Winner, Winner - Fall or Winter

I so enjoy watching my dorky hens run around on our hill in the backyard. Everyday I watch them, somedays longer than others. I frequently attend to them as I share my garden discards with them. Yesterday, for example, I watched them peck each other as they tried to devour a couple of my rejected nectarines, and they love the mushy strawberries I randomly toss to them. I won't even get into how they love the lizards. This morning I had to laugh out loud wham they were playing the chase game over what looked like a piece of cotton. But need to come clean about my chickens.

The two flocks are not merging well, and the older hens are not only laying infrequently, but also super annoying to the younger egg producers. If I am truthful, I am not very fond of the survivors from the coyote attack we experienced this past winter. They are the mean hens, and since the coyote got to eat one of my favorites, I have to admit these birds are starting to look more and more like MY dinner. 

Also, I forgot how many eggs hens lay in their first year. We have almost a dozen in the fridge, and more will undoubtedly be out there today. The egg layers are the chicks we acquired this past Spring. The older hens have practically stopped. So today on a whim, I decided to perform a search to discover some information about local butchers. What I found was a lot of gross YouTube garbage, complete with warnings about their graphic content, which I decided I didn't want to even consider.

Then I found an entry titled, "Cultivating Home: How to Butcher a Chicken (the easy way)."  I took a deep breath, and I clicked. 

What I discovered was a super informative blog about how to butcher a chicken. I found myself amused in a science project sort of way, sometimes laughing along the way. Yes. I was actually laughing! I wanted information, and that is exactly what I got. After all, I am completely mindful of where the neatly wrapped chicken comes from in the grocery store - sometimes in my life so much so that I've been vegetarian for many years of my life. 

Will I be able to do this? I do wonder. I'm thinking maybe this Fall or Winter, when the younger hens will need the space and, perhaps more importantly, peace in the hen house. Then I think... Maybe it will be more like the room addition to our house. We put down some good money for the plans, but we still haven't moved forward with the construction. 

Chaminade

It has been a very long time since I have been here. I still had Hardy, in fact. I remember he had to wait in my car and I was hard pressed to find a shady parking spot. But they are extremely pet friendly now. Just check out this yappy hour menu!

Have You Ever Been Screwed?

Many people have been asking me why I took a year off from teaching. And if you've been reading this blog, it would seem as though the obvious reason was that I needed to recuperate. Right? Well that's not entirely true. My conversation at the grocery store sparked memories of the unpleasantness surrounding my decision to take time off and focus on my health. My recounting, again, being the catalyst for my thoughts today. After having almost a year to think about it, my reason for not teaching last year was because I was, to put it bluntly, screwed. 

While it is true that I forgive all parties involved, and I don't hold a grudge, because I have had a wonderful year off, two teachers froze me out of the system. The first one, who had been working in a job share position that I helped to formalize, contacted me and asked me to be her partner. I was delighted, because we had been talking about being partners for years. It began when she started raising her family and we were working on the tech team together. When she contacted me, I can remember thinking it seemed too good to be true, and I could hardly believe my good fortune. When I expressed this to her in a a text message, she reassured me that it would likely work out. I moved forward and informed my job share partner about the potential change. She said she understood, and she gave me her blessing. 

All of this job share stuff falls under teacher contract deadlines. We all, if we want to job share, must adhere to the deadlines by completing paperwork and getting approval from our principals. But three months later, when my new partner went to finalize our partnership with the principal, she decided on choosing... someone else. And to make matters worse, she didn't tell me until after that meeting, when deadlines were less than a month away. With a heavy heart, I went back to my original partner, but it was too late, she had already found someone else. 

The only thing left to do was find another partner, or reject my doctor's recommendation to work part time. I wasn't capable back then to take on the full time position, so I was basically forced to take the year off - with NO pay! Thank you very much. I won't see another paycheck until the end of September. I have learned things I never dreamed about this past year, but the most important one was to forgive, but don't forget. I wish both of those ladies well, but they will probably not get any favors from me ever again, and if anybody asks, I'm telling what happened.

Classroom Help

Yesterday I bumped into a teacher friend of mine at our local healthy grocer. It was nice catching up with her about this past school year. She is a retired kindergarten teacher and currently works in the district as a substitute. I was flattered when she recognized me and asked if I could help her with the techie devices in our classrooms these days. She said she would even pay me to help her learn. I don't want to take money from a retired teacher, but I do want to help her, so I struck a deal with her. 

I proposed that she volunteer in my class next year and I will help her learn the devices when the opportunity arises. To my delight she thought it was the perfect idea. So today I'm just wanting to put it out there that I feel like I have some sort of guardian angel. One that is helping me towards the greater good. And I am grateful.