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It's 4:38pm and my kids are still in their pajamas

Yep. I know. I may come to regret admitting that in print. But whatever. It's a Snow Day. It's the First Snow Day of the year and the three of us were Very Excited this morning. Especially me. I was So Excited that when the auto-bot from school called my cell phone at 5:45 am to announce the news that school was cancelled due to fear of winter weather, I couldn't really go back to sleep.

The mommies gather at Andrea's house on the First Snow Day of every Snow Event and it's been a long time since our last Snow Event. The kids show up in their footie pajamas and run around her mansion burning off the kind of energy that they usually can't burn off in the 11x23ft rooms of their own homes.

This morning, it was a reunion with bloody marys and potato leek soup. The local CSA is still spitting out greens, so we had fabulous little Iowa-lettuce salads while the snow blew sideways.

The girls and I got home at 1:00. I meant to clean up around here since the universe answered my shameless plea and Zoe did not get the puking flu. I would like to note that the universe got the last laugh. It was me who spent the weekend contemplating the ugly bathroom fixtures from the floor. And I thought Mommies couldn't get the flu. Anyway, I lost five pounds, but my house looks like I didn't lift a finger all weekend. Even after my dear sweet confused hungry husband tried to put it back together again for me. See, we live here. Things don't stay put for long. One of the reasons I was so excited about the First Snow Day was because Ambition reared it's goal oriented head and planned to clean the house. I ignored it and spent the afternoon cruising the internet looking at furniture. And shoes. And chicken coops.

Anyway, it's 4:38pm and my kids are still in their pajamas. To my credit, I did ask them (around 2:00pm) if they'd like to get dressed. They looked at me like that was a stupid question. Real Clothes? Footie Pajamas? Duh Mom.

they keep it a secret until it's too late.

My kid is sick. Along with everyone else's I suppose. She puked every twenty minutes from 9:00 last night until 3:00 this morning. Some kids will puke in the bucket. Mine won't. She likes to throw her six year old body about the room in a zombie-like fit while hollering, "WHY IS THIS HAPPENING!!!!!!" over and over. I respect the fact that even in the midst of severe physical trauma, she is outraged enough to ask the really big philisophical questions.....however, I ran out of antibacterial wipes, washcloths, pajamas (hers and mine) blankets, sheets (top and bottom) and she is now laying on a big towel under two more big towels in one of my tee shirts and her last clean pair of underwear. And she's pissed because the washing machine will only wash so fast.....

I officially send this humble plea out into the universe: Please Please Please don't let the other one catch this bug and Please Please Please let my eleven year old washing machine make it through this challenge and into the new year.

Zoe just brought me something small and brown. "Mommy what is this?"

It is poop.

I have no idea.

I have to go now.

R

are hens that live in tiny cages miserable? I don't know....let's do a double blind placebo study.

Let's hire a consultant, form a committee, call PETA (because they always have such helpful hints,) take a series of votes, write some letters, and discuss it until the problem solves itself. I'm frustrated by some people's unwillingness to make a decision. They don't want to make a mistake, get blamed, or move forward, so they opt for paralysis by analysis. Even when the answer to the question is so very obvious.

OK, so you can catch up, here's a link to the article that our local newspaper picked up off of the AP.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091119/ap_on_bi_ge/us_farm_scene_pitiful_poultry

If you are still reading, then you are either killing time pretending to work and your boss can't see your computer screen, or you might be just a little concerned about the hens.

Here's the thing about doing a study to figure out if caged hens, forced to lay an egg every day for 18-24 months and then gassed and ground into dog food (or fast food chicken nuggets) are miserable. It's a stall because the industry that is responsible for this process makes a lot of money. They give us those dollar a dozen grocery store eggs. And between their need to make money and our need for cheap groceries, there's going to be some backlash when the chicken farms get shut down and our crappy grocery store eggs go up in price. So we do a study to determine if the hens mind being caged until they turn two and then ground up. I can't wait for the results. Who knows, maybe we'll find out that the hens really don't mind at all. And we can move forward with our dollar a dozen crappy grocery store egg buying ways.

Which is really actually good for me. I like the big colorful eggs I get from local farmers. They treat their hens well, feed them kitchen scraps, let them roam around a bit, and never ever put them in a tiny cage. These hens lay eggs for 5+ years. Their eggs are full of nutrients, don't cause heart disease, and taste divine. My little family eats between 3 and 4 dozen a week. For awhile we were even trying to rehabilitate our rescued white labrador retriever, Max, by cracking a raw egg on top of his dog food every morning. I wouldn't feed grocery store eggs to my dog. Even Max got the good stuff.

At some point, people are going to wake up and realize that cheap groceries are also mostly crappy groceries. Or not. Maybe Darwin had a point.

Good luck with the study.

CLUC

We have tee shirts! Head to the CLUC facebook page to find out how to get yours. If you live in Cedar Rapids, CLUC expects to see you at the next council meeting dressed in egg-yolk yellow. Got Eggs??

Our groundswell (as requested by council member Monica Vernon) is sure swelling. The facebook page has been up for exactly one week and we have 325 fans.

Did you know that you can breed pit bulls in your backyard here in Cedar Rapids, Iowa but you can't yet have 6 hens? Hmmmm.......

Here's a few other things that most folks don't seem to know;

Roosters crow. Hens do not. Ever. A hen has never crowed in the history of the world. I promise.

The poop from a hen is useful as garden compost. The poop from a dog needs to be sealed off in plastic and taken to the landfill. It's toxic. And while we are talking poop....5 hens create as much as one 25 pound dog.

You don't need a rooster on site to get a hen to lay an egg.

If you don't have a rooster on site, there will never ever ever be a baby chick in your omelet. I promise.

Hens do less to attract rats and raccoons than your open trash bin does. Let's ban trash.

Hens don't want to run away. They like it at home. If they get loose, they'll be headed back to the coop at sundown. They have no desire to be out in the world when it gets dark.

My lovely children have asked if they can go to the meeting to see the people who are going to vote about whether or not we get to have chickens in the spring.

I said yes.