my talented husband

chris wrote an article for RELEVANT Magazine to be found in their july/august issue titled "Just A Phone?". it's smart and sobering-ly funny and thought provoking. it made me stop and question my decisions, a habit chris can often provoke. it's irritating. :)

so, go check it out! click on RELEVANT and go to page 27. it's also in print at most magazine stands!

chris has some critique and appreciation for RELEVANT on his blog, if you're interested.

farms, and babies, and flowers.

colorado has been lovely! it's so sunny (and really hot) during the day and gets cloudy and cool in the evening - and we've had some great thunder and lightening storms! we've been doing a lot of yard work, a lot of eating and a lot of spending time with friends. i love it here and it will be hard to leave. below are some photos of our friend deb and her wonderful farm, our nephew and my sister-in-law, huge copper kettles at the Coors Company in Golden, and some pretty, backyard flowers.

1 down, 3 going strong

sadly, we have found out that "melissa" is a rooster and so we must take him back to the farm. "melissa" is the prettiest of our chickens and "he" will be missed. oh well.

below is an old picture of "melissa" and it really shows off my photography skills. not really.

home... kinda.

a couple of days ago we arrived in colorado after many days of travel, family and friends. it is good to be home - in one of our homes, at least. we've been sleeping, reading, gardening and hanging out with my mom. on our travels we went to ohio, the chicago area, northern minnesota and des moines. we were in mn to celebrate my g-ma's 80th birthday and were able to spend time with family we never see. i love minnesota - the lakes and the birch trees and particularly my family's log homes and cabins (not particularly the mosquitoes and deer flies). pictures are below!

Earth 2100

i really enjoyed (trembled through) this* special on ABC.com. if you have an hour and half and are concerned about the state of our earth you should check it out. disclaimer: i can't vouch for the complete accuracy of this information. it does seem like there are respected and wise voices speaking in it and that what they are proposing are reasonable, albeit difficult and honest, avenues of change.

*click on "this", click on free episodes, click on ABC News Specials, click on Earth 2100 part 1

as promised...

here are some pics and a video of our pullets. (just dropping some chicken terminology) we named them, affectionately, michael doyle (the black one), melissa (the red one), cheryl (the one with white spots), and timothy (the one with gray spots). this could be a bad idea once it's time to make chicken soup but, for now, it's funny to see if the chicken personalities match up to the people personalities.

chickens! (really)

so the time has finally come to have our very own urban chickens! we pick them up this evening from our dear friends. we hope we will be good chicken parents, that our dog won't eat them, that they will be happy layers, and that it won't be too scary when the time comes to give them new life in the roasting and grilling worlds. :)

here is our empty coop/run. it is movable so they can eat bugs, weeds and especially ticks all over the yard. we may clip their wings so they can range all about the backyard, otherwise they would easily fly over the fence and be goners. we will retrieve the eggs from the box on the right of the coop, where the laying will hopefully happen.