Who You Calling Chicken?

It all started with a text message. That was it. Nothing sinister, just one text. It's all so innocent at first, and then before you know it, you are walking around the backyard trying to avoid stepping in chicken crap. Yes, I am aware the correct term is chicken shit, and believe me- no one was more happy than I was to have a real, live, legitimate reason to use the phrase "chicken shit" in context, however, in an effort to keep the Swears in check, the s-h-i-t word will be banned until I run out of willpower. Or synonyms.

So...the chickens. One night when Riley was at work and I was all by my lonesome watching random documentaries on Netflix instant view, I sent off the following message to my better half:

"I think we should move to a ranch and live off the land"

Oh...if only I had known the impact that simple sentence would have! If only I had taken a few milliseconds before releasing my little baby bird of a text message out into the universe to fly away and land in the brain of my Idaho-Farm-Boy-At-Heart husband, I would have broken my fingers before I let them type the text message that let that idea take wing. Okay fine, I'm being dramatic. I would only have needed to break my thumbs. But fly away, it did, nonetheless. And lo and behold - the baby bird turned out to be a chicken.

It wasn't long before I was bombarded - BOM.BAR.DED - with a series of messages back from Riley outlining the types of animals we should raise and informing me that he had already found the perfect property. Even after all that, I think it was the repeated assurances that you really can milk pygmy goats that sent me into crisis mode trying to keep things from getting out of hand. I'll just point out here that AT THE TIME I WROTE THE MESSAGE, I was serious. Fast forward to a few seconds later when I became the Little Dutch Boy...and you'll figure out why my mind changed.

Essentially, the point I was originally trying to make when all of this happened was that we really should start eating organic and take charge of where our food is coming from and what we are putting into our bodies. As I thought about it - and especially where we live - it wouldn't take all that much to go forward with [a toned down version] of Riley's suggestion. However, since moving isn't really an option at this point and our quarter-acre lot won't fit the chickens, goats, and cow Riley would like to put there, we ended up compromising on just chickens. I know it's cheaper to buy organic eggs than own chickens. But with this solution, Riley gets to have a bit of his farmer side satisfied, I get my eggs and my chicken poop fertilizer for the garden, and The Tyke gets new chores cleaning out the chicken coop. Everybody's happy.

If I were to be really honest here, I'll admit that if we could make it happen, I would seriously consider moving out to some property where we can live in a more sustainable way. But don't tell that to Riley yet. I think it's best if I keep that idea cooped up for a while. I'm just too chicken.