Author: Veronica

“NO MORE CHICKENS” was the catch cry of 2014. Early on, Nathan put his foot down and demanded I disallow any chicken reproduction. I did what all responsible chicken owners do at that point and I culled my roosters.

Only there were a few six week old chickens who weren’t really showing their sex definably yet, so they stayed, and three of them turned into roosters.

“I must catch those roosters.” I thought over and over again, as spring came and the chickens clucked about the paddock, frantically trying to avoid the ever-growing horniness of their rooster overlords. “I really must…”

Nah. It’ll be fine.

Carefully I checked for new nests every few days. There’s only so many places to lay and quietly I followed the chickens around, rooting out their nests, stealing their eggs, limiting their chances at spawning.

Then came the end of school year chaos, and exhaustion, and Christmas, and oh wow, Internet, did you know 21 days can really fly?

I was laying in bed today with a grumpy sick toddler when Nathan stormed into the bedroom. Pointing at me, he glared. “This is your fault!”

I sat up. “What is?”

“TINY FLUFFY BALLS OF USELESSNESS!”

I wasn’t with the program. Chickens had not been at the forefront of my mind for um, about a month now. Whoops.

“CHICKENS! BABY ONES!” He wasn’t doing a very good job of glaring anymore.

The older children skipped in behind him, gleeful.

“MUMMY! We’ve got baby chickens and they are SO CUTE.”

And so we did. A nest I hadn’t known about until a few days ago, all the while thinking “I must take her eggs” has magically, through the power of incubation, spawned three tiny fluffy balls of uselessness.

They’re adorable.

But we didn’t want any more chickens, and three days ago I found two broody hens sharing a nest in the blackberries.

Today, knowing we’d already had one set of oh fuck babies, I steeled myself to the task. I found a bucket and headed off to the blackberries to steal eggs from two angry broody chickens.

I knelt down, carefully pulling one hen off the nest, when the other hen flew at my face.

SQUAWK FLAP BLATHER FLAP SCREECH, I fended her off with my hand, pushing her down and coming away with peck marks all over.

I sat back, thinking, before deftly putting the bucket over the top of the angry hens, trapping them underneath. Perfect. Now I could slide my hand under both chickens and nick their eggs.

Only ….

peep

peeeeep

peeep

The second egg I pulled out had a chicken partially hatched and looking at me.

I put the eggs back, apologised to the chickens and walked back to my husband, egg collecting bucket empty.

I stopped next to him as he looked at me.

“So, hey. Maybe we can do no baby chicks from now onwards?”

I guess we’re beginning the year with another rooster cull.

(Not the current chicks. I haven’t photographed them yet.)

Heidi has been with us for over a week now and I’ve come to the conclusion: German Shepherds are sensitive sensitive snowflakes.

Hyper-intelligence seems to come paired with hyper-sensitivity and oh, it’s hilarious to watch.

The cat swiped at her and missed? Yelping.

I trod on her and we both ended up falling over, tangled? At least a minute of yelping, plus “YOU HURT ME!” looks, and exaggerated limping while glaring at me. (She was fine.)

Runs head first into the cupboards because it was dinnertime? Yelping, sulking, and glaring at the cupboards like they purposefully put themselves in her way.

Trips over her own feet while running and somersaults across the room. Tries to bite her own feet for tripping her and then yelps when she succeeds.

I grab her collar so she can’t leap on the kid who just fell over. Yelps. (Possibly real – I don’t know how long it takes for their microchipping to feel better.)

Runs into the door after asking me to open it for her. Bumps her nose. Yelps. A lot.

Not to mention the freakout she had when I sneezed unexpectedly, making her leap into the air and yelp. Luckily with that one I sneezed another ten times or so, so by the end of it she was okay.

We’re working on desensitising her to new noises, new smells, things that move, our feet, and everything else, but in the meantime, we *might* spend a little bit of time laughing at her antics.

Also, she howls when she thinks she’s alone. Or when she wants to fall asleep and there is no one there to gently stroke her ears to sleep. (We’re ignoring both of these things.)

When we got a puppy recently, I thought about how we portray our lives on the Internet. We oftentimes just share the good bits and leave out the times we’re stuck shovelling crap uphill, presenting a glossy front to the Internet.

Stopping mummyblogging was for me, the beginning of glossifying things. Not being able to write about the times my children have been a teensy bit annoying for fear of their school friends reading, is what I call glossifying. Of course, I do mention funny snippets, and bits and pieces, but on the whole, their lives are no longer mine to put on the Internet.

There’s none of that consideration with a new puppy. I don’t need to worry about her puppy friends laughing at her in the playground and I am more than able to detail the antics of a naughty naughty puppy.

Awesome, I thought. I’ll start blogging more again, sharing stories of Heidi the German Shepherd.

What I hadn’t quite counted on was just how good this puppy was going to be.

It’s eerie. And weird. Like, really weird. As the children run around the house in a tornado of mess and chaos, the puppy just sort of trots around watching everything, flopping at their feet when they stop playing, waiting for the inevitable pats.

And sure, she gets nippy sometimes, but when you remind her that toddler legs are not tasty tasty chew toys, she remembers for at least an hour before I need to remind her to not chew on Evelyn again.

At eight weeks old, and with three days of training, she will sit consistently, drop most of the time, and did an entire 5 seconds of staying yesterday.

IT’S WEIRD.

I think we lucked out, Internet.

Of course writing this about Heidi is going to jinx us all to hell and she’s going to be the naughtiest pup ever.

It hasn’t all been sunshine and roses – this morning Evelyn and the puppy tag teamed in order to wake me up at 4.30am and keep me awake. The morning was a little hellish as the energy I expended over Christmas caught up with me and nausea played havoc with my gut while my joints slid around like collagen is just not a thing they understand.

However Evelyn and the pup both crashed out asleep at midday and I was able to grab a nap, so yay for not dying of sleep deprivation.

It was a near thing for a while. I was half way through my third cup of tea, idly wondering why it tasted a little weird, when I realised I’d entirely forgotten to put milk in the cup. Whoops.

I did end up making soap however, relying on my usual note taking to make sure today’s soap didn’t go awry.

All in all, it’s been a good Christmas, but I’m glad to see the back of it. Ehlers Danlos makes everything that little bit harder. The beauty of having my own business of course is being able to nap in the middle of days and bring home a puppy who requires a lot of attention without feeling guilty about it.

ANYWAY.

As soon as the puppy does anything naughtier than weeing on the carpet because we didn’t take her outside fast enough after a nap, or funnier than trying to bite the cat on the tail, I will be here, immediately, sharing.

Until then, you’ll just have to envy the softest puppy snuggles ever.

——

Wait, nevermind, she just bit me on the leg and drew blood. Go about your business people, it’s all okay. This puppy is not weird.

——

Boxing Day Sale runs until the 31st of December. You should check out the shop and buy stuff.

 

Look who was ready to come home with us a few days before Christmas.

Meet Heidi, a German Shepherd pup who is rather enjoying living with three children who feed her scraps of food.

We had an excellent Christmas, the children got lots of presents they love and everyone is exhausted.

I hope your day was as good as ours.