snow in winter not autumn.  When it snows in autumn, trees that haven't yet lost their leaves catch even more snow than they normally would, but they don't have the strength to hold that kind of weight, so they break all over power lines.  It caused a major disaster up and down the eastern seaboard.  

But I can't really complain.  We spent a lovely day playing board games and drinking a combination of beer and brandy to stay warm.  We laughed until our sides hurt.  We took pictures.  We drank hot chocolate.  We even had a pizza delivered from the next town where they still had power. We slept in cozy beds. 

The next morning, we began to stress a bit as without power, we had no water, and we aren't in a financial position to buy a generator or go to a hotel.  We put our heads together and worked out a plan that started with me gathering snow into a bucket so that the toilets could be flushed, and the husband cooking a yummy breakfast on the barbie on the front porch.  Then we would worry about other supplies.

To our delight, the power came on in the middle of cooking breakfast, and it stayed on. Now, aside from tree branches all over the neighborhood and one on our roof, you would never know that it had snowed.  We're right back into sunny autumn weather.  I can't help hoping the luck holds and we have a mild winter.

Blood Spatters

In terms of weather, today was a perfect autumn day.  The husband, the mother and I were all tired from working hard in the yard yesterday, so we spent the morning and the early afternoon working on theater and charity work.  

At about 2:00, I realized we hadn't let the chickens out, so the husband headed down to the coop to do just that.  When he did, he realized that one of the chickens was not doing well.  This particular chicken has always stood out from the rest.  She was a big white chicken and she had been bred specifically for meat.  When we purchased her, we didn't know exactly what that meant.  Through research, the husband soon discovered that it meant she would only have a lifespan of one year, and it meant that she was going to get fatter and fatter during that year.  We owned her for a total of two and a half months, and though she was a total bitch to the rest of the chickens, prompting jokes about eating her and the nickname of a certain unsavory character that one of us used to work for, she was always nice to us.  

And she enjoyed her life.  She ran around eating and searching for bugs with gusto.  Over the last three weeks, she began going downhill.  Not sick.  Just aging basically.  We debated a lot about the best time to dispatch her, and we all agreed that we wanted to do it before she did much suffering but not while she could still enjoy life.  Today was a crossroads.  She was limping a bit, and she fell over a couple of times.  So we decided it was time.

The husband sharpened up a knife and cooked up some spaghetti.  Spaghetti wiggles like worms and the chickens just love is.  We decided it would be a nice last meal for the white chicken.  Mom distracted the other chickens with their portion of the spaghetti.  The husband and I went over to the white chicken, who happened to be on her own.  We fed her some spaghetti.  She was struggling a bit with eating, but she enjoyed it.  After a few moments, the husband picked her up, and we carried her to the bottom of our property out of sight of the other chickens.  

The husband covered her eyes and did the deed.  It was fast and she didn't make a sound.  She didn't struggle.  I was amazed to be honest.  Maybe it was overkill, but the husband held on to her head, eyes covered, and stroked it soothingly until we were certain she was completely gone.  We stood and watched as her body flailed around managing to land in one of the more difficult spots to reach in the woods.  

It was then that I realized I'd forgotten the pick with which we planned to dig a hole for the remains.  I went back to get the pick and the husband began the butchering process.  She wasn't sick after all, just old.  And though we liked her, it would be an awful waste of meat to just bury her when we could all benefit from her.  

I walked up the hill, grabbed the pick and turned back.  There was the husband, walking up the hill, empty handed.  I walked over, still a bit dazed from trying not to be emotional regarding the chicken.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Not much.  Just need a bit of medical attention."

"Why?"

"I cut my finger."

"How badly?"

What followed was a dialogue wherein my husband insisted that it was merely a flesh wound (he cut it to the bone), I worried and helped him clean it up.  He made fun of me because I used to be a medic.  I declared conflict of interest.  We both found out that the mom had no first aid supplies on hand, a holdover from her days in the word of faith movement.  Long story.

Thus, I found myself driving to Walmart with the express intention of getting two bottles of wine and plenty of bandages.  On the way to Walmart, I tried to calm down. My rational mind told me he was going to be just fine and that he didn't really need stitches.  The wife in me wanted to sob and freak out, partly due to the effort of being tough while assisting in the dispatch of the chicken.

Just before arriving to Walmart, I found myself thinking about how amazing it was that he'd cut the head off that chicken and there hadn't been a spray of blood.  Then it occurred to me that was impossible in a live chicken.  I looked down.  Sure enough, there were blood spatters all over my jeans.  I thought about the lovely emails that go around showing the "typical" Walmart shopper. Then I thought about the fact that it's almost Halloween.  Then I laughed, hopped out of the car and went in.  I have to be honest.  I wasn't the least bit surprised when no one in the store noticed at all.

I got my supplies and drove back home.  Due to the circumstances of the husband's screw up - yes, he was cutting improperly and did this to himself - the mom had the fun job of plucking and butchering the chicken.  She didn't want to screw up and make a mess that couldn't be cleaned up easily, so she hopped in her tub and did the deed there.  When I went downstairs, I wondered how she had avoided throwing up.  The husband couldn't even smell it.

Now, the mom and I are relaxing with a glass of wine while the husband drinks his wine, nurses his finger, and cooks up some yummy chicken chili.  When we dine tonight, it will all have been worth it.  

Brand New Day

I haven't been in the habit of posting two days in a row, although that was certainly my original goal.


After last night's rant, however, I feel the need to post again.  Yes, I needed to rant.  For me, an occasional rant is cathartic.  And I achieved the needed catharsis.


Today is better.  Everything is better.  The rain is gone.  The chill in the air is gone.  The Indian summer is here.  We have blue skies and sunshine, and I'm a sucker for that combination.


Last night, and this morning, I figured out a way to juggle our finances so that we can do something with this Indian summer other than admire it.  The husband has gotten a fair way into fencing the backyard.  We had intended to do that a bit later, but the chickens made it an urgent priority.  They weren't content roaming on an acre and a half.  Oh no.  They had to go into the neighbors' yards on both sides.  Now, they cannot access the neighbor's yards, and they cannot access our front yard and front porch.  This is a boon as we are not particularly interested in fertilizing the front lawn.


While the husband was working on the fence, I started on cleaning house in preparation for the mom's birthday.  Tomorrow is her birthday, and we are going to have a mighty fine meal.  As I said before, the husband is an expert at whipping up gourmet offerings on a very tight budget.  Tonight, we're headed off to see the play Sylvia at Theater Shenandoah, and I'm really looking forward to it.  The mom and I joined this theater just over a month ago, and we are very excited about the creative energy we've found in this valley.


Yesterday, I was sad over the fact that we aren't going to do anything really exciting on my mother's birthday.  Today, I'm happy that I get to spend her birthday with her, and we all have our health back.


One thing is for certain - I do occasionally get down, but when my best friend describes me as "insatiably cheerful", she is not wrong, and I never stay down for long.  Though we've run into a brief delay in terms of the business plan, we'll be right back on track come spring. 


As I sit here watching our kitten, Spaz, live up to her name, and I gaze into the kitchen at the best husband in the world as he prepares some yummy pork curry, I am well aware that I have a very good life, and while it's perfectly okay to rant when things get me down, you won't find me wallowing.


I leave you with this:  I Can See Clearly Now

Rant

The last few weeks have been hard.  Really hard.  I know I can find people who have it much harder than me, but sometimes - like today - that's not enough to make me feel better.


And since the purpose of this blog is to show what it's like trying to succeed at a dream, I'm not going to shy away from the hard aspects. I'll sum up why it's been hard.


1.  Our favorite chicken, named Bronson, died last week.  He was one of only two that we named.  He turned out to be a she, and we ended up naming her, briefly, after a good friend of ours who's name sounds remotely similar.  It was sad.  We gave her every chance, and she fought hard to live, and she seemed to be doing better.  On the day she died, we found her lying in the path unable to move.  We gave her a bit of water.  The Husband, believing he was going to have to put her down, did some research to see if there was any last ditch effort that could be made.  She died while he was researching.


2. Mom ended up in the emergency room for the sixth or seventh time in the last year.  We believe she's developed an allergy to some insect that bites in summer.  Not mosquitoes, but something along those lines in that it's generally harmless to most people.  In my mother, it results in severe cellulitis.  This translates to her swelling up in scary proportions wherever she's been bitten.  This resulted in two doctor visits and two antibiotic prescriptions as well as injected steroids and three days of looking like some sort of alien being.  


3. I have been struggling with feminine issues.  It's never really possible to discuss this sort of thing without falling into the realm of TMI, but suffice to say that I have been bleeding a ridiculous amount with heavy clotting.  Not conducive to getting anything done and costs extra money in feminine products.


4. Speaking of money - we don't have enough.  We can foresee a time in the not to distant future when we will have enough, but it's been two years now of living hand to mouth, and I mean that literally.  I juggle every month to make certain we can survive on what my mother is bringing home.  Naturally, the house is taking forever to sell.  I personally believe it won't sell until we don't actually need it to.  Each time something unexpected comes up - even something that costs as little as a hundred dollars - we get completely thrown off our budget, and I'm left scrambling to make certain we don't owe ridiculous fees to those bottom feeders we have here in America - the bankers and the credit card companies.  For my non-American readers, what I mean is that if I screw up the slightest bit, it will cost me, at minimum $35.00 per screw up.  When you're already broke, a $35.00 ding makes it damn hard to catch up.  It usually results in a spiral effect of more $35.00 dings, a vicious cycle that I've experienced in the past but managed to avoid this go 'round.


6. Today, the coffee maker broke.  The car is leaking oil like a sieve.  The chickens keep getting into the neighbor's yard.  The toilets back up on a daily basis.  The husband is having regular back trouble.  I think that's everything, but yeah, it's piling up.


Finally, I tried to sell a couple items on eBay.  I've heard about people who do this very successfully on a regular basis.  Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.  And while I wouldn't normally be surprised or care, this time hit me rather hard.  I had listed a painting that is currently worth about $2000 retail.  So I listed it at $1000 with a buy it now of $1500.  Whether or not I followed all the little tricks necessary to be successful - and I don't know if I did or not - well, obviously I didn't, because I wasn't successful.  What got me was that someone was watching the auction.  I got it into my silly little head that this individual was planning to buy the painting at the last minute.  I even had little fantasies about them being a dealer and snapping up all of my other product as I listed it.


No. Such. Luck.


And Saturday is my mother's birthday.  She's being a real champion and telling me that it's okay that we've had to cancel our plans.  She's perfectly content sitting at home with me and watching a marathon of our favorite soap opera.  And, on some level, I'm certain she really is content because she's thrilled to have me here in America.  But she's turning 66 this year, and I'm really tired of her having to go without the finer things in life.  Hell - I actually fantasize about being able to get a haircut or buy underwear when I need it.


So, yeah.  I'm feeling sorry for myself today.  Well, I should say I've felt sorry for myself today.  I've spent the last four hours trying to get it together after that last disappointment, and I think this little rant ought to do the trick.


I will now head off to clean the kitchen.  Then, my husband will make a fantastic meal out of inexpensive ingredients, and we will watch something entertaining on our projector, and tomorrow and will be another day, and we will succeed at this dream, and that's why I want a record of just how damn hard it was, because I have a tendency to forget when things are good.  Not to mention, I've read a lot of success stories where they don't give the details of the hard stuff.  I will just take this moment to be grateful that I'm not homeless and I don't have children relying on me.

Delays

I'm sitting in my office, which is currently doubling as an isolation room for Spaz while we clear her (that's right, it turns out Spaz is a girl) up from ear mites, a bacteria I can't pronounce that is common to chickens and round worms.  it will be another week or so before we can introduce her to Gracie, but she is such a sociable little thing that I'm spending some time in here with her.


And I'm reflecting.


As per usual, none of our plans are going smoothly.  The situation is such that we are moving slower on the actual start of the business.  Our house in Australia has not yet sold.  When it does sell, we have to jump on a plane and go down there to remove our stuff and attend the closing.  


We considered the idea of a small loan to begin the business here, but it really would be scrambling, and all of us agree that we want to get this business started on the right foot, because we want our first contact with the public to be memorable for how awesome we are, not because we weren't organized.  On top of that, it is spring in Australia, and that is usually time when houses sell.  So if we get a loan and the house sells, we will have gotten a loan for no reason.


I considered getting a part time job, but Mom and the husband are opposed to this idea and wold prefer to see me spending my time writing.  It makes sense, because we are living in a very small town and sharing a car.  it is very difficult however to sit in this lovely house, see all the projects we want to do and know that most of them cost money.


Why am I sharing this?  Because too often, we hear success stories that don't go into the details of what it's like to sacrifice, take risks and prevail.  We are working to keep the risk minimal, and we therefore have to make some sacrifices in the short term.


For the record, all three of us have made much greater sacrifices in the past five years than we are currently.  My husband and I lived in a house that was being renovated for two years - two years that started with the world's worst bushfire, which delayed our plans to finish the renovation by a lot.  So I can't really say it's a sacrifice to sit in my nicely furnished home with all my needs met and a few perks.


it is worth mentioning in this blog only because our time frame for beginning the business has changed.


In the mean time, we are focusing on yard work, eating well on a budget, raising a kitten, taking care of chickens and getting in shape.


Ironically, this has resulted in even more creativity in the kitchen from the Husband.  We are even reconsidering what product we will be selling when we hit the festival circuit, so it's probably a good thing I haven't given out details of the product yet.


I also have more time to devote to my writing and to getting involved with the local theater group.  


I'll finish up here as Spaz is determined to help me write this blog, and I do not want it to disappear on me.

Cats Galore!

It all started before the Husband and I got here.  Two cats showed up on the porch last winter, and Mom felt sorry for them, as it was a very cold winter, so she began feeding them.  By summer, two kittens had joined the party, and she found herself feeding four cats.


We arrived and liked the idea of cheap pest control, so we continued feeding them.  The male cat briefly considered hunting the chickens, and while a warning shot from our air rifle did not dissuade him, three angry Rhode Island reds, each of which is larger than this male cat, convinced him that they were not going to be easy prey.


Things continued in this fashion for about six weeks.  Last weekend, we decided to walk the property and prioritize the improvements we wish to make.  For example, the chickens have taken over and love spending their time digging around the front yard right in front of the porch -- right where I wish to plant some pretty flowers.  Also, while chicken poop is a fantastic fertilizer, I'm not much interested in having it sprinkled liberally all over the front porch.  To top things off, they've gotten it in their heads that the cat food and the cat water dish are theirs.


This made me realize that it would be fruitless to start a vegetable garden when the chickens are likely to dig it up and trample the seedlings.  However, the benefits of allowing them to be free range far far out weigh the need for caging them up.  That said, nine chickens will do just fine on three fourths of an acre.  They don't need the whole acre and a half.  This led us to our first priority of fencing in the yard.


We walked to the back of the yard, about a third of which is covered in woods. It's nice having a patch of forest, but it's so dense and overgrown that it's of no use to us in its current state, so we intend to clear out the undergrowth and keep the large trees, thus making fencing an easier process.


As we returned from our walk to the bottom of the yard which is at the bottom of a thirty degree grade hill, we noticed four new kittens investigating the chicken coop and eating the chicken feed.  None of them could have been more than six to eight weeks old, and they were really adorable - two gray and two ginger in color.  We decided to give them a nice bowl of milk and contemplate the possibility of having eight cats living under the front porch.  Not a possibility any of us was in favor of.  


After checking with the neighbors who weren't home, we decided that if they continued to hang around, we'd see about getting them fixed and adopted.  We sat on the front porch, enjoying a nice beer and watching the two ginger kittens, who'd followed us, playing and generally looking adorable.


The following morning, the husband opened the front door to find that one of the ginger kittens had remained behind.  Of all the cats that have been hanging around the place, this one is the friendliest.  He's also fearless.  He wanted to eat some of the cat food, and the other cats were not interested in sharing.  In particular, the mother of the other kittens decided to stake out her territory.  This ginger kitten, who sits easily in the palm of my hand, threw his back up in the air and dared her to take him on.  She backed down and allowed him to eat.


Then he came over to us and set his mind to being so adorable we couldn't resist him.  He succeeded.  Tomorrow, I take him to the vet to get his vaccinations and make sure he doesn't have anything my other cat could catch, and then I will slowly introduce the two.  My other cat - Gracie - is a twelve-year-old Maine Coon (not pure), and thus very large.  She also hasn't had any company since her brother passed away two and a half years ago, and she likes it that way.  But this kitten is so friendly and just wants to be loved and I'm thinking Gracie won't be able to resist him any more than we were.


The husband fell for the kitten first, and he came up with the name of our new little family member.  I present you with Spaz:

Catching Up

A lot has happened since my last post, and it is sometimes difficult to decide what to share, so I shall share what is on my mind, and if you, dear readers, have anything you'd like to ask about, please don't hesitate.  After all, that is one of the purposes of the comment section.

At the moment, I am preoccupied with how awesome it is to be working on my dream.  While financial success is certain a component of this dream, and in fact, is a primary goal for many reasons, the money itself, is not the dream.  My mother, my husband and I all have some similar desires, and we are combining our resources to achieve some of those desires, but we all have individual desires as well. Luckily for us, the building of this dream and vision is something we all desire to do.

Thus it is that we find ourselves enjoying everything from the unusual to the mundane.  As an example, a 5.9 earthquake hit Virginia for the first time in decades.  One of the things I told my husband is eerily reminiscent of something he once told me.  When we fell in love, he lived in Australia, and I was living in Virginia, and being somewhat logical and rational, as well as attached to our respective homelands, we spent a great deal of time analyzing who should move first.  One of the things he told me to get me to move to Australia was, "We don't have any natural disasters in Victoria."  In his defense, we were discussing things like hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.  In spite of that, I tease him regularly over the fact that in February of 2009, I was treated to the opportunity of defending my home against the worst bushfire to ever hit Australia.

Fast forward two years, and we are planning to move to the U.S.  As I worked on his visa, I remember telling him that it's pretty easy to defend against tornadoes and hurricanes, and luckily, we'll be living on the East coast where there are no earthquakes.

Luckily, there was no damage and neither of us was injured, but at this point, we are both wary of declaring that any place we end up is safe from disaster, and our friends are now declaring a ban on us spending any amount of time in Yellowstone lest we cause the end of the world.

To return to my initial point about working on my dream, it is so much fun to take care of our chickens, and to catch up with friends we haven't seen in years, and to find out that we have friends who are not only celebrating with us that we have this opportunity, they insist on helping us to build our dream in any way possible, whether through ideas, sharing of skills, tasting the food and even going so far as to giving us money.  

We have faced a lot of challenges over the last half decade, and I know... I really know that there are more challenges to come, but this moment in the journey is a real joy and I'm stopping to savor it.

I do not want to over burden this blog with too many subjects in one posting as some of my readers suffer from ADD, so I will try and update a bit more regularly.  I'll reiterate that if any of you would like me to elaborate on something specific, just say the word.

Progress

As I mentioned when I began this blog, one of my goals in keeping the blog is to detail our journey as we attempt to start a business.  So often, when I've read about successful people, the kinds of things they share are dry, boring and don't deal with the day to day challenges.  Here are some of the challenges we are currently facing as we proceed on opening our business.


We are on a strict budget at the moment, as we wait for our house to sell.  So we're spending a lot of our free time working on the house and yard - things that need to be done but don't cost a lot. One of the delights I'm experiencing in what is a new home to me, is the opportunity to work on my own yard.  This is the first time, in over twenty years, that I've lived in a home I own that isn't being renovated.  


A lot of people are daunted by the aspect of home maintenance, and perhaps the sheen will wear off with time, but this house was empty for several years before my mother purchased it, and the yard had been neglected in certain areas.  One of my favorite books is The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and though the garden I have to work with is not secret, I am really enjoying tackling the project.  


Unfortunately, I got rather overenthusiastic about this project last Monday, and I really overdid it.  I'm still suffering the after effects and it's hindered everything that I want to do for the last week.  The up side is I'm drinking far less alcohol in an effort to get my muscles to recover faster.  I've been meaning to cut back on my alcohol intake for some time, and I'm feeling a lot healthier as a result.


Things are progressing really well with the chickens.  We've had four eggs this week, and I get such a thrill every time I open up the coop and find an egg in one of the nest boxes.


Mom and I are also making excellent progress on the business plan.  We met with the artist my mother commissioned to pick up our logo and conceptual art.  

Another grand success we've had of late is that the husband has narrowed down a magnificent recipe that is easy to prepare, yummy and healthy.  I won't give away any details at present, but he even came up with a clever name that is in keeping with our theme.


The only real setback we've had so far has been our budget crunch.  For awhile, it was looking like I would need to get a job in order for us to get going on this plan.  Luckily, some contract work for the husband has made that unnecessary and within a month or two, our budget problems will be over.


I highly recommend that anyone attempting to open a business - make it as low risk as possible.  Don't take a loan out on your house.  Don't eliminate all sources of income.  Find a way to put together a team and start small.  It really lessens the stress when you don't have all your eggs in one basket.  I expect us to succeed, but if we fail, it won't devastate us economically, and that's a really peaceful place to be in.

Heat Waves and Winging It

In February of 2009, the husband and I went through the worst bush fire ever to hit Australia.  It came on the heels of a three day insanely hot heat wave, and we fought that fire all night long to protect the home we had moved into a mere three weeks earlier.


In July of 2011, we moved to the U.S., from winter to summer, but not just to any summer.  It was another heat wave, and on the day that ended up being the hottest on record here in Virginia, my husband and I built a chicken coop. It was less than three weeks since we'd moved in.  There were no fires in our area, so all in all, this was an improvement, but we couldn't help noticing the extreme heat.


For the record, we fully intend to reinforce the laundry room in our basement with steel on the off chance a tornado happens by.  I don't really think the Universe is out to get us, but I'm not taking any chances.


When we first decided on a chicken coop, the husband thought we could get away with modifying some plastic containers, but the mom did some research and we realized that could only be a short term solution.  And the more research we did, the more we realized that we needed to go ahead and build a proper coop.


My husband and I have a real habit of flying by the seat of our pants.  I could analyze it for you, but suffice to say we are happy with each other and we realize we would drive other people nuts, but we take responsibility for the fixes we sometimes get into, and we do what it takes to make it right.  Sometimes winging it works out really well.  Other times, it can result in some inconvenience.  


So we purchased the chickens before finishing the coop.  He built a cage for them while I went off with Mom to buy the chickens.  I had a long chat with the young man we purchased the chickens from just to give the husband time to finish the cage.


We returned with four full grown hens and five pullets, two of which may or may not be roosters.  We put them in the cage and fed them.  Then we realized we needed a proper water container, so Mom went off to the Tractor Supply Company and got one. We watered them, left the cardboard boxes in which we'd transported them in the cage as temporary housing and went off to relax and watch True Blood.  Mom went to bed as she had to work early.


Shortly into the show, the doorbell rang.  I answered it, and a young boy of about twelve stood before me and asked if we owned chickens.  I was astonished by this.  We live in a very rural area and we haven't lived here long enough to get to know anyone yet.  I responded that we did indeed have chickens.  He proceeded to tell me that one of them must have escaped as he'd been hunting in the woods with his bow and fired at it without realizing what it was.  He missed and then realized it was a chicken.


Now, I realize it's a very unsafe practice to shoot without identifying one's target first, but I was so impressed that he had gone out of his way to find us and let us know that I didn't take the time to give him a lesson on safety.  Not only was I impressed, I was also very concerned that one of the chickens had gotten out and I was starting to feel guilty over the spontaneous way in which we had handled purchasing these chickens.  


In our defense, none of us expected to care about the chickens.  Don't get me wrong.  We would never abuse them, but we weren't expecting to think of them as pets.  And certainly at this point, we did not.  But we didn't want to lose the investment we'd just made either, so we decided to stick them back into the boxes we'd transported them in and place them in the basement for the night.


The next morning, we went to Lowes to pick up the materials.  Lots of sixteen foot two by fours and 8x12 foot plywood.  A handy circular saw and plenty of beer.  


The only real challenge that faced us was the fact that we live on a grade of about 30 degrees, and the chickens are situated about a hundred and twenty feet from the back of the house in a lovely wooded section.  It's another fifty feet to the spot where the car gets parked, and it's steep enough with slick enough grass that driving my mom's car down the hills wasn't feasible.  So we were left with carrying everything down the hill and then walking back up the hill on the hottest day on record.


Ah well.  Good thing we stopped smoking and want to get in shape.  The husband got to find out what real humidity is.  We have some friends in Singapore that would understand humidity in the same way that I do.  I used to laugh when people Melbourne would complain of humidity.  Naturally, the husband thought I was exaggerating until this day in which he found himself needing a towel just to wipe the sweat off his brow so he could see to keep working.


The good news is he finished the coop and at the same time bonded with the chickens who seemed to enjoy spending time with him as he worked.  We were a little sad about losing the one chicken, but we definitely learned from the experience.


Two days later, the husband went down, early in the morning, to feed the chickens.  He found one of the red chickens outside the cage waiting to get in. This was very disturbing and we wondered if we were going to need to make the cage higher.  I went down to have a look at the hinges he'd installed on the coop and to analyze what we were going to do about the cage.  Suddenly, I realized we had nine chickens and not eight.  The one that had "gotten out" was actually our prodigal returned.  We were amazed.  It had been three days and they hadn't had time to establish a pecking order on the day she left, but she found her way back.  And she likes the new digs.  None of the chickens have tried to escape yet.


It's been two weeks, and we have pet chickens, but so far no eggs...

On Guns and Chickens

My husband is a character.  He's been a shooter since he was a boy of around twelve.  He grew up shooting in Australia where they have much stricter gun legislation than they do here in the U.S.  My personal opinion is that there is too much gun control in Australia and not enough here in the U.S. For example, in Australia, guns for home defense is a no no.  The reason this is significant is because the husband told me on more than one occasion that he wasn't interested in owning guns here in the U.S. He was quite adamant in fact.  I was surprised but not terribly invested in whether or not he owned a gun.


Shortly before heading over here, he began researching the laws covering hunting in Virginia.  Our first night in the U.S. as we relaxed in our hotel room in Hawaii, we came upon a show called Sons of Guns, and the next thing I knew the husband was talking about how it would be good to get a gun.  For the next week, he kept bringing this up.  It took awhile for it to sink in to me that he had changed his mind.  I was hesitant.  We're starting out on a limited budget as we've moved over here before our house has sold in Australia.


As this was going on, about day three after we arrived, we went shopping for some food.  While in the store, we picked up some chicken.  We live in a very small town so the only choices for primary grocery shopping are Food Lion and Walmart.  To get to the fancier shops involves driving at least forty minutes in any one direction.


While checking out the meat section in Walmart, the husband zeroed in on a brand of chicken that I refuse to support.  I told him we wouldn't be buying their chicken because they're evil and that I couldn't remember the details of why but he would just have to trust me.  He humors me at moments like these rather than trying to have a rational debate in the middle of the poultry section, but we both knew he'd be researching my claims later.  He settled on a brand I hadn't heard of and off we went.


As we headed home, with the husband practicing driving on the right side of the road, I looked ahead and saw a truck filled with a white, fluffy substance.  As we got closer, I realized that much of the fluffy substance was moving. 


"Are those chickens?" I asked in horror.  The husband looked and agreed that they were, indeed, chickens.  On the hottest day on record, we were driving behind a truck jam packed with half dead chickens.  It was truly horrifying.  Both of us thought about the chicken in the back seat that we had just purchased, and we were filled with revulsion.


I'll point out here that both of us are hunters, and both of us enjoy meat a lot.  Neither of us are interested in becoming vegetarians.  My philosophy is simple. I like animals to lead happy free lives and then end up on my dinner table.  I prefer this to them living in wretched conditions jammed into cages with no ability to move, carted off to slaughter in any kind of weather, and then forced to witness as the members of their group are brutally killed.  We could debate this subject, but I'm not trying to convert anyone or judge anyone.  I am simply explaining in short hand what some of my beliefs are.  And my husband agrees.  I won't even bother going into the health benefits, to us, of eating animals that run around getting exercise and sunshine.


Within less than an hour of seeing this truck full of chickens, we'd decided we should purchase our own chickens and raise them for their eggs and meat. We got home.  The husband immediately jumped online and began researching chicken breeds, chicken coops, predators in the area, etc. 


He then declared that in addition to building a coop that would protect the chickens, he was going to need a gun... when we left the gun shop with our shiny new .17 air rifle, the husband announced that it might be a good idea for the three of us (my mother, the husband and I) to sign up for a conceal and carry course.  He followed this up with a comment about embracing his new life in America.  Like I said, he's a character.


We now have three Rhode Island Reds, four Buff Orpingtons, one white Leghorn one mystery black rooster and an air rifle.  More on that in my next post...

Introduction

My husband and I recently moved to the U.S.  We set foot on the shores of my homeland on July 13, 2011, carrying paperwork for my husband's green card. Of course, the U.S. is rather large, and we have many friends here, so it was two days and several flights later before we arrived at our new home in Virginia.

We were really excited to get started.  We've been married for about five and a half years, and while it's been a delight to us on many levels, in a lot of ways it has been a struggle.  Out of that struggle we have forged a dream.  Though I began the foundation of the dream over a year ago when I began the paperwork for his green card, we didn't feel we'd shed the burdens that were holding us down until we actually got here.  There is just something about pulling up stakes and flying halfway around the world that underscores the idea of fresh start.

Now, we begin what we want to do as a couple and we are enjoying every minute of it.  Our dream is a simple one but some would find it rather unusual, so I shall highlight a few of the goals and I will use this blog to detail how we're progressing on those goals.

Phase One: We plan to build a food business to indulge my husband's talent and love of cooking.  

Phase Two: Build a catamaran and sail from the U.S. to Australia.

We're still working on the details, but the timeline is anywhere from three to five years.  It probably won't be easy (though I can't help but hope it will be), but it's totally in our hands and rise or fall, we're getting to do things our way.