Sarcasm Cuts

 Yesterday, I painstakingly wrote out a 2 page, front and back, note about all the chores I do so my children would know what to do in my absence. I addressed how much feed to give, which feed for which chickens and chicks, how I care for and prepare the puppy for bedtime, how I care for goats. And so on. This probably took an hour of my time. But I wanted to be thorough so they would not need to message me in the middle of chores. You know, when you have to wait on a response to even finish what you are doing. 

I got a message. and then another. and then another. There IS an outside chance that clarification was needed on top of what I wrote. But one of my children showed absolutely no interest in reading the note from the get-go. This is the same child that messaged. I felt something about htis. Annoyed? Disgruntled and discontent? Something. My pitch: I wrote the note from a place of love. From a place of the more they know the more they would be empowered to do it themselves. I don't care if they don't chore the same way I do. But from the amount of questions I was receiving earlier in the week, I wanted to prepare them adequately. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

I sent them a reminder message to read the note. and one kiddo sent back a thembs up. I replied, "I can tell y'all did not read before ya chored!!" Which set off a chain reaction. "Tf you mean by that?" "Nothin'" followed by a long response from one kid who was seriously upset by my smart remark. Hence my point... sarcasm cuts. I don't really know any other way to communicate. And that probably sounds flip and a little trite. But I am extremely fluent in sarcasm. And while I meant my remark "...y'all did not read before you chored..." because it seemed apparent, I was also gone from them, enjoying woman time, with other women, feeling frolicky (maybe not the right term), feeling free, light, a little bit giddy. I was not feeling a need to micromanage or judge. I just carelessly sent a response full of sarcasm. And for my children who both felt the need to let me have time away and stepped up to help, it cut them. One of them deeply. 

*big sigh* and a pause. In the middle of my giddy-ness. I pause to cry. Our conflict at home lately has been frequent, wearing and large. No small thing. In the blink of an eye, there it was, with me. Confronting me. Convicting me. Pursuing me. 

I so want to say all this yuckiness at home has nothing to do with me, but that isn't true. In part, it has everything to do with me. I taught my girls their coping skills, their processing skills and in the midst of our trauma I am more and more aware that those skills are sorely lacking in me. So how could I teach my children healthy skills? So there is that. But this is now, not then and they are adults and responsible for their own healing. So I am not solely responsible. But today's responsibility is this: when you know better, do better. And I have an obligation today to encourage healing, growth, relationship and communication. I am going to have to learn more ways of communicating than sarcasm. I am not so fluent in any other style of communication, any other language. Sarcasm has always been my way. The only way. In sorrow. In laughter. In addiction. In recovery. In everything. 

There is still so much to learn. Today I thank God I have time to learn and that these relationships can heal. That is my hope. My desire. My goal. Dear Lord, make this my prayer today. And teach me how to live. and how to love. 

March is the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge to blog everyday for the month of March. The month snuck up on me and I missed days one and two. But I brought my computer along to women's sleepover (no men, no kids, no pets) to sneak away and blog. This is today's slice. To read more slices, follow the link or click on the orange. 

Feeling Frantic

 I'm off to see the wizard! Okay, I already live in Oz, so it's not that far of a jaunt, right? Actually I'm off to a Women's Sleepover. No husbands, pets, or kids. I can't wait. But.... I'm already behind and still packing. And panicking. And I feel like I have little rip off's of posts for my Slice's so far this March. But I do NOT want to miss it completely. I am taking my computer and plan to sneak off to the coffee shop tomorrow to write and sip coffee in peace. 

I still have to pack crafting supplies.... I said I'd lead a craft, why I said that I don't know now. I can't really believe that I said it. Not because I won't enjoy it, I will. I like that kind of stuff. I was a Creative Memories consultant and LOVED it. And I was a teacher, and loved that. So.... it is just my supreme lack of organization and planning that is biting me in the ass today. And causing more panic, more distress.

I still have to pack snacks. Oh boy. 

What I do have done.... clothes are packed, bedding is packed, kids' instructions for all the chores I do around here that nobody really notices but the darn place can't run without them, that lengthy list and instruction letter is done.

It is almost 4 and dinner is at 5 and it's a 30 minute drive. Oh boy. Feeling so panicked makes kind of shut down. My brain works slower, my limbs literally move more slowly, I feel a little numb, and a lot like I'm in the Twilight Zone. 

But I gotta keep my eye on the prize.... Women's Sleepover. No husband (not that it matters since I've been single twice as long as I was married), no kids (woohoo! I love 'em but I need a break....) and no pets (it's not so much the pets I need a break from as the other animals (chicks: baby chicks and half grown chicks, silkie chickens, various breeds of full-sized chickens, and our ducks). Oh I guess pets in this regard.... the new puppy. I loves him. I do. But he's a baby and that = work. 

So I'm off! To finish packing and to see the wizard-ette (is that a witch?)! Happy Slicing! Be sure to comment on other slices. Read everyone's Slice of Life

here

Five Things.... a glimpse of my day

 Five Things.... 

Five things about today. 

One.... I got up at 4 am, which is stupid-early for me. We (my youngest) had a doctor appointment with a specialist and it was a 3-ish hour drive. So..... we left here a couple minutes before 5 a.m., and it's a good thing we left when we did because we live in the boonies, and there is no such thing as a morning rushhour or traffic jams. 

Two.... the Dr. visit was good. It was more like maintenance. We were on the road home after labs and everything by 10:30 this morning. 

Three.... I was ecstatic to get home and love on my puppy. He is a joy. He's going to need some training. He chased the ducks today and didn't stop when I tried to call him. We are pricing shock collars as I type. 

Four.... one of the baby chicks has splay leg and is a little weak and idk.... not great. So I cleaned his face (one eye wouldn't open for some reason), and we made a little makeshift splint (?) out of a hair rubber band and a plastic straw piece, and then I dunked his head in the water so that he would drink. I'll check on him again later and see if I can get him to drink a little more so he'll get stronger. 

Five.... tonight is the night I share dinner with my friends. They call it "fellowship meal" and all I have to do is show up and I get fed. I get some social time and a meal. It's a total win for me. And I'm sure its a win for them too because they get the pleasure of my company. bwahahahahaha. 

That's my five things for today. 

If you want to read more about other people's Slice of Life, follow the link, or click on the orange. 

"Hello There" a fun format to try

 Hello There...

I am a crazy chicken momma, living her best life, and aspiring to be an old hippie.

I keep thinking I'm gonna make ends meet one day soon, but I'm not so sure.... 

I wish the world would spin a little slower. Life's going by too fast.

I love baby animals of all kinds. They just make me happy. I am currently loving on a baby pup, our new Livestock Guardian Dog, Duke, who is just in training now, as he's only 8 weeks old. 

I dance to the oldies. Brown-eyed Girl always makes me want to cut a rug.

I sing in the car... a lot. It's not usually on-key. But oh well.

I think but not too often. Seriously though, I'm an empath. Whatever I feel, I do.

I really would like to stay home and snuggle my puppy today. But I am going out of town today.  

I need .... peace of mind. Life is chaotic at best.

I should leave the worry to a power greater than myself, because I'm just not all that powerful.

I can do all things through Christ, but there are a lot of things I don't really want to do anymore. 

I like black coffee, leggings, little chicks, puppies and kitties. People not so much anymore.  

I make the best of what I can and try not to mope too long if things don't go according to my plan. 

I always find hope. Sometimes it takes longer than other times, but it will show up again. My Dad could never be kept down and every day he awoke excited for the day. I wish I had that level of hope and excitement, but I know I got my dogged determination from my Dad as well. 

I found this format last year during the Slice of Life challenge and today I went back and found it so I could reuse it. I thought it was fun. 

Today I teach my neice and nephew science "in person." There are 2 zoom days, 2 independent assignment days and today, in-person day. I look forward to this day every week. It is a 45 minute commute to my sister's house and she pays my gas and usually pays me in other ways too, often sending different kinds of meat home with me. Meat is so expensive these days. I'm so grateful for all the help. By the way sis, we're set on german sausage for a little bit, and bacon too. I can NOT wait to make all the things with bacon..... french toast with a side of bacon, BLT's, Bacon cheeseburgers, just to name a few. 

The wind if still biting, but the sun is shining. I'm so grateful for the sunshine today. 

If you want to read more Slices of Life, follow the link. Or click on the giant orange slice. 

Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow....

 Yesterday.... 

When I think of yesterday, 

I think of all the lifetimes I have lived.

I remember the pain,

the heartaches, 

the failures.

So much loss, confusion,

pain, and ignorance.

Today.... 

I have hope.

I believe that I am worthy of forgiveness,

that I can be accountable for my actions,

I can be free of my past.

Tomorrow....

is not here yet. 

I will let tomorrow worry about itself, 

I don't know what tomorrow holds.

-Carrie Horn

Today my slice is using the format.... yesterday- today- tomorrow. I put my own twist on it. Thinking of the old addage: yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery.... I forget the today part. My brain is kind of mashed potatoes tonight. 

To read other slices of life follow the link.

A Day in the Life, Springtime Version

Well, well, well.... deep subject, right? I just tried to edit a picture caption and my entire post disappeared and no amount of "undo" was fixing it. So here I am, retyping the entire post. *sigh*

Springtime on the farm is a time for new life. Any chicken people will tell you the pull of the farm store is strong this time of year. Maybe I'll just "look" at the baby chicks.... and take 6 or 12 or 15 home with me. Do not let me in the store with money in my account or cash in my pocket! Yikes! 

It's also time for lots of new life at the Poultry auction. All sorts of new life. In fact, I have so many slices that can generate from auction! But for today, I will stay closer to home. Like my kitchen countertop. Because doesn't every small time farm girl keep an incubator on her kitchen countertop? I have a dream that one day when our very pieced together, somewhat sketchily built back room/porch area is completely insulated, that we'll be able to set up the incubator back there. But as of now, temperatures still fluctuate too much back there and wreak havoc on the temperature control in the incubator. And the humidity, which isn't as relevant any more since we've switched to dry incubating. And this one is even a dry hatch. Previously, I have added water to bring the humidity up for hatching once we reach "lock down." Lock down, when the egg turner rack comes out and water is added and the human does not open the lid or mess with the humidity at all. Which I still don't. And lock down is still a thing even though we're not adding the water. Except that.... I am "only" doing the part where I don't open the incubator at all. Saturday night I thought to myself, "I should maybe check on our baby chicks in the incubator, I think they're only a few days from hatch." Maybe I should have had that thought 12-24 hours earlier because when I looked in the window, two chicks had hatched already! Today, Monday, there were 12 chicks hatched and several more "pipped." When they pip, it means they have chipped through the shell and are making a hole to break out of. When they get a line around the shell that looks  to me like a zipper then I say they are "zipped." Is this is a chicken term? I'm not sure if it's one of the many terms I've learned in the four years that I've been incubating eggs, or if it is something I just pulled out of my wacky-weird cranium as a way to describe the hatching process. 

Hatch days are a little bit like Christmas.... there's a ton of excitement and anticipation, you have some idea what you're gonna get, but there are a ton of details that you will get surprised about. Like coloring. Our hens this time are all silkies, some are satin silkies, but we had removed all the cochin bantams that weren't silkies or satin silkies from our hens before gathering these eggs. They are all black, white, or some combination or black/white. We have a couple "low expression" splash hens and one very "high expression" splash hen (this is a white feathered bird with a "splash" of black on it. The low expression hens have just tiny little black dots and not a whole lot of them, but the more prolific one, the high-expression one, is white with lots of black "splashed" on her feathering in varying size patterns. This hatch might have the possiblity of having our previous silkie Roo as the "father", and we have a little red Cochin Frizzle Roo we named Mr. Red. Our last Silkie roo was just a little too submissive and most, if not all, of our babies were fathered by Mr. Red. So to auction he did go (the silkie roo). We have since acquired another Silkie Roo that we named Mr. Sassafrass. Cuz he's got some sass in his "frass." Mr. Sass will not have any babies in this hatch, but in a few days I'll be re-loading the incubator and then we'll have some eggs that would be his. 

Our new-to-us Roo, Mr. Sassafrass

Our cochin Frizzle Roo, Mr. Red.
You can tell by the pic that we don't bring them in, even in the extremest of temps, 
as he has a little evidence of frostbite on his comb. 

Today we are watching closely to see what surprises the incubator will bring us. So far, by my count, we had 12 at 1pm. I can't wait to get home from town and count again! 

I was hoping I had taken a picture where you could see a splash that we hatched, but I don't think I have one. The other two photos I had were blurrier. It is hard to get a good picture through that window. 

I'm adding a few photos of chicks in varying stages of development. We've been preparing for March and April auction since the first of November! 

This is from our first hatch of this season, they hatched on Thanksgiving Day!
This chick has the features of a Satin Silkie, the feathering being more "satin" and not the thinner, fluffier silkie type feather. I think the coloring on this bird is amazing and it is super soft to pet. 

This little one is called a Sizzle, he's a silkie/frizzle. I don't know if he is actually a he, I have not heard any crowing yet at all. 

This lil dude is from our last hatch (the one before this current, happening-right-now hatch). He's probably 5 weeks old. Most of this pen is going through the awkward tween phase. This guy is a little ugly-cute, but he's mostly cute. He is a Sizzle. 

There was one more hatch between the two, but they are all in their ugly, awkward stage. I am hoping and praying (fingers crossed) that they get cuter soon.

So that is today's "slice of life." The miracle of new life and the excitement of hatch days. 

To read about other "slices of life" follow this link to Two Writing Sisters, Slice of Life Challenge, Day 3, and find lots of other posts in the comments! 

"Get Over It"?! Really?! Ranting here because so far, MY freedom of speech isn't censored.

 Yesterday I came across a post on a "Christian" "friend's" page. It really got me hot and fired up. One thing about the Republican Right that I see is the sharing of opinion as fact and then stating, "that's a fact" and then carrying on about how the liberal left are liars. Usually this accusation is accompanied by name-calling... snowflakes, libtards, etc. But calling a group of people liars is ridiculous, because a) you don't know the entire body of people, and b) from what I can tell, you can't name an actual real account of lies, but rely heavily on what others (conservative "Christian" radio for one) say. I mean, if the good reverend said it, it must be true. 

Here's a link to the post. I'm sure its viral amongst these good, Christian people. And yes, my bias is showing. My blog, my opinions. Which I will temper with tidbits of truths. Because we all know the saying about opinions. 

Point number 1 of this post mentions, and states it as a fact:  "We are pulling the economic weight in this country and we are tired of pulling the weight of those that do not contribute."

Who in the hell established that people who are unhappy with the person elected into the white house in the position of the 47th president are not contributors?! This is not fact. It is literal bullshit. (Remember, opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one and it generally stinks). This is a direct affront on pretty much any minority in this country right now, or dare I say, any marginalized population. It is a slam to people of color, to immigrants, to the working class, to the impoverished, and many others of your neighbors, you good Christians that you are. 

Same objection to point number 2! I was just going to copy the really idiotic parts of this point, but now here I am, copying the entire section. Here it is in its glory: If you haven't already, get a job. Every business in the country is hiring. And you get paid for the work you do. And the harder you work and the more you learn, the faster you will advance, and the more you will earn. It's an amazing concept.

Here we come to my point of contention: "If you haven't already, get a job." This is extremely assumptive and diminuitive, to just believe that people who don't like your president are people who don't or won't work. This is an extremely over-accepted view and that is rampant among a large throng of the population. But it's not based in reality. Apparently, statistically, it is harder to get to the polls to vote if you are holding down a job. Many Americans would vote if they could get to the polls without losing those oh-so-plentiful jobs you are talking about. And let's talk about those, shall we? Where does your information come from about said jobs? Anyone can look at some business's hiring sign and say.... jobs are abundant, you just aren't looking. The thing is, when there is pool of workers that is as overwhelming as it is in this market, industry doesn't even have to personally skim through those applications that the candidates literally spent hours and days filling out. There are systems for this stuff, and people are filtered out by algorithms and AI. Surely not. Surely the fact that I'm a hard worker and I have the references and letters of recommendation to prove it will catapult me to the top of the list, front of the line. Nope. I never even make the line/list. "Thank you for your interest in this position, we have chosen to follow another line of interest at this time and encourage you to apply again in the future." Or some such similar bullshit. I could carry on in this area for a long time with RAW DATA, you know, personal experience of myself and my family members. But there's so much more to rant about....

"And you get paid for the work you do. And the harder you work and the more you learn, the faster you will advance, and the more you will earn. It's an amazing concept."

Too bad it's just a concept and not reality. Let's start with "and you get paid for the work you do...." That is the hope. But people are being scammed out of their time and labor every day. If you are in an immigrant, you can be preyed upon again and again and again. "The harder you work and more you learn...." really?! Because that isn't what is see. I see that who you know and who you can schmooz is really what it is about. Also, hard workers are generally taken advantage of. If you work circles around your co-workers, expect to be given more responsibility for the same pay or a token raise that isn't really equal to the responsibility piled on. I have seen this over an over again. I do give all I have to jobs, but I'm too ADHD to really get ahead of the crowd. But I have a lot of highly intelligent, organized friends. And I have watched them get driven into the ground with added responsibility because they worked harder and learned more than their colleagues.

But this is also the place where we talk about the difference between working class jobs and middle class jobs. Maybe you middle class people have the voting power and this is YOUR president ("get over it...."), but you do not work harder than entry level workers. There are not more exhausting jobs than the jobs you find in fast food, in housekeeping, in retail cashier positions. Not to mention that working conditions are generally brutal. Standing, walking, pivoting on cement floors for 8 or 9 hours at a time. Being expected to "be the face of the company" while the ones making the money are sitting at a desk and sipping coffee and eating snacks and donuts and whatever they desire throughout their work day, while the "lower level" employees get the privilege of doing that during their 15 minute gvernement mandated break. And they are welcome to sit down during that time, but you know, once you're on the clock, "if you have time to lean, you have time to clean..." Who says that anyway?! People who don't have to clean if they lean. Entry level workeres are blowing out knee joints and hips doing minimum wage jobs. Making less money, getting less sleep, working more hours and maybe multiple jobs, to keep a roof over their families heads. But yeah, IF they can do it, long enough, and hard enough, they can advance. It's not the same as starting out in middle class. But if, and only if, they can make it to that next level of society, they might get to start taking care of their health. Those government health programs that yall are bitching about people getting for nothing, don't actually work that way. And furthermore, when you live in the cut throat world of minimum wage jobs, you don't have the luxury of being sick, of going to doctor appointments, or scheduling hours of treatments to improve your health. Let's face it. You're replaceable. But yes, please, keep accusing "these people," the people that in my experience work the hardest in the harsher environments for the least wages, of being ungrateful whiners who just don't want to improve their own situation. Who are just bitching and moaning because your middle class Christian president just cut the affordable prescription legislation and our generic meds are now double and triple what they were because of our "free" health care that us lazy people get.

Whelp! I have so much more to say, but I know that tomorrow or the next day when I get riled up again, my soapbox will be just a keyboard away and I'll come back to this (or I won't) and I'll rant about whatever is stuck in my working class craw. Because lets face it, these rants are physically and mentally draining and I'm out of steam.

P.S. I love Jesus. But please don't call me a Christian. These are people I am coming to despise on an ever-deepening level.