a future chicken farmer?!

That's my Mom!  She is so cute and I just love her!

Tonight I was standing in the kitchen doing dishes when my iPhone beeped.  I looked down and all I could see was my Mom's eyes in this picture.  It cracked me up!  My Mom is not a country girl at all, and would rather buy all of her produce and meat at the grocery store, never giving a second thought to how it got there or any of the things that I think about.  She doesn't like to think that I butcher my chickens or bunnies (She will eat them though!), and in her world there is no such thing as factory farming or steroid infused meat.  My Mom lives in a happy place, and one that she rarely steps out of if uncomfortable.  Perhaps that is why this picture amuses me.  

Mom left tonight to drive several hours to visit her brother and his wife, Uncle Craig and Aunt Sandie.  I spent all of my summer vacations at their house tearing up and down the hills of southern Ohio on an ATV, chasing goats, feeding chickens, and making mud pies.  They are the reason I love chickens, goats, rabbits, and all things country.  They are the reason that I never eat margarine, only real butter.  They are the reason I never eat pepper that has not been ground in my pepper grinder, and why I never use a dishwasher to wash my dishes.  Uncle Craig and Aunt Sandie are the reason why the Urban Farm Girl is in existence, and I thank them for giving me the sort of summer vacations most city kids could only dream of.  

When I got my first batch of egg laying chickens a couple years ago, who did I call?!  Yep, my Uncle Craig! Uncle Craig is a man who can save the free world with a pocket knife and a hammer, and is definitely the man to call when you need a chicken coop!  We had been talking back and forth about him getting chickens too, and several weeks after he built my coop he started one for himself and got 25 bantams for his homestead.  He has had several hens hatch chicks, and the chicken in the picture is a rooster that hatched at his house.  The look on my Mom's face in this photograph is priceless, and it just makes my heart happy.  I am so proud of her for stepping out of her comfort zone and holding that chicken.  Who knows?!  Maybe my Mom will be next to jump on the chicken bandwagon!