What the...?

I am the proud owner of a glorious tom turkey, but we call him Shaun. Shaun was my lone turkey survivor after the raccoon attacks this summer. He is my tamest bird, since he eats from my hand and likes when I talk to him. I asked for a girl turkey for my birthday, so that he would not be so lonely. Jason bought me two female turkeys (Melissa and Mallory). Shaun is easily twenty plus pounds. He's about the same size as my toddler.

A couple weeks ago I went in the hen house to feed the chickens and collect eggs. Shaun was sitting where the eggs normally are, so I just figured there weren't any eggs that day. A few days later Shaun is sitting in the same spot when I entered the hen house, but he stands to reveal four eggs. He nudged them into place once he stood up. "No", I thought. I stood there gap-jawed. My big-ass, boy turkey is sitting on the chicken eggs!
"Are you sure he's a tom?" I asked Jason.
"Yes, Audrey. I'm sure he is a tom."

I don't believe everything my husband tells me, so I asked my neighbor, Kathy, to come look and make sure that he is a tom. I had to usher her in the hen house, since he has been vigilantly maintaining his position on the eggs.
"That's a tom alright."
Kathy is my go-to gal when it comes to poultry questions. She has lived in the country all her life and has kept chickens, guineas, geese, turkeys....I don't know, she probably hatched some ostriches once. So, I am sure she is right about Shaun's sex. She too was baffled by the fact that he is sitting on the eggs.

I don't want to talk bad about my girl chickens, but they are bad mothers. I have never once had to fight one for an egg. Sometimes they don't even bother to lay them in the hay. I find eggs just laying in the dirt outside the chicken house. Shaun has taken pity on their potential offspring, since the hens don't seem to care. I guess we'll see if he hatches any, because I'm not about to move his big butt to get them.

I'm thinking we could make the local media if he hatches these eggs. He'll be known as "Mama Tom", a giant turkey with wee baby chickens. I'm already fantasizing about our thirty second blip on the Oklahoma City news. I'll make aure the hound-dogs are baying in the background. The babies are playing outside in only their diapers. Jason is working on some old clunker. I'll appear for my interview wearing a Nascar t-shirt with spit-up stains on it.
"I done told my husband. That there turkey is gonna hatch dem eggs."

I can feel it. My fifteen minutes are about to happen.

Have Dis

Barrett's latest and most used phrase is "have dis". Have dis means both I want that, and have this. He points at various things and says: "Have dis". He was in the toy aisle with his Meemaw a couple weeks ago, eagerly pointing at every other thing. "Have dis". Meemaw had three different things in the cart and was struggling to negotiate. I helped her sneak out the items that he had already lost interest in, and they settled on a playset with roaring lions.

The second meaning of have dis is the more frustrating of the two. Barrett is a very good helper, and he likes to bring things to the people they belong to. He also likes to bring me things that he has no use for.

Things Barrett has brought me while saying have dis:

• a full glass of tea, which he was holding over his head
• numerous orange peels (he expects me to replace them with a fresh orange slice)
• my shoes (which he waited for me to put on, even though it was eight at night and I was in pajamas)
• a half-consumed cracker
• a sand bur he pulled out of his own foot (he's a tough little turd)
• my debit card ( apparently he found my wallet)
• diapers (I joyfully collect them...he seems to think)

Jason said that he was once rudely awaken by Barrett saying "have dis" and shoving a cold piece of crumpled toast up his nose. I have vainly attempted to rest on the couch, only to have toys and various household items piled on me, Barrett uttering "have dis" with each addition to the pile. Barrett often brings me the broom or the vacuum "have dis". What are you trying to say, Barrett?

Music-O-RAMA

Blogger has been giving me a hard time as of late. Every time I leave a comment, I have a fifty/fifty chance of it actually going through. I wrote a page-long response to Alabaster Mom, only to have it not post. I'm unhappy. This is actually a long-winded response to my lovely sister's blog (her February 2 post), which you will see at the top of my blog list.

Top tracks of 08:

1. Fleet Foxes-- White Winter Hymnal

2.Grizzly Bear-- Knife

3.TV on the Radio--Golden Age

4. Fleet Foxes--- Ragged Wood

5.Department of Eagles-- No One Does it Like You

6. Rapture-- No Sex for Ben

7.Beck--Soul of a Man

8.Bon Iver-- For Emma

9. Republic Tigers--Buildings and Mountains

10.Albert Hammond Jr.---GFC

My desert island list of albums:

1. Radiohead---Bends

2.Beck--Midnight Vultures

3.Fleet Foxes--Fleet Foxes

4. The Strokes -- Is This It

5. Beck --Sea Change

6. Johnny Cash--At Folsom Prison

7.PJ Harvey-- Dry

8.The Beatles --Revolver

9.Notorious B.I.G.----Ready to Die

10. The Rolling Stones----Exile on Main Street

Feel free to comment on my list, or make your own.

Alabaster Mom, we should make a joint music blog. We can call it Alabaster Red......or something.

I Want to Hate the Duggars, but I Can't!

Some sick curiosity draws me to the show "17 Kids and Counting". I consider myself a liberal, modern kind of gal. I share maybe .00002 % of the Duggars values. I really want to find a reason to dislike them. I watch them on t.v. and wait for them to say something hateful, or ignorant, but they never do. They are darn charming, actually. I can't hate them. Can't do it!



There is an episode on right now and Michelle and Jim Bob are in a head shop in San Francisco.....hilarious. They are so innocent. They're admiring how beautiful the hand-blown glass bowls and bongs....eh...I mean tobacco water-pipes are. {If you have ever been in a head shop, then you know that you get immediately ejected if you utter the b-word......I've heard}. They are giving street musicians money and conversing with dirty hippies. I'd be afraid to do both of those things.



Michelle Duggar is actually pretty dang intelligent. I expected her to be backward and ignorant. She's really not. Any time they interview her, I can't help but think "what a smart woman". They try to give the parents questions that they would answer stupidly, but they are never duped. In one episode they question Michelle about giving her female children chores like laundry and dishes, and her boys chores involving yard work. They asked her if she was playing into gender stereotypes. Her response was something to the effect that boys and girls ARE DIFFERENT and that is not a bad thing. I can't disagree. I wouldn't make my daughter (hypothetical daughter, as I do not have one) take out the trash if I had perfectly capable boys sitting around. I wouldn't trust my boys with the laundry, unless I was dying or something. We all knows what happens when boys do laundry...they put too much soap in, the washer overflows, they mix colors and everyone has pink underwear. I think every sitcom has played on this scenario with stunning accuracy.
Perhaps I am backward in some ways.

Don't worry! I'm not going to throw out the birth control and start preaching the gospel.

The Mice I've Murdered

I seem to have a rodent theme this month. I didn't plan on that.

An unfortunate downside to living in the country is that every pest in a two-mile radius sees my home as a beacon of warmth and food. We have experienced several waves of field-mice migration into our home. I used to feel bad for them, because they are darn cute! If I saw one, I wouldn't tell my husband because I knew that he would kill it. After all, they aren't maliciously attacking us or anything. They just want to be away from the cold and have an ample supply of crumbs.

My sympathy for them ceased one day this summer. I was changing the crib linens. I lifted the teddy bear in the corner to expose mouse poo. I screamed in horror. You'd think I found a mountain lion hiding there. Since then it has been war. I would use humane traps, but I don't have time to find new homes for pests. I'm sure that they would just make their way back here anyway. My dogs are useless. I've seen them lay there and watch as a mouse scurries past. "There goes Murray", is what I imagine they think as they hold their position on the couch. So, now there is poison in every nook of the house that I'm sure neither a dog or baby can access. I don't like to think about what the poison does to the mice. I'm sure it's not good. I justify my cruelty by the fact that I have babies and animals, and I cannot have them ingesting rodent excrement.

Recently I have noticed some unusual holes in clothing. Not from wear, but from something eating the fabric. A new batch of immigrants had made the laundry room home. I put out some fresh poison. I can't afford to replace clothing from rodent damage, the hopeless stains that Barrett creatively makes, and Gunther's colossal diaper blowouts.

A few days had passed and I had forgotten all about the holes and the poison. I forgot about all of it until I was leaving one afternoon and a little mouse stumbled out of the laundry room. She was dying from the poison. The little thing sat there, her eyes opening and shutting for a few seconds. She saw me, but couldn't move. Her belly was round and full. She was pregnant, poor girl. She had come here to find a warm place for her babies and now poison was wrecking her innards. Guilt consumed me as I watched her die. "I'm sorry" I mouthed.

I am turning full pest-control duties over to my husband. He is much better at being cruel.


Cute....right?

To the Creature in the Woodpile

Do you have fur, feathers, or scales?
Are you vegetarian, or carnivore?
Why do you stay while the dog wales?
I can't take it anymore.

Why is that stack of wood such a great house?
Is it the view? Do you get rodent HBO?
Do you host all-nighters with your friend the mouse?
Is it warm, even in the snow?

It must be great in there,
worth withstanding the non-stop howling.
Are you in the jacuzzi with your i-pod and you just don't care?
Or are you entranced in the latest J.K. Rowling?

I saw you one time.
A running phantom with a tail.
Still not sure if you are red, or spotted, or covered in grime.
I certainly don't know if you are female or male.

I'm tired of the constant baying.
Aren't you?
Dan doesn't like you staying.
He says: "ah booo, ah booo, ah boo!"

I'll pay you to take his advice.
I'll leave five dollars at your door.
You could buy shampoo for your lice.
You could rent a cottage on the Moore.

Please find another place to live.

Gravy Baby

Gunther is rarely called Gunther, instead we call him "Gravy Baby", or "The Bitties", or sometimes "Goat Baby". He earned "Goat Baby" by the noises he makes, "The Bitties" because we have a little boy and a bitty boy (he is the bitty boy). He is "Gravy baby" because he spits up a lot, all of the time!! He managed to "gravy" every female member of the extended family between Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. I'm considering sewing a burp cloth to all of his clothes.

Don't be concerned about Gravy Baby's health. I have spoken with his pediatrician and we have confirmed that he over eats, and must spew. He is just a bit of a pig. He has this giant belly to confirm his pigginess. At his two month check up his stats were: 25th percentile for height and 75th percentile for weight. Yes, he is short and fat.

At times I shorten his nickname to just "Gravy". I imagine him keeping this nickname. I see him as a strapping young man, driving some big old jeep into the high school parking lot. Some of his friends yell "Hey, Gravy!". He hops out, wearing his football jersey, some girl he flirts with in Calculus walks past. "Hi, Gravy".
I don't think anyone would mess with someone called "Gravy". It's sounds tough....like the biggest guy on the prison block, or a linebacker, or like some long-haired kid who moves pounds of pot through his dorm room. Perhaps I should make a point of calling him Gunther.