Chicken rant.

Listen. Chickens are disgusting.
I know - you're like: look at that teensy chick - she looks delicious adorable! And she is. Actually, right now I'm making aww noises so high-pitched that only chickens can hear them, because that picture is about 2 weeks old, and Lupé is so much bigger and featherier now.
Anyway - chickens are gross. Chickens are about 1% feathers, 2% beak and feet, 5% cuteness and chirping and perching in the palm of your hand and being soft, and 140% chicken shit. That's not just bad math, that's a fact!* You would be surprised how much poo a bird that small can create. Put five of them in your bathtub** and you'll see what I mean.
And when they're super small and you have no mama hens, they live inside, under a heat lamp. In our case, they live inside, under a heat lamp, in a plastic bin, in the bathtub. And every morning I stand barefoot, in pajamas, on a cold, wet lawn, before I've had any coffee, hosing down a chicken "habitat" (because I'm totally a farmer!) And I think to myself: I am so glad this was my idea, because if it had been anyone else's, I would be hating them right now.
So now the offensive fowl are too big to live in the bin and too small to live outside and too revolting to go free range all over the house - so when we had a Little League game to go to, I just barricaded them in the bathroom and left it at that.
For three hours.
It was like a crime scene when we got back.
It was like one of those houses you see on the news after it's been condemned and the 300 cats have been "relocated." It was Grey Gardens. I cried.
This weekend my handsome husband (who promised me a chicken coop two years ago, ahem) put together a "day spa" for the chickens so they can kick it outside during the day and come inside at night, in order to be not eaten by a raccoon. It's quite ramshackle and they've escaped from it twice so far, but I'm not crying any more and I'm no longer worried that Health & Human Services is coming to take me away.
They're outside right now. And? it's raining and I'm not bringing them in the house - because I'm totally a farmer! But I feel really bad about it - because I'm totally not a farmer.
*I'd put money on it.
**Not recommended.