Years.

For years we’ve been doing the right thing.

We got married on a Friday for under $300, and we stayed in a discount hotel room for our wedding night.  Saturday morning was the Bean’s hard class and he didn’t want to risk falling behind, so we didn’t even take the weekend off.

We rented a duplex that shared a backyard with hoarders.  We could have afforded better, but it was the wise financial decision….. right up until we found out that even though we were paying the landlord he wasn’t paying the bank, and the bank foreclosed on our little home.

We could have afforded a small apartment, but it wasn’t nearly as smart as moving in with my parents and sharing the rent.  We took two bedrooms, they took a bedroom and the garage, and we split the yard.  They cut us a great deal on babysitting so I could go back to work.

Still.

We lived with my parents for three years, right at the start of our marriage.

It was the right thing to do.

When the time came to trade in my old car with almost 200,000 miles for something better, I daydreamed about trucks.  I knew they were completely impractical… but on the other hand, a Honda Element wasn’t.  I researched, and plotted, and planned, and drooled about a late model orange Honda Element with a cute little camping package…..

But I got a plain brown Honda Civic instead.  The Bean was able to finagle a great price on them through his work, it was cheaper with better gas mileage and a nicer warranty, and it was the financially smart thing to do.

We could have afforded a horse lease while I was living in California.

Instead, we saved our money – it just made good financial sense.

While our peers were going out to dinner, and movies, and on vacations, and bought new clothes and hired baby sitters….we went to work.  And school.  And home.  Then we went right back to work and school, and then we did it all over again.

I’m not complaining – it was the smart thing to do, and because we made the right choices, tiny little smart choices over and over, it’s why we were able to jump right in and buy a house when we moved here, instead of renting somewhere.

When The Bean traveled up here to the Portland area in January on a whirlwind trip to meet his accounting firm as well as to look at houses, I desperately wanted to come with him.  I wanted to meet the state, and see the area, and help choose my very first house.

It would have cost several hundred dollars extra – so we decided it wasn’t the smart thing to do.  It wasn’t financially wise.

Etc, etc, etc, etc…. You get the point.

With one or two exceptions, when it came time to make a decision, we have always made the right choice – the smart choice, the financially sound choice.

This is my first winter in the Pacific Northwest.  Except for the times when I put on layers of waterproof everything on all three of us, I’m going to be trapped inside with two hyperactive little boys, learning how to deal with grey skies and rain.  I have plenty of things I need to take care of.  The last thing I need to push me over the edge of sanity is a puppy, no matter how cute.

No matter how fuzzy.

No matter how adorable.

Even if I did want a puppy, there are plenty of animals needing homes.  With the exception of horses, I’ve never paid a penny to acquire an animal.   Every cat I’ve ever owned, every dog that’s been a part of my life – they’ve all been “free” – as free as owning an animal can be, that is.

Why would I plunk down money on a purebred animal when pedigree has never mattered to me?

It’s not like I’m going to do field trial competitions, or show a dog. Sure, you get the chance to know more about the animal and the bloodlines they’re coming from, but do I really need to dump money on a luxury like that?

With all of the free dogs on Craigslist, why would anybody pay money for a well bred one, even if the stud dog is pretty magnificent?

It’s not like we’re a duck hunting family. That kind of talent would just be a waste.

Pretty is as pretty does….. and I can barely remember to brush my hair in the mornings, so show conformation would also be a waste on me.

If we want a purebred,  we don’t need to go hunting for a breeder……. even if there does happen to be a truly great one within driving distance who has an impeccable reputation for producing quality, calm, intelligent Labradors.

I mean, sure there’s a difference in energy level between an field-bred, American-style Labrador and a calmer British-bred Labrador…. and there’s also the difference in head style, with those British labs having big, beautiful, blockheads that look like they’re straight out of a painting….. but that’s just icing on a cake.  Pretty doesn’t make a dog, and there are plenty of Labrador rescues teeming with young, child-friendly dogs all over the Pacific Northwest.  Admittedly, most of those dogs are going to need some heavy training to learn how to be good house pets, but I’ve done it before, and I can do it again.

Sure, it’d be nice to know the family history of a pup, but I’ve managed just fine in the past with whatever rescue dog I’ve acquired, so why change that now….. Even if the puppies’ mother has big, soft, soulful eyes like this:

Even if she is mellow, and sweet, and looks like she’d be your best friend for life:

You can find a great dog anywhere.  There’s no reason to pay money – that’s just…. that’s just silly.  It…. It doesn’t even make any sense.

But sometimes…. sometimes you just have to do something a little crazy.

A little zany.

A little dumb.

When the Bean and I were discussing the possibility of adding to our family, he said something that resonated with me.

“Becky, we’re going to have this dog until we’re in our forties.  Why not get the dog we really want?”

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how right he was.

Why not?

So, Internet, meet Artemis:

The breeder, Merganser Labradors, breeds some of the most incredible Labradors I’ve ever seen – and I did a lot of internet research once we started dreaming bigger, beyond Craigslist.  They have a fantastic reputation on the internet forums for producing healthy, intelligent, British-type blockhead  Labradors with brains, beauty, and a steady temperament. 

I hope you’ve enjoyed the photos on this post, because they all came to me from the breeder’s incredibly talented husband, and they’re probably the best photos we will ever have of our new little girl.

She’s coming home in a week and I have to admit, I’m pretty excited.  Aside from my little car and this house, I don’t think I’ll have ever owned anything quite this nice.

Look, I’ve read the “Backyard Chickens are awesome” literature.

I’ve scanned the forums.

I’ve joined the Facebook pages.

They discuss shavings versus sand, and how to build nesting boxes, and other mundane details like that.  They’re useful, but the truth is nobody seems to talk about what owning chickens is REALLY like, so I thought I’d let you know:

1. Chickens are lazy.  I mean, LAZY.  My three hens get up about dawn, industriously scratch around for an hour or so, and then go stand in a corner of the yard and recover.  After a little relaxing, they’ll scratch around for a bit longer, then retire back into the coop for a nice, long, three hour nap.

   They’ll get up, eat some more, and then go to bed right about dusk to sleep for the next 12 or so hours.

   Dude. 

   You guys are chickens.  I give you food, water, shelter, and absolutely nothing to do.  You don’t run.  You don’t fly.  All you have to do is lay the occasional egg.  You don’t even have to sit on it, either.  All you have to do is poop it out somewhere and I’ll run along behind you, cleaning it up.  So, what’s with all the sleeping and resting?  I am chasing around two young children all day, and you don’t see me taking naps all day long…

   Also, in other news, I am jealous of my chickens.

2. Chicken sh*t.

   No, it’s not chicken poop.

   Dogs poop.  They poop two or three times a day in neat, easily-spottable piles that are simple to clean up.

   Chickens…. sh*t.

   Like, all day long.

   I MEAN, ALL DAY LONG.  Maybe that’s why they’re so tired all the time – if I had to run to the bathroom and poop 4,312 times a day, I imagine I’d be a little worn out, too. 

   Have you ever had one of those moments where you wish you could go back in time to the way you were in the past, when you were young, and innocent, and life was still full of surprises and promises?

   This is kind of how I feel about the chicken sh*t.  I guess I always imagined that chickens would poop just like every other bird in the world seems to poop:

   

   See?  Bird poo.  It’s white, kind of watery, and if you stepped on it, you probably wouldn’t even notice. 

   Dear prospective chicken owners:  OMG, PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO ME.  THIS IS NOT HOW CHICKENS POO. 

   This is a chicken poo:

   

   I’ve seen medium-sized dogs that left behind smaller piles than that.

   Now, imagine this…. only each hen does it about four thousand times a day, wherever the heck she wants.

   It’s like having three non-potty-trained chihuahuas running around my yard, and their only mission in life seems to be winning a competition about who can nap and poop the most.

   There has got to be some kind of way to harvest this output.  I feed my chickens a little bit of chicken scratch each day,  a couple of baby carrots as a treat, and in return they gift me with one or two eggs and 2-3 pounds of poo each day.

   That….. that isn’t even mathematically possible.  How are they doing that?  Cognitively I understand that this is impossible…. and yet I have the evidence…. the fresh evidence on the bottom of my shoes, the tops of my shoes, all over the kids’ shoes.  Don’t even get me started on what I find in the chicken coop each day.

3. If you own a cat it is impossible to leave the house without bringing some cat hair with you on your clothes.  I don’t care if you pull your outfit out of a dry cleaning bag, get dressed in a hermetically sealed chamber, and walk through a vacuum tunnel out the front door – the second you get to work, you will find yourself covered in cat hair.

   The same holds true with horses, only in their case it has to do with dirt:  there is no such thing as “I’m just gonna stop by the stables and drop off a board check on my way to work—- I won’t get dirty.” No matter how careful you are, even if you never actually get within fifty feet of your horse, you’ll still slip back into your car, glance down, and discover that you are trailing hay, horse hair,  dirt under your fingernails, and the foamy green flecks from a horse sneeze.  You can’t stay clean.  It’s impossible.  If you try to convince me otherwise, I’m going to call you a liar.

   Chicken sh*t.  So, yeah.  I don’t have a lot of experience with chickens, so maybe it’s just me, but I cannot venture into that backyard without getting covered, head to toe, in chicken sh*t.

   I thought I had managed it one time – I slipped out the front door, tiptoed carefully through the grass to the coop, lifted the door and gave them some fresh water.  I tiptoed back to the house, checked my shoes, and cheered.  I’d done it!  NO CHICKEN POO!  YAAAY!All was well until I sat down on the couch to watch a little television, and….sniff, sniff..… I knew that smell.

   I went to look in the mirror, and sure enough – chicken sh*t.  In my hair.  It was piled up there like the world’s ugliest hat, or maybe some kind of really, really low-budget toupee.  Lovely.

   It turns out that I had used my head to prop open the door, and one of the chickens had left a giant, fresh turd spackled to the wall, just waiting for me and my freshly-washed hair.

4. Chicken eggs:  You know they lay them, and still – it’s just a complete shock to walk out there in the morning and discovered your chickens made you breakfast while you slept.  It’s completely awesome.

   Also, double yolks… how awesome is that?

   The only thing that’s kinda gross is when you go out there to collect the eggs, and it’s still hot from being inside the chicken…. as well as kind of slimy.  And that’s when you realize—eww.  I’m about to eat something that was inside this chicken’s vagina only a few moments ago.

   I let my eggs sit in the fridge for a day or two before I eat them.  It helps me forget where they’ve been.

5. Stupid:  Chickens are STUPID.  We all kind of knew this – they don’t exactly have the world’s biggest heads.  That said, they range in stupidity.  Moaning Myrtle (so named because she keeps up a constant stream of complaining, no matter how nice her conditions are)  is actually pretty bright for a chicken.  She comes when called, she understands that I bring food, and she was the first one to understand how to use the chicken coop ramp.

   Tanesha, on the other hand…. well, she’s blonde.  And dumb.  She’s really dumb, even for a chicken.   I sincerely hope the Craigslist lady I had the misfortune of emailing never googles and finds this, because her feelings will probably be hurt when she finds out I named the stupid chicken after her.

   Tanesha gets confused by simple things – like, for instance, if she is an inch off the ground.  If you pick her up and make her stand on your hand, she’s too stupid to jump down, even though she desperately wants off your hand.  It’s confusing.  I mean, she’s up there, and the ground’s aaaaaaalll the way down there.  What’s a chicken to do?

6. Speaking of eggs….. MOANING MYRTLE LAID A VELOCIRAPTOR EGG.  I’m not joking.  I’m pretty sure my chicken just attempted to recreate dinosaurs, or at the very least, branch off and give birth to some kind of lizard or turtle.  I went out there two days ago, and in addition to Martha Stewart’s neat, pristine little egg…. there was a creepy little monstrosity of an egg.  Apparently chickens going through puberty need to take a couple of practice runs at laying eggs – and one of the examples of a starter egg is a “soft shelled” egg.

   “Soft shelled” sounds so cute, and innocent.  It sounds like something you might take a picture of, and hang in a little girl’s room next to a poster of a basketful of kittens.

   It’s not. 

   It was a leathery, horrible, wrinkled egg that looks like it was composed of human skin, was pliable to the touch, and it must have been fresh because as the day went on (I had it on the counter to show The Bean when he came home from work), it shriveled and hardened up until it was so creepy I had no choice but to throw it away.  I eat eggs.  I don’t eat human-skin covered dinosaur fetuses.

   Today she didn’t even bother with an egg.  She just squatted and splatted out a yolk on the shavings. 

   It’s just…. it’s just creepy.  Also…. come on, chicken. You have one job.  Lay an egg.  That’s it.  Now you’re suddenly too lazy to even bother putting a shell on it?  REALLY?

7. The smell.  I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you, what with all the chicken sh*t and all, but chickens kind of stink.  I’m not saying they’re not worth it, but…. you might as well know the truth.  Chickens smell like chickens, and there’s no getting around that.

8. Once you have chickens it is MANDATORY that you keep your yard absolutely pristine.  What does it look like when you have a couple of tools or kid’s toys left out in your yard?  It’s not that bad, right?  Now imagine the same scenario, only you have three chickens wandering around those items, pecking at them, scratching, and pooing all over the place?

   Voila! Instant white trash!  You can almost picture the sagging, rain-rotted mattress leaning against the wall of the house and the too-skinny dog on the chain, can’t you?  They may not be there yet, but between the chickens and the stuff laying in your yard, everyone knows it’s just right around the corner

   Yeah.  Once you have chickens, your sloppy yard days are a thing of the past – at least, they are if you want to hold your head up around the neighbors.

9. Dirty: CHICKENS ARE DIRTY.  I didn’t realize this at first.  I kept those chickens locked up in their coop for a week.  The guy I bought them from told me “a couple of days”.  I wasn’t taking any chances – I kept them locked up in a tiny little area for a week just to be sure, and on the seventh day, right before I set them free, I clipped their wings.  HA.  Take that, chickens.  You’re mine…. mine, I tell you!  Let’s just see you try and run away, now.

   Where was I?

   Oh, yeah.  Dirty chickens.  For a week straight I’d been cleaning the chickens daily, sometimes even twice a day,  keeping the shavings fresh and clean, removing all of their millions of poos, replacing the damp shaving with pristine, piney-smelling new ones. 

   What did they do the second I set them free?

   All three chickens ran down the ramp and immediately dove into the dirt, scratching, fluffing, and rolling like I’d been depriving them of some basic chicken need for filth.  Tanesha and Moaning Myrtle busied themselves in the dirt with a frantic frenzy, but Martha Stewart at actually stopped mid-fluff to turn around and stare at me indignantly before returning to her rolling.  “Do you see what a terrible job you’ve done taking care of us?  Now we have a week’s worth of filth to rub into our feathers all at once.  Damn you and your cleanly ways.”

   Note to self:  Next time provide chickens with filth-infested, poop-spackled coops to provide ultimate happiness.

10. Companionship:  There is something incredibly soothing about sitting in the back yards, watching chickens peck at nothing.  Maybe it’s because I come from Okie stock.  I don’t know – whatever it is, it makes me happy to see them.  Even better, after only a week of owning them, even though they’d never been handled before, they follow me around the yard, clucking in subdued, inquiring little voices.  I’m trying to teach them tricks – and by tricks, I basically mean I’m trying to teach them to come to me when I call.  We’ll see if they actually get it – their heads are pretty small, so I’m not really hopeful.  Even if they don’t, when I go out tomorrow they’ll great me with some soft, worried complaints, some funny little head bobs, and maybe even an egg or two, so it’s worth it.

It’s definitely worth it, chicken sh*t and all.