baba capra status report for december 1, 2009

Cooking class: I signed up for French Bistro Classics A, since that was the most popular, and when has popular ever steered us wrong? Thrill! As I shave my fingers off making Truffle Pommes Dauphine! Gasp! As I drop rosemary stems into the ice cream custard! Drool! As I eat my whole New York steak and don't share!

House: We're taking a break from remodeling for a while, because John made me promise. But once we're into the new year I'm painting our bed. I think I'll try a pale dove grey (am copying Sandi, but hers is really more of a charcoal grey, so no harm). Then the last piece of nasty pale purple office carpet is coming out. I might leave the wallpaper up, because it's a metallic gold damask pattern. So quirky! The woman who lived here before us was artistic and modpodged old-timey magazine pictures on all the doors, and hand-painted a cartoon swan on the outside of the tub.

Animals:
A. Goat: We hear that the chicken is in the pot, by which I mean the buck goat has put his half of the baby-making ingredients into Traci's kid bed (calf bed for cows, kid bed for goats) and made a little zygoat. Get it? Zy-goat? Ha! Reproductive farming humor! I'm excited to have little babies running around in the spring. They're the best part of gentleman farming. Except when they're orphaned, because then they're mainly loud more than anything else.

How do you like his stupid tailypo eyes? Not pictured: the seven other cats who think they live here.

B. Cats: Freaking cats. It's like a cat army up in here. Last night John went out to water the chickens, and there was a cat inside the pen--getting ready to suck their breath, no doubt--and he was so wigged about John that he spent the next five minutes running and ricocheting off the sides of the chicken run. FwoompBAM fwoompBAM fwoompBAM fwoompBAM until John had mercy after he was done laughing and moved to the corner opposite the door so the cat could escape. They make a Cat King every night in our garage and we even bought litter for them, but do they use it? No, and I'll tell you why: they suck. They want us to hate them.

C. Chickens: I like letting them out to graze, but they really, really like pooping on the patio, and only on the patio. A lot, they like it. So there are only a few days a week I can pull that off before John starts getting eye twitches. They are laying eggs like they were born to do it, and I swear we've got a triple-yolker in the fridge. None of them have been eaten by a skunk yet, and I'm giving credit to either the Australorp rooster or the butch Columbian Rock hen. I think I'll name her Miss Boland, after the nurse in the Soup books who asks the kids if their bowels have moved today.