Green eggs, but no ham...

After months of wondering why my chickens were being too lazy to lay eggs, they finally gave us a Christmas miracle. On Christmas Eve they laid their very first egg. This is unusual since the lack of a sufficient number of daylight hours usually means chickens stop laying during the winter months. However, that is not the only weird thing about this egg. The strangest part is...it's green! Yep green eggs.

Now, for those of you that have been a reader for awhile, you may recall that last June we played a joke on my daughter by painting an egg gold and putting it in the pen for her to find. (We still have not told her it was a joke.) See the following for that story: The Golden Egg So when my daughter brought this green egg to me I figured it was paybacks. I figured someone dyed an egg green and placed it in the pen. Well, unless someone has a lot of time on their hands to keep repeating it, the egg is real. We have found about a half dozen more of them since then. We are getting at least one green egg a day now.

I have Googled "Green Eggs" and after sorting through all the Dr. Suess links, I can only find a small number of articles about blue eggs. These are laid by some rare South-American chickens. My chickens do not look like the ones in the pictures for those articles. Besides, those are blue eggs, not green. I even called my friend Dena since she raised chickens as a kid. Her purely scientific expert response was, "Maybe they are alien chickens?" Uhhhh....I don't think so Dena. lol

The only thing I can think of, and this is strictly a theory, is that the blue spotlight I put inside their coop to help keep them a little warmer is affecting them? I am considering changing it to a red bulb to see what happens. I had originally thought of putting a red bulb in anyway but, thought that looked too much like the heat lamps they use for keeping the roasted chickens warm at the supermarket! It just seemed to sadistic. If changing the light changes the eggs, I am going to start producing eggs pre-dyed for Easter!

Let me hear your theories on my alien chickens! In the meantime here is a picture of the first egg. Note: The white ones in the carton are from the store. I used them for comparison.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Merry Christmas. It is something I grew up always saying to people at this time of year. It did not matter if they celebrate it or not. Sadly, in this day and age we are encouraged to be less specific and say, "Happy Holidays" so as to not offend anyone. Well, I for one will continue to thumb my nose at that vocal minority!

I am Catholic. My family celebrates Christmas. Ok maybe yours doesn't. Perhaps you celebrate Chanukah or Kwanza or Ramadan or even Festivus. I would not be offended in the least if you wished me greetings tied to any of those. In fact I would love it if you did!

I wish you a Merry Christmas as a way of letting you know that I share the same wishes for you that I do with my family. I am letting you know that I do not think of myself as above you. Nor do I think your views are wrong. I am simply saying we are all equal. Well share common bonds. Common ideals. I do not believe that any one religion has it totally right. Shouldn't we all share any blessings we can with each other and work together in this life?

So Merry Christmas to each and every one of you. May you find peace and happiness wherever you may go in this world. And please don't be afraid to share your warm holiday greetings with me or anyone else you know!

An extreme white Christmas

Like most people, I dream of having a white Christmas every year. Living here on the island we do not typically see a lot of snow. The Atlantic Ocean keeps our weather a bit warmer. Well, this year it appears I got my wish x 10!

My son Tyler and I headed out for camping this past Friday along with the rest of the scout troop. We do it every year at this time. We deep fry turkeys and make a lot of other food and then invite the families to come out on Saturday night for dinner. We normally camp Friday night until Sunday morning. This year we had to pull out Saturday night after dinner. It seems Mother Nature decided to bless us with a promise of a white Christmas by slamming the island with a blizzard. This is why we cut camping short. Not because we would not have survived sleeping outside, but because we knew the roads were going to make it almost impossible to drive home on Sunday morning.

When we left camp, it was snowing lightly and it almost appeared that the weathermen had over-hyped the snow yet again. As we made our way from the north shore down to our home on the south shore, the snow intensity increased. It was a very fine powdery snow and while it was snowing hard, it still seemed unlikely that we would get the predicted 12" - 18" by the time the storm was supposed to end on Sunday morning. Well, someone must have read into my thoughts and just had to prove me wrong. I woke up to a little more than 2 feet of the cold white powder. We have drifts upwards of 6' high. When my son pushed the door open through the 4' high pile that was blocking it, to let the dog out, the dog looked out and then turned around and peed on the tile floor instead. I can't really blame him. Being a male myself and knowing how hard it is getting into a cold swimming pool when the water reaches certain parts, how could I get mad that the dog refused to go drag them through the cold snow? Besides he would have had to tunnel his way around anyway.

So come Friday I will be enjoying my uber white Christmas. In fact I have a feeling we will be looking at this snow for some weeks to come. If anyone out there needs snow, I have plenty to spare!

Just to give you some perspective, my son Kevin is 6'-2" tall.
You can see how high the snow is on him.

The fence behind the shed is a little more than 6' high!

Santa used to be a gun slinging, chain-smoking, pervert

These are actual ads from years ago. I am old enough to remember these types of ads appearing each year at Christmas time. I am happy to say that Christmas is a lot safer for the children now that Santa has been to therapy!

We can see here why Santa is always looking to see where the bad girls live!
I can't really blame him since Mrs. Claus only let's him come once a year.
(Looking close at this picture, the skirt starts at the top of her thighs, and yet her butt is shown a lot higher.
What sort of legs does she have in between her butt and thighs?)

Correct me if I am wrong Santa, but doesn't smoking actually cause scratchy throats?

I guess if I was surrounded by perpetually happy midgets, I would smoke too.

"You'll shoot your eye out kid!"

Trees trees every where but, none to chop I think!

So yesterday was the day to go out looking for a Christmas tree. Since I am working today (and it's raining) and next weekend I will be camping, yesterday was either find a tree of be stuck buying a precut one and praying it doesn't dry up and die before Christmas. This is only the 3rd year we actually went out to cut down our own. I really enjoy it. Despite the inevitable incidents of aggravation that comes with it.

The day was sunny but very windy and very cold. We don't get weather like this until February typically. We all bundled up to face the elements and set out for the tree farm. We arrived at about 2 PM and the place was mobbed. Cars parked along the street as far as the eye could see. I lucked out and got a space almost directly across from the gate. We walked in, paid our $5 deposit for the bow saw and headed out into the field in our quest for that perfect tree. We walked and we walked and then we walked some more. Passing all sorts of trees. Of course none of them were perfect enough to be our tree. The problem here being we each have a different idea of what the perfect tree looks like.

The next 90 minutes or so were full of all sorts of comments. Things like, "It's too skinny" "It's too fat" "It's too tall" "It is bald on that one side" "It leans funny" "I do NOT want a Charlie Brown tree!" Then of course we have to toss in, "I have to go to the bathroom!" This being none other than my daughter who seems to feel the need to use every single public bathroom she can find. Even the porta potty she eventually was able to waddle to with her legs crossed. I kept hoping that I would turn a corner and see "The tree" bathed in glowing sunlight with birds singing and angels playing harps around it. It never really did happen that way. Maybe next year?

The highlight of the afternoon occurred when my middle guy decided to be a wise guy. My older son had spotted a tree. My wife commented it was too short. Since she is 5'2" and my older son, Kevin, pointed out to her, "You are too short." Well, the middle guy, Tyler, heard him and chuckled. Since everyone else chuckled too, I guess he figured this type of humor is acceptable. His mistake came about 10 minutes later. Katie found a tree she thought was nice. I think she would have settled for anything since she still had to find a bathroom. My wife looked at the tree and ruled it out saying "It's bottom heavy" Tyler not missing his chance snaps back, "You're bottom heavy!" Well, I choked, Kevin froze, and Katie paused in her pee-pee dance. We looked at each other and walked briskly away leaving Tyler with his mom. I have a feeling it will be quite some time before they find his body. I just wish he had made this mistake before we started buying his gifts. I could have saved some money!

We did eventually find a nice tree. The kids took turns trying to cut it down. They blamed the saw a lot for it not working so well. So after they had enough, I crawled under and finished the job. Katie did eventually get to the bathroom and we managed to get the tree tied to the car and home. I am really gonna miss Tyler though.

This is the tree I tried to convince Kaity we were getting.
She was not amused.

This is the tree we did end up bringing home.
I will try and post a pic of it all decorated.

Ho-Ho-Humbug!

I know it has been awhile since I have posted anything beyond a picture here and there. Things have not exactly been so easy lately and as a result, when I do have the time to sit and write, I just can't seem to bring myself to do it. Even now, I am sitting here almost forcing myself to type. So be warned, this may turn into a bit of a self pity post.

As I get older, it gets harder and harder to get into the whole Christmas spirit. This year is no exception. I tell myself that I should be working to make the holidays extra special for my kids. They should look forward to Christmas. My daughter does, but I still feel as if I should be doing more for her. Since my wife is working and going to school full time, I am left to take care of everything else. This leaves me exhausted most of the time.

In addition to the above, several things have happened over the past few months that have really taken a toll on me mentally. I found out my wife was cheating on me. My older son has been rebelling in a major way. Including sneaking out at 1 AM to go Lord knows where. My mom is having health issues. My wife has decided that she can not accept my oldest son being gay. My car died and I had to find funds to buy a new one. It's a used car but it is "new to me." My middle son has been battling depression. My brother's wife has distanced herself from the family and it creates major trouble for my brother. In fact, there is going to be a major fight in his house on Christmas morning I am sure. He just doesn't know it yet. And there are all the other everyday common worries on top of all of this. I am dealing with it all very much alone. I have found the ones I would talk to have become rather scarce these days. Not that they don't want to be there, they just have things going on in their own lives. I don't blame them.

Add all of the above together and drop it onto the shoulders of one very over worked and over stressed dad and.......well let's just say I am having a bit if trouble finding the holiday spirit this year and I hate it. I want my kids to think back to Christmas with memories that fill them with joy.

Any suggestions? I am very much open to ideas.

Random Pic of the Day

These hungry guys were hovering next to my car at lunchtime yesterday.
I was tossing fries up to them and they would catch them and wait for more.
I am surprised at the picture since it was taken with my cell phone.