Chickens are threatening to destroy my marriage. That's right, chickens.

Remember how Jack Handey so insightfully pointed out, "It's sad that a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of wild dogs"? Well today folks, I'm here to discuss the fact that it's also sad that a happy, loving marriage can be torn apart by something as simple as wild chickens. Or domesticated ones, in our case. And we're learning you don't even need a whole pack to do the job. We have four. And they're more potently destructive than you could ever imagine.

But remember how magical it was all to be? Remember what it was like for the girls to find the first laid egg? Remember how we all partied like it was 1999 for three days straight over that first wee little egg?

I'm about to paint you the real picture. I'm not proud of it. It ain't pretty. But it's gotta be revealed.

Here's the back story. I didn't want chickens. Not yet. Jason's been wanting to get chickens to teach the girls responsibility ever since I birthed our firstborn. I still thought this summer was too early. I told him it would just end up being another thing that's my responsibility. It would end up being more things I've gotta feed and clean up after. He swore that Lucy would be the one doing the feeding and cleaning. Remember how she just barely turned 5? Ugh. Here we go. 

 So yeah, I wanted to wait a few more years to get chickens. Or at the very least until, our fence was completely finished so they could roam some of the time. But neither of those things were waited on. We had a coop with chickens inside faster than you can slap your mama. I don't know about you, but for me that's pretty fast. So I'm taking our table scraps and watermelon rinds out to them, as I expected I would. He doesn't want me doing that; tells me alls they need is the chicken feed. I'm asking Jason when he's going to clean the coop out because the poop is out of control. I'm telling him I want to cancel the pest control, because once that fence is finished, I wanna give them recess and they're gonna wander and eat bugs, and we can't kill our chickens with pesticide. We can't eat pesticide eggs either. I tell him, I noticed the chickens are completely out of water today when I was back there. You think we should just wait for Lucy to notice?And he tells me chickens can live for up to 3 or 4 days without water, they'll be fine. ?!?!?!?!?!?!? The first night he brought those stinking chickens home, we were laying in bed. That coop's supposedly predator proof, but it's on loose dirt and has no bottom. So I'm laying there and shoot up in bed and tell him, Raccoons could easily dig under that dirt, dig their way into that coop. Those chickens aren't safe.  Him: The chickens are fine. Raccoons aren't gonna take on a full grown chicken, and they'll be fine for one night. Whaaaaaaat?!!!!!!? Me: You bring those chickens into the garage until we make that coop safe! Our girls aren't waking up to gleefully go check on them to find bloodied mutilated chicken corpses in the morning! Of course I had to find several accounts online of coons killing hens to back me up. But he eventually, full of loathing and vexation, brought them into the garage for the night, and put chicken wire a foot into the ground the next day all around the base of the coop, all the while shooting daggers into me from his eyes. In truth, all of these conversations with him have brought about what I can only describe as primate behavior in my dearly beloved. On more than one occasion, he's turned right into Tarzan in loin cloth right before my very eyes; beating away on his chest. And when this happens, I'm forced to go ape, too. And a scuffle ensues. He's stronger than I am. But I'm so scrappy. 

He thinks I'm being controlling. He thinks I'm inserting myself where I don't belong. He grew up on a farm after all, and has let me know several times that a little uptown girl like me doesn't know what I'm talking about with any of this stuff. (I never have been and am in no way now an uptown girl.) He just wants the chickens to be "his and our girls thing", and he thinks I'm trying to take it from him. And he wants Lucy to be solely responsible. Which means if she doesn't feed them or give them water, she's gonna find dead chickens. And that sure'll teach her consequences and responsibility. Gotta teach 'em the hard way. Ahem, I know I already said this, but, remember how she just turned five? I do. Remember how much that young whipper snapper Mattie loves her daddy on True Grit? And she's like 12 and avenges his death? I think this all plays into the vision for his life he created long ago in his mind. That along with several episodes of Little House on the Prairie, Back to the Future 3, and Swiss Family Robinson. And the first several seasons of Saved by the Bell, not the college years. The college years were the worst.

Now, I'm all about teaching them responsibility. But let's be reasonable here. She's too young to be solely responsible for them. And ain't no chicken starving to death on my property if I have anything to do with it.  We're not farmers. We don't have necessity to have a harsh homestead view of the survival of the fittest and the circle of life, no offense Mufasa. Ain't no runts being butchered just for being runts while I'm runnin this home show. What Jason doesn't understand is, when he says, "it's not your concern," or, "just let it go, the chickens aren't your thing," etc, as much as I'd like to have the capacity to do that, it doesn't mean that I can. For a stay-at-home mother, a home is more than where you rest your head at night. It's my domain. It's my lair. It's my turf, territory, my business. All of it. SOY AMA DE CASA. I am the nurturer of life! Maybe I'll go build a chicken coop in his office. I'll tell him I'll come by occasionally to deal with them, but in the meantime he needs to just pretend like they're not there. Truth is, as much as I'd like to withdraw, (believe you me, no one wants to quit their job on sick days like moms do), no creature will ever dwell within the boundaries of our property without being under my stewardship, care and nurturing. Just won't happen. Ain't no way. This is why I didn't want to get the dang things yet. I am the mother of this house. I'm not being a control freak; control freak is not my thing. I have plenty of things, trust me. But this is just the reality of the situation. It's like when Jason has tried to take shifts with our babies in the middle of the night and tells me to just sleep through it if they're crying. What's the purpose of me laying in the guest bed at 3 AM with my eyes bugging out of my head listening to my baby cry? Just gimme 'er. GIMMEE!!! If they're gonna live with us, I just can't help myself. I'm gonna make sure they're taken care of until our kids really can completely take it over. If they're outta water I can't just sit back and wait until she notices. Not yet anyway.

If I was a career woman and we both picked our kids up from day care and headed home from the office in the evening, it's possible; (possible not probable) that I could wash my hands of it all, maybe the dynamics would be different in our home. But that's not the case. So if he comes home from work this winter and I'm out back roosting with them, he's just gonna have to deal with it. If I'm inside that coop, perched right on top of those chickens, keeping them warm and softly clucking to them, then so be it.

Maybe we're just not good at team projects. Weren't those the worst in school? Are any of you good at team projects with the Mister? Do sneaky hate spirals get the best of you every. time. you try to tackle anything together? Like moving for example. Or getting ready to host a party. Or how about when we'd been married for three weeks and thought it'd be cute to rent a tandem bike and take a ride across the golden gate bridge in San Fran? Except it turned out that they're like unrealistically difficult to pedal and we had to huff it up a gigantic hill and Jason was yelling at me to pedal harder and then I was yelling at him because he wouldn't let me steer it and then when he finally let me I immediately crashed us and made another biker totally eat it? This ever happen to anyone else? Anyone? Anyone?? No? Hmm. Another example, Lucy's first bath was a big hurdle for us. He was telling me what to do and how to do it and yelling, you're gonna get soap in her eyes!!!! all frantically. And then I had to stop it all, take a step back and seriously ask him if he's clued into the fact that this child has been living in. my. body for the past 3/4 of the year and how he could possibly entertain the idea that he was even remotely more invested in and concerned about the well-being of this morsel as I was. Then he apologized, we made up and had a good laugh about it all while toasting ginger ale to each other. And then I punched him in the throat. An unexpected jab to the adams apple can be a most effective form of communicating. I learned that in my RAD class. They asked me to come back and certify to be an instructor, remember? That basically makes me more Chuck Norris than anyone you've ever known. I can unscramble any egg. And why did the chicken cross the road? Because it didn't want to get a roundhouse kick to the face by me. Back on track.

Point is, I've come to the conclusion in the short few weeks that the chickens have been in our possession, that we have to get rid of them. They need a new home. Whether that means it was too early for our kids or too early for me or too early in our marriage, I'm not quite sure. It's possible that the neighbors may or may not have recently heard, It's either me or the chickens! There's not room for all of us! Everybody told us our relationship would be put to the test when we first got hitched, but no one warned us about chickens. They told us about selfishness and dishonesty. But why didn't they tell us about chickens? We might be on the brink of completely failing the chicken test. Hubby might be sent to sleep in that coop soon. They might end up being fried up. There's no telling what I could do. And I can't exactly see Lucy or Scarlett as adults sitting in a support group, saying, "Those chickens were the beginning of the end of mom and dad. They couldn't stand the sight of each other once the hens came and we had a miserable childhood and upbringing. But looking back I really feel like those fresh eggs were totally worth it."

 Any takers?