Urban Chickens

My art for the day. A magazine art (glossy) paper collage of the "big" news here in my town. Urban chicken ownership. Ten is the maximum number of chickens you can have on your residential home lot (no lot size minimums) with the suggestion of some kind of appropriate housing structure. And no loose food to encourage RATS!

In my neighborhood, the running around CHICKENS would encourage the coyotes to come closer to the houses and snatch the chickens. They already eat pet cats and small dogs (not many) but TEN CHICKENS at each house? Lordy, lordy, praise God and pass the biscuits.

This is how my local tax dollars are spent. Legislating chicken ownership in an urban setting. After MUCH tax payer funded research. Welcome to Maine, the way life should be. Never mind the potholes in the streets or the lack of zebra striping in the school crosswalks.

So, anyway, after two full days of very cold weather and snow on the grass, we are now having sunshine and shirt sleeve weather. Tomorrow we should make it into the 60's. In Maine. In November. I really should plant the rest of the daffodil bulbs.

G has purchased a brand spanky new snow thrower. Red. Larger than the one he had which could not be repaired. The company stopped making replacement parts so now if a machine breaks we have to buy a new one. John Deere. We now own a Honda mower and a Honda snow thrower. They make replacement parts. I hope John Deere figures this out before they go bankrupt. Replacement parts. Not rocket science.

G will be having Chicken Marsala with Portobella Mushrooms this evening. I haven't a clue what I will be having. Soup or Salad. I'm making Chicken Marsala because I don't like it. It's my "passive-aggressive" cooking strategy. Cook things I don't like to eat.

This is day three of the new 365 day eating plan. I won't bore you with details but I talked myself out of eating the double chocolate cookies I usually eat, on Friday, at work. I've had oatmeal and two fruits so far today. I'm hungry. It's lunch time. On the new eating plan, I'm writing down what I eat in a food diary, but not counting all the calories up. I KNOW what is good and what is bad. I just need to eat only good and NO bad. The theory is, if you want to eat apples --- go ahead. Apples are good and won't hurt you. Just don't smear any peanut butter on the apple slices. Or bake them in a pie. So far, this only works for apples, lettuce, green beans and carrots.

I don't think it's a good thing to eat as many potatoes as you want. I could be wrong. But the options with potatoes are plain boiled, plain baked (I cheat and add one Tablespoon of reduced fat sour cream), or plain, sprayed with Pam and pretend "fried" in the oven. And if ketchup is bad, what's the point? I ended up boring you with details, didn't I?

So I made my "daily art"and G and I set up the sawhorses and the door we got from the side of the road as a little "plant spa" upstairs and I tucked the two orchids into the bathtub upstairs and really watered them. I also wheeled a computer work station into the upstairs bathroom (which is very spacious) and set my geraniums up there along with two small Clivia. The HUGE Clivia had been in the bathtub all summer and is now next to the door/sawhorses table. I have the heat set on 58 and rolled up the shades on the two skylights. Let the sun shine in and heat the space up.

I think it's time to finish the laundry and get out of my pajamas. The only comfortable clothing I now fit into. Perhaps, by next week, something else will fit, again. I can hope and dream.

My bowl is NOT filled with food. And, that's all I can think about.