Of phones and chicks. And lots of rain.

The rain has been constant over the past few days. It ranges from overcast with a few cool, fat drops to a gray deluge and can change either way in an instant. I love it. I love hearing the pitter patter pat on the roof top. I love feeling the tiny cold splashes hit my skin when I go out to feed the bunnies. Everything is damp and so vividly green it's almost surreal.

It feels like a new beginning. As if the rain could wash away the panic and fear and dispair.

I've come to hate the phone and the uncertainty that flows from the other end. But I have to plug away at the calls that need to be made to secure our future. Even if I don't like some of the results.

We did get the okay from the building department to live in the shabin. Though we still have to find out from environmental services how human waste disposal will work. Sometimes the calls are just funny in an ironic-not-really-"fun"-funny way. Like the water management people not knowing what graywater is. Really, I had to explain it to three people that are in successively more important jobs and then got the number for another entire division because they still didn't know what I wanted to do.

But still, there are good things around me.

The chicks are doing great and my nervousness is slowly dwindling. They've been here a week and a half and their wings are almost completely feathered. Their tails are sporting little feathered beginnings. I've given them a short perch and they love jumping off of it, flittering their wings in hopes that they might fly. The dark chick -who is still namelesss- has taken to perching on top of the feeder jar. She sits up there like queen of the coop, no one else dares take her spot.



I have never encountered the personalities of poultry before. It's quite an astounding things to behold. I have one chick, Jenna, that will come to greet me whenever I go into the laundry room. She's so brave as to jump on my hand if I leave it still for a moment. She is curious and interested in the world outside her cage while the other three cower in the corner or scatter wildly as if I've loosed the cat in their domain.

It's a good feeling to hold these little darlings in my hand and think of what relationship we'll have in a few months. And to hold hope in my heart that both of us will be on our farm soon.