Spring is the Thing!

Expectation!

Spring Springing

Why did the chicken cross the road?

 Here are some answers from famous folks on the issue:





John F. Kenedy's answer: "It is a giant step for all chickenkind."

Abrahams Lincoln's answer: "Four chickens and twenty eggs ago...."

 
George Bush's answer: "To face a kinder, gentler thousand points of headlights."

George W. Bush's answer:.."We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road.  We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not.  The chicken is either with us or it is against us.  There is no middle ground here."  

John Kerry's answer:..."While serving in Vietnam, I was in favor of the chicken crossing the road.  Then later I realized that there were those who needed the chicken on this side of the road.  Now I would like to see the chicken on the other side of the road, unless of course it would be better served to be on this side of the road.  Ideally, I think the chicken should be in the middle of the road."  

Tony Blair's answer: I agree with George

Bill Gate's answer:..."I have just released Chicken Coop XP, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.  And, Internet Explorer is an inextricable part of e-chicken." 

Charles Darwin's answer: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically dispositioned to cross roads.  IT was the logical next step after coming down out of the trees.

 Michael Kinsley's answer:" Oh, John, come on! Everybody knows the chicken crossed the road. What evidence do you need? It's obvious that the chicken crossed the road. Your whole argument is just a smoke and mirror tactic to distract us from the fact that most chickens polled now cross that road... You ought to be ashamed of yourself, John." 

 Will Rogers, Jr.'s answer: "I never met a chicken I didn't like, If he wishes to cross, it is his right to do so."

Dr. Seuss' answer:..."Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad?  Yes the

chicken crossed the road, but why he crossed I've not been told!" Would you, could you cross the street  On your two small chicken feet? I would not, could not cross the street On my two small chicken feet.

Edith Bunker's answer: I s u p o s e i t w a n t e d t o g e t t o t h e o t h e r s i d e. 

Dick Cheney's answer: "Chickens are big-time because they have wings.  They could fly if they wanted to.  Chickens don't want to cross the road.  They don't need help crossing the road.  In fact, I'm not interested in crossing the road myself."

Josef Stalin's answer: "I don't care. Catch it. I need its eggs to make my omelette."

 

George Gallop's answer: Hen Party 42%; Dare 18%; Whim 12%; Business 2%; Undecided 26%.

Douglas MacArthur's answer: "He promised to return".

Douglas Adams's answer: "Forty-Two"

Ernest Hemingway's answer:..."To die.  In the rain.   Alone."  

Rodney King's answer: "Why can't the chicken just cross the road?"

Jack Nicholson's answer: 'Cause it (censored) wanted to. That's the (censored) reason.

 

Stephen Jay Gould's answer: "It is possible there is a sociobiological explanation for it, but we have been deluged in recent years with sociobiological stories despite the fact that we have little direct evidence about the genetics of behaviour, and we do not know how to obtain it for the specific behaviours that figure most prominently in sociobiological speculation."

Rush Limbaugh's answer: I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I'll bet it was getting a government grant to cross  the road, and I'll bet someone out there is already forming a support group to help chickens with crossing-the-road syndrome. Can you believe this? How much more of this can real Americans take?  Chickens crossing the road paid for by their tax dollars, and when I say tax dollars, I'm talking about  your money, money the government took from you to build roads for chickens to cross.

Bob Dylan's answer: "How many roads must one chicken cross?"

Clint Eastwood's answer: "Cross. Go ahead. Make my day."



Carl Sagan's answer: "To see the billions and billions of stars."
 

Gandalf's answer: "O chicken, do not meddle in the affairs of roads, for you are tasty and good with barbecue sauce."

George Lucas' answer: "Because the Force was with it."
 

Thomas Paine's answer: "Out of common sense." 
 

Martha Stewart's answer: No one called to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the farmer's market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.


Martin Luther King Jr.'s answer:..."I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question."  

Grandfather's answer:..."In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road.  Someone told us that the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us."  

Barbara Walter's answer:..."Isn't that interesting? In a few moments we will be listening to chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting and went on to accomplish its life-long dream of crossing the road."  

Ralph Nader's answer:..."The chicken's habitat on the original side of the road had been polluted by unchecked industrialist greed.  The chicken did not reach the unspoiled habitat on the other side of the road because it was crushed by the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV."  or he might say, "Chickens are misled into believing there is a road by the evil tire makers. Chickens aren't ignorant, but our society pays tire makers to create the need for these roads and then lures chickens into believing there is an advantage to crossing them. Down with the roads, up with chickens."

Jerry Seinfeld's answer:..."Why doesn't anyone ever think to ask...what the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place anyway?"  

Stan Laurel's answer: "I'm sorry, Ollie. It escaped when I opened the run."

Pat Buchanan's answer:..."To steal a job from a decent, hard-working American." 

Aristotle's answer:..."It is the nature of chickens to cross the road." 

Captain Kirk's answer:..."To boldly go where no chicken has gone before."  

Timothy Leary's answer: Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

Bill Clinton's answer:..."I did not cross the road with that chicken.  What do you mean by "chicken"?...Could you define "chicken", please?"  

Albert Einstein's answer:.."Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken?"  

Mohammed Saeed Al Sarahaeef's answer (COMICAL ALI):  The chicken did not cross the road. This is a complete fabrication. We do not even have a chicken.

Groucho Marx's answer: "Chicken? What's all this talk about chicken? Why, I had an uncle who thought he was a chicken. My aunt almost divorced him, but we needed the eggs."

John Lennon: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together in peace.

Moses' answer:  And God said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road."  And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

Sigmund Freud's answer:..."The very fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity."  

Siskel and Ebert:'s answer: 
Siskel: I don't know why it crossed the road, but I loved it. Thumbs up! 
Ebert: I disagree. The whole thing left the audience wondering; the chicken's crossing the road was never clearly explained and the chicken didn't emote very well. It couldn't even speak English! Thumbs down!

The Skeptic's answer:  What road?

Buddha's answer: “Therefore, on the road there is no chicken, no road, nor perception of the road, nor impulse to cross it, nor consciousness of the road, no feathers, no beak, no clawed feet, no chicken. No road no chicken no crossing . . . only the great prajnaparamita of the empty form of chicken and the empty form of the road, and that emptiness; gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond. ‘But, O Buddha,’ said Sariputta, ‘what is that crossing the road before us at this moment?’ And the Great One replied, ‘A chicken, Sariputta.’ ‘But why, O Great One, does it cross the road?’ ‘To get to the other side, Sariputta.’ Om.”

Jerry Falwell: “Because the chicken was a professed homosexual. Isn't it obvious? That's what they call it — the "other side". Yes, my friends, the truth is that- that chicken is gay. Let's just say it like it is.  The liberal media thinks they can whitewash you with the use of seemingly harmless phrases like ‘the other side.’”

Ronald Reagan's answer:  I forgot.

Condoleezza Rice's answer: “That chicken will cross the road only when this government decides that regime change is in its long-term strategic interest.”

Carl Jung's answer: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Hillary Clinton's answer There are no chickens.  It's all part of a vast right wing conspiracy. 

Robert Frost's answer: "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...and the chicken - the chicken crossed the one less trodden upon, and that has made all the difference."

Sir Issac Newton's answer: "It is the law of chicken reaction - for every chicken that crosses over to the other side, there must be an equal and opposite crossing back to this side." 

Bill Clinton's answer (again):  I did not cross the road with THAT chicken.  However, I did ask Vernon Jordan to find the chicken a job in New York.

Hans Blix's answer: We have reason to believe there may be potential for this chicken's capability, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road. 

Colin Powell's answer:" Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road."

Hamlet's answer: Because 'tis better to suffer in the mind, the slings and arrows of outrageous road maintenance than to take arms against a sea of oncoming vehicles... 

J.R.R. Tolkien's answer: "The chicken, sunlight coruscating off its radiant yellow-white coat of feathers, approached the dark, sullen asphalt road and scrutinized it intently with its obsidian-black eyes. Every detail of the thoroughfare leapt into blinding focus: the rough texture of the surface, over which countless tires had worked their relentless tread through the ages; the innumerable fragments of stone embedded within the lugubrious mass, perhaps quarried from the great pits where the Sons of Man labored not far from here; the dull black asphalt itself, exuding those waves of heat which distort the sight and bring weakness to the body; the other attributes of the great highway too numerous to give name. And then it crossed it"

Time Magazine Expose- "The web of intrigue and attention this avian creature seems to be attracting, we thought we would give it prominence on the cover and invite readers to add their contribution - no particular pecking order of course. " 

Darth  Vader's answer:" Because it could not resist the power of the Dark Side"

Iniogo's answer: Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You crossed my father's road. Prepare to die. 

Howard Cosell's answer: "It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events to grace the annals of history. An historic, unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurrence".

The Godfather's answer:."Give me ten minutes alone with the chicken and I'll find out."  

Gilligan's answer: "The traffic started getting rough; the chicken had to cross. If not for the plumage of its peerless tail, the chicken would be lost. The chicken would be lost!"

William Shakespear's answer: "I don't know why, but methinks I could rattle off a hundred-line soliloquy without much ado. "

Louis Farrakhan's answer:..."The road, you see, represents the black man.  The chicken crossed the black man" in order to trample him and keep him down." 

Julius Ceasar's answer "To come, to see, to conquer!"

Colonel Sanders' answer: "Did I miss one?"

Homer Simpson's answer: "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm  chicken!"

Spring Emu

Kevin is quite happy these days.  He has made himself right at home.  I even saw him... (or is it her?) taking a bit of a stretch under the sheep hut in the straw... kinda wondered if it was some egg laying thoughts occurring.  No egg though, at least that I know of.

Glad the bird is settling down.  Emus are cool.

Party Time!

A holiday butterfly!

This is a story about how blessed I feel knowing I have such gracious friends!


The Story

I was texting with a particular friend more than usual... and later that week... out of the blue I get a text message.  It reads:  "Easter  potluck, my house, Sunday."

Silly me, I didn't look to see who actually sent it, I thought I knew... since it was not anyone with a photo who usually sends me texts... It was, of course, and without a doubt...my texting buddy o de week.... the person who has often invited me to potlucks at her house....

Well....

Having closed the text before hitting the reply button,  I reopened my friends contact listing in my phone and proceeded to tell her I would have to ask the family what we were doing before I gave her an answer....

A day goes by and after consulting with family, I get back to her via text message... of course,  and tell her that Sunday would be great....  to which she says that is great too, and we then proceeded to make plans of what exactly to prepare and talk about who else will be there. Being the gracious hostess she is she had also invited some other friends.

Meanwhile, my phone show me I have a voicemail message.  I go to check the messages and there is no voice mail message... just a little icon indicating there is one one when there is not.. and it will not go away on my phone!

The following day a different friend, (friend number two) calls and asks if a third friend had called me.  She tells me that they would like to have our family to their house on Sunday an wanted to know if I got the message....  thinking this message was the voicemail that didn't work, I explained that I did get a message but that I couldn't listen to it or erase it from my phone.  Then, having other plans already I had to decline the invitation.

So there I am, busy making plans with friend number one for a holiday party.. great fun.  I am very excited about visiting because we had not seen each other in a while.... and we are long time, good friends too.  I am minding my own business...shopping... getting all excited about this party and then one day I wake up to the phone ringing... it is friend number three...

'Hi."  she says.  "Hey, I wanted to invite you guys over on Sunday.  Did you get my message?" 

"No," I said.  "Something happened with my voice mail, and it didn't get through to me...but  .... friend number two..... did call and tell me about the invitation."  I told her though that we already had other plans.  I also told friend three,  " I am so sorry, but we already have made these  other plans, so I have to decline your invitation."  To which she graciously invited us to stop by even later in the day, if we could.

I thanked her and hung up the phone....

Later that day I was tooling around with my phone, cleaning out old messages, looking at photos people had sent me.... and noticed that the text with the invite was not from the person I thought it was from.  It was not from friend number one at all.. it was from friend number three....
This got  me thinking... and I realized that friend number three did not send me a voice mail as I thought, it was a text message.

But.. if she sent me a text message.. how did friend number one invite me?  Wha is via phone conversation... or did I just invite myself to friend number ones house.... mistaking invite from friend three for an invite from friend one?

The conclusion on my end was that I had basically invited myself to friend number one's house...

I called friend number one...and when I finally reached her, I explained my confusion a little and said, "I have to ask you, did I invite myself to your house?"

I could tell she was smiling on the other end of the phone.  "Well," she replied, "your text to me seemed a little odd, but I just figured that I had invited you, but that having done that, I forgot and I was happy you were coming over, so it was fine."

WOW.

Well, with all the mysteries solved... we were still having a party and that was great, but  I was still a bit embarrassed... and really glad I figured it out and discussed it with friend number one before arriving at her house with all my family in tow.  God is good.

Then a twist to the story.  Friend number one had a sick child and so we canceled our gathering with them... but in our planning they could still have their family party and we could still have our own...we each had all the food bases covered.  On our end, in lieu of going to friend number one's,that we decided to call friend number three (who lives much closer to our own home) and see if we could join them instead...

We did and it was fun to say the least... even though we were a bit disappointed not to spend the day with friend and family number one and of course knowing that someone at their house was feeling ill.

It was kinda crazy, but all I can say is that I am really glad to have such gracious friends..

number one,

number two,

and number three!

and you know who you be....

Thanks!




PS
It was very fun to tell my friends this story and laugh with them about it.  I think we will be laughing quite a while too.

Backyard Treasures

Outside playing with the kids they showed me some old broken in half walnut shells that were all over their yard; no doubt about it, these expertly broken shells were the dinner remnants of busy squirrels that lived in the back yard.  The kids thought they were yukky, but I convinced them that these were not yukky at all.  I told them that these were treasures and in no time at all I had them collecting them for me by the dozens.  But with having them convinced they were treasures, I then had to come up with  reason they should be considered treasure. 

Fortunately, it was not only fun to see how many we could find, but I had a few ideas.  The first was to make and decorate a little tree with the shells.

I found an old branch in the grass that looked a little bit like it was a tree trunk with a few branches, and I stuck it in the ground so that it looked a lot ike a very small tree with branches.  Then we proceeded to place the walnuts on the branches delicately balancing each one.  That was fun.

Here is a photo of our little tree.

Then, tired of playing with the walnuts we found,  we went scouting for purple flowers.

These were everywhere and quite a sight to see.  We counted bunches of flowers rather than individual flowers... and there were at least thirty groups that got our attention.  After a little hike around the perimeter of the yard we discovered much more... everywhere.  This to us was a definite sign of spring's arrival and we took not of new buds here and there on all kinds of things that were growing all over the place.


Alas, it was getting cold and time to go inside.... but we took our treasures in with us.  This was when the real fun began.  We made little walnut sailboats and floated them on water.

To make our little walnut boats we broke tiny sticks for a mast and made sails of papar.  We apes the sails to the sticks like little flags and then we used small pieces of playdough, which we smooshed into the hull of the nutshell, to hold our stick flags up in the air by poking the stick into the  doughy clay.  Tupperware containers filled with water served our our personal lakes and we set sail!

This pictured walnut ship is not one we made that day, but the photo is enclose to give you an idea of what our little boats looked like. 





Ahoy!  Land Ho!








When the time came to end this game, we played one more...  the shell game!  In this game you use several identical half shells.   Three or four is a good amount.  You simply hide a small objects under one of the shells, mix them around and try to guess what shell the item is hidden under. 

What a fun spring day!



As a side note, I read an article recently about how a family that was too poor to buy cake, put little candles in the walnuts with clay and lit them aglow and sailed them on water to be blown-out like the candles on a birthday cake for their little girl.  It is quite neat to blow around the little sailing vessels too.


Other ideas for walnut treasures are:
walnut ships 
secret compartments and surprise gifts
Christmas mousies sleeping in their beds
walnut animals
mouse magnet
pin cushion
carved basket
bed
wagons
baby bassinet

See...
they are tiny treasures after all.

Emu Update

Here is Kevin... enjoying a spring day.  (Kevin is our pet Emu.  To learn more about how he ended up being integrated into our menagerie of pets, simply read older posts marked Emu in the Morning.)

Keven looks a little shaggy and maybe a little ordinary but really he/she (not sure the gender of this bird) is quite beautiful.  He/she is quite spunky too.

Did I mention that Kevin was beautiful?  Look at these magnificent eyelashes!