We all got haircuts this afternoon, which means I gave my monthly pleading to all the males in my life not to shave their heads or do something equally drastic (my husband is the worst culprit, and I don’t feel like being married to Dougal Mackenzie from Outlander yet). William broke out and asked if he could have a King Alfred haircut, which was a resounding no from his brothers…thank goodness. Why can’t they all just want normal, nice haircuts? I really felt like having boys was going to be easier in this regard.
From haircuts we went out for pizza and our monthly (attempted monthly) board meetings where some well-meaning baby boomer rightfully razzed my kids on their lack of coats. When Robbie informed him he was a Viking and didn’t need a coat, the baby boomer showed him a picture of himself with a giant long white beard down to his knees (which he apparently had just shaved off) and said that he was a real Viking. Will was shook and asked for a coat immediately. Apparently, the prospect of growing a terrifying beard scared him back into coat-wearing.
Every month we sit down around pizza and call a formal board meeting. Each kid is the director of some area of homesteading and we read the minutes from the last meeting and discuss what went well, what didn’t go well and what goals/needs/things they’re going to work on for the next board meeting. Sometimes it turns into a rant fest and we have to reign it in, but it’s always comforting (or convicting) to see how much (or little) we got done. Let it be known, and the record state that James got the most accomplished this month…by a long shot. The kid is a relentless worker.
Some things on the homesteading list resolve themselves. Like we were going to put up a fence around the chicken coop to see if penning up the chickens helped them lay more. They’re free range and we couldn’t tell if they were laying in the woods and places we couldn’t find, eating their eggs, or just not laying at all. I like having free-range chickens because they eat all the bugs and ticks in the yard and they self-medicate by eating and foraging all the herbs they need to stay healthy. With the dogs keeping all of the predators away, it seemed like the best situation…except for the lackadaisical laying. Then the super cold weather hit, egg prices climbed to filet mignon levels…and our chickens started laying eggs again. (?!?) James thinks it’s the better feed he’s bringing home from work, and maybe that’s it. Or maybe the younger chickens have started laying again? Whatever the case, it feels like some sort of magical vending machine, and no one wants to jinx it so the chickens get to remain free for now.
Our family meeting also featured lengthy discussions on how to survive various types of zombie attacks, and frankly, I have zero desire to survive a zombie apocalypse. All I know is that if there’s an emergency I’m grabbing a chicken under each arm before I run for the woods.