chicken on a mission

she was off to find windfall apples - or rather, the bugs and worms that live in them. Chickens are great for removing nasty things like that. The fact that they also shoot out eggs is also cool. I'm filling the freezer with egg-containing food as, once the days get short and the weather gets cold, the chickens will go on strike til spring. Eggs will become a precious commodity and I resent every egg I have to buy. Besides, food in the freezer is always great for busy people.
I'll be away again next week - this time to Krakow to run a half-day workshop at a conference - and I feel like I'm chasing my tail. Still catching up from being away last week, getting ready to go away again. At moments like these I wish I had more family to rely on but the family that we have are too incapable/too unwilling/too far away to rely on. Luckily, I have some good and trustworthy people as neighbours and fellow parents, who I can ask to do little bits and pieces...but sometimes it would be nice to pass the buck on to someone else as I see other people do. Every time I hear of people off-loading kids on various relatives so they can have a night out or get on with something, a little part of me swings over to the 'glass half empty' side of life. When already in that kind of mood, a confrontation between a PMT-ridden teenie daughter and a not-very-good-with-hormonal-women husband can tip me into 'what's the point in having a bloody glass anyway' kind of mood. This afternoon was pants on a stick with no signs of improvement looming. I have three daughters to take through puberty - I can only hope that I manage to learn to deal with it better because I can't see anyone else willing to admit that they might be wrong or slightly over-reactive....

*rapid change of mood and subject*

Thank you to everyone for your lovely comments on yesterday's blip. It's probably VERY disingenuous of me to say that I hate that kind of sanitised and cutesy version of rural life but, I do. However, I knew I had something good, so posted it anyway. And then basked in the compliments :-)