And now there are 10. . .

I walked out the back door the other evening and was shocked to see my adopted chicken walking through the backyard followed by nine fluffy yellow chicks! She had been missing for quite awhile and I was beginning to worry that Mr. Fox might have gobbled her up. Apparently though, she's been on maternity leave, hatching her new brood! I was so excited!

I hurried over to her, hoping I could catch a chick and get some good pictures. She went under the fence and of course all her babies followed, and then here came old Curious Cooter to see what all the ruckus was about and the feathers started flying!

The Mama Chicken went berserk when she saw that big clumsy donkey coming toward her chicks, so she started jumping all around, squawking and holding one of her wings out like she was hurt, trying to distract the donkey. When that didn't work, she would fly up to his head and neck to try and peck him away. Cooter pinned back his ears and threw her off and she came screeching back to him again and again until he cleared away from her babies.

In the meantime, the chicks were scattering willy nilly all through the barnyard, probably wondering what in the world had gotten into their crazy Mama. One of the chicks came right under the fence and into my hand, cheep-cheeping so sweetly. I held it for a minute, telling it how cute it was and petting it's soft feathers, and pretty soon the Mama and all the other chicks crawled under the fence and out to safety, so I put the chick down and she ran to join the others.

The Mama circled around her babies, gathering them up and clucking to them reassuringly, probably counting them to make sure they were all there. Then they all wandered off down the fence row, clucking and cheeping to each other about their near miss with the big bad donkey and the silly woman with the long brown hair.

Made With Love

When I got home from work tonight, I found a care package from Oregon waiting on the front porch. Apparently my mother-in-law is missing her baby son and decided she needed to send him some love in the form of homemade flour tortillas and a block of Tillamook cheese. Yum!

The taste of homemade tortillas warmed and folded over with melted cheese inside brings back good memories. No matter how hard I try, my homemade tortillas never turn out as good as hers. I remember well my first lesson in making them back when I was a teenager in high school. I was in the kitchen with Sid's Mom and two sisters, trying to make a good impression and it was my job to mix the dough, which you always do by hand, never with a mixer. There I was with both hands down in the bowl and sticky dough up to my elbows, doing my best to mix the ingredients to the perfect consistency.

I looked down into the bowl and was mortified to see little red things dotted all throughout the white dough. My sister-in-law looked over my shoulder and burst into obnoxious snorting laughter while my face turned redder than the specks in the bowl! Turns out I was doing such a good job of mixing the dough that all my fake fingernails were popping off one by one into the mix! How embarrassing! We had to pick them all out to salvage the batch.

As the lesson continued, I soon realized I was a hopeless case when it came to making homemade tortillas. Rolling them out was a total joke. Tortillas are meant to be round, not shaped like the state of Florida or Idaho, all lopsided and jagged. I was never going to master this task. Even now, more than 25 years later, my tortillas aren't perfectly shaped, but at least they're edible, thank you very much! And I can whip a batch up in record time too!

But don't worry Mama, yours are much preferred over mine, so thank you for the care package and for the memories!

Noah! Where are you when we need you?

We had record breaking rainfall this past weekend and the flooding was amazingly devastating! Our area had 16 inches of rain in just two days and some of the rivers in the area crested at all-time record high levels. We were seriously considering putting an ad on craigslist for a boat big enough for two of everything, that's how bad it was! All the local news channels were on constant report-mode all weekend long, showing us pictures of area flooding and giving us alerts as to when to expect the next onslaught of rain, thunder, high winds and hail. It was a nerve-wracking weekend for sure. Poor Tubby just paced back and forth all weekend and we all went a little stir crazy with cabin fever from not being able to venture outside.

Saturday, there was no way out of Leiper's Fork in any direction, so we were completely stuck at home. We drove down our road taking video of the rushing waters and all the damaged fencing. The bridge at the end of the road was completely impassable and the water was up to the top and spilling roaringly across the road. Fences were down everywhere and the only thing keeping the livestock inside their pastures was the creek beds and ditches filled to brimming with water gushing down the roadways. We drove as far as we could, which wasn't that far, taking pictures of all the blocked routes we normally take in and out of our little village. The river had washed out three of the bridges and was dangerously close to several estate homes, including Tim McGraw's. The big stone entrance to his estate that has stood there since the late 1800's, was completely washed away. A lot of his fencing was demolished and I imagine he'll have quite the crew out there mending things the rest of this week, as will a lot of the farmers in our area. Naomi Judd even called in an alert to the local news station saying her fences had been washed out and her buffalo were roaming willy-nilly, so everyone should be on the lookout.

Parts of Nashville were completely under water. Hundreds of homes lost all over our area, with many neighborhoods completely wiped out. Even in downtown historic Franklin, we had canoes and rowboats floating up and down 5th Avenue! Unbelievable! Car dealerships with cars completely submerged. One news caster showed a man standing on Mallory Lane, a road in Franklin near our biggest shopping mall, and he had literally caught a fish with his bare hands! He stood there for the camera, proudly holding this humongous two foot long fish, and then he threw it back into the waters rushing through a swollen ditch. One person sent in video of a huge snapping turtle right at the foot of the steps of his front porch, partially submerged in a yard that resembled a small pond.

Hospitals were flooded, businesses lost. 15-foot flags and light poles along Riverfront Park in Nashville were completely under water. Opryland Hotel had to evacuate over 1,500 guests. Three local interstates were completely shut down in several areas and parts of Interstate 24 had stretches with hundreds of cars with water up over the rooftops. 124 cars and semi-trucks were stranded on one particular stretch of the interstate where the river ran up over the bridge and people had to be rescued by boat. Boats on the interstate!

All weekend long we watched reports of water rescues, both human and animal. Horses stuck out in flooded pastures that now resembled lakes, and all you could see was the tops of their heads straining to keep above water. We saw people standing on the tops of their roofs, waiting for boats to come and rescue them. Aerial shots of flooded neighborhoods with nothing but water as far as the eye could see. Cars piled on top of each other like toys, homes washed right off their foundations, huge dumpsters and storage sheds and even a portable classroom, floating down the roads like paper boats. After the water receded, you'd see asphalt buckled in ribbons all along the parking lots and streets, only to be washed further away with the next deluge of rain.

Today, as I made my way into work, the sun was shining brightly and there was nothing but blue skies above. There was only one route open in and out of town and traffic is bumper to bumper as it's being diverted until they can assess the damage to roadways and bridges that are still impassable. The forecast is nothing but sunshine for the rest of the week. As of right now, the death toll is 11 and I pray for all those who have lost everything in this terrible disaster!