Hank the Cowdog tried to warn us. Dogs love chicken. My kids love to listen to those cds at night in bed and I think they sort of secretly hoped our dogs would be like Hank, defender and protector of chickens. Now with that bit of foreshadowing out of the way, let me tell you about our chickens.

We love to let our chickens out a little while each day and watch them scratch around in the yard. They are so funny the way they act. They all have little chicken personalities. We got our rooster first and have had him quite a while so he knows he’s boss. The brown hens arrived only 2 weeks ago but they act like that rooster is their king and always has been.

This little hen/rooster hatched out in winter and had to be raised inside. Our friends gave them to us to raise him/her and so she has been in the house until recently. So, she is the friendliest. She is also the most antisocial with the other chickens. She’s timid and she gets picked on a lot. Especially by Delilah. She is one of the brown hens who has a bit of a mean streak. We also saw the rooster pick her up by the neck and shake her a few times. Which solved the mystery of why she had such a scrawny looking neck.

Which is why this morning I decided to put Peepers, our fancy, delicate black and white chick, in a pen by herself. I put her in the old rooster pen. I got her all set up, content that she would have some time to mature and learn to defend herself before we put her back with the rowdy crowd. I watched her a while as she adapted to her new space, fed her and then went inside. We had a dentist appointment to get to so I started getting ready.

If any mother out there is able to take care of basic hygiene as well as fix hair and put on makeup on a daily basis, please send me your tips and tricks. Anytime I ever make an attempt to do things like take a shower, put on make up, blow dry my hair, I am always interrupted by some epic tragedy.

Which is why when I heard screaming followed by howling today, I did not immediately drop my curling iron and run. I had not finished counting to ten yet on that one curl. But when my son opened the back door and yelled, “MAMA!” It had been a compete 10 seconds so I reluctantly left my curling iron and half done hair to sort out the problem.

The kids, the dogs and distress greeted me in the back yard. Peepers had frantically escaped the pen when my daughter let our dogs out and now her head was in one dog’s mouth and her body in another’s.

For once it was a true epic tragedy, and not just some fight over the hairbrush.

Amid the howling, crying and consoling, I knew we only had a few minutes to mourn before we had to get on the road to the dentist. In spite of our loss, the schedule had to go on.

She wanted a surprise family party for her 12th. I wondered how we would surprise her when she requested it. But I sent her away for the day with my aunt and the rest of us got busy decorating.

We decided to do a photo booth. I’d been wanting to do one for a long time and I knew that would be a fun surprise for her. We loved it! I made every guest get their picture made with the birthday girl. I’m going to make her a book of all the shots.

Near the end of the party we started playing spoons. It’s a pretty intense, fast-paced game. The birthday girl and her big sister made a grab for the same spoon and there was some scratching involved, then a fight broke out. I caught the beginning of it in a picture. After that I had to toss the camera aside to break up a fight. The party fizzled after that and I sent the girls to their room. A few minutes later, my son had some balloon strings across his mouth and his little sister yanked on them and jerked his loose tooth out. We had a big ordeal when he lost his first tooth and we were bracing ourselves for more vomiting, slurping, drooling and mumbling.

Fortunately, this tooth went much better than the first.

I will say that the birthday party ended with a bang, and I’m not one bit upset that I’m done with birthdays until August.

It’s been a long time since I talked about what’s in my camera bag and there have been some updates this year as my business and shooting needs changed. I now shoot with the 5D Mark II Canon camera. I upgraded from my beloved 40D when I needed to enlarge a picture bigger than the 40D megapixels would allow. I would not have made the upgrade quite so soon without that push. I loved my 40D. It was a great camera (still is), it just had some limitations for professional use.

I also upgraded to the 50 mm 1.2 lens this year, even before the camera upgrade. I had the 50 1.8 and it got tons of use and was getting slow to focus. I went back and forth on whether to just get the 1.4 or shell out big bucks for the 1.2 and after talking with another photographer decided to go for it. It’s a pretty awesome lens. Lets in tons of light.

I still use my trusty 85 1.8. I love this lens for portraits. It still works very well and I doubt I’ll upgrade it until I have to.

The 24-70 1.8 is a good group shot/wide angle lens.

These are my three working lenses and they get rotated out with almost equal love and attention. I’m not sure I have a need for any more right now.

I got my tripod for Christmas last year. It’s a Manfrotto. I use it a lot.

This is my camera remote and lens pen lens cleaner. These stay in my bag. The remote is great to have, but this one drains batteries quick and I never seem to have a replacement ready.

For Christmas this year I searched high and low for the perfect camera bag. I’m pretty sure it can’t be found. I ended up getting the ONA insert. It’s a smallish plain bag with one divider and a front slim pocket that you slip down inside any bag. It’s perfect for day trips when I want to take my camera but not the big old camera bag. I can fit my camera with a lens attached and one more lens in the divided area. It keeps my camera safe and cozy and allows me to use any bag I want to.

Any questions?

Ya’ll we are having a really great mild winter here in Arkansas and I am loving it. We have a couple of cold days, some rain, and then it’s right back up in the 60s and that is just fine with me. No matter that our persimmon tree seeds predicted snow, I am pretty much always happy when predictions fail to come true.

It seems like we’ve turned a curve here at age three. We still have surprise moments where she’s covered herself in sunscreen (today at 5:45 pm) or when we find her under the table painting herself and everything else with purple fingernail polish (yesterday at 3:20 pm), she is finally able to entertain herself a little while when we are doing school. I can get out the Play Doh or her stamps and she will sit there quietly (for the most part) while we do table work. When I’m reading aloud she can play memory or hook together her bead set. It’s not all quiet and peaceful, but it’s a lot better than it was about six months ago.

We started a fun science/ art project this week and I’m eager to share it if it turns out the way we hope. It involved a tiny bit of math so there’s a chance nothing will turn out right at all.

I’ve been doing Darcy’s Project 52 photo challenge, but I’m posting all the challenges on my photography blog. You can find them all here. This week’s theme is self-portrait. I actually thought that theme was last week and I started taking shots of myself every day so I could pick the best one. Then I realized I was two weeks ahead and I just kept doing it. Every day. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep it up, but right now it’s a fun challenge just to get a shot of myself every day. It forces me to learn some new things and helps me understand how uncomfortable it can be in front of the camera (big uncomfortable). I’m storing them all in my flickr set.

Are you doing any photo challenges this year?

I made the decision to repaint all the areas of my home that had not been repainted since we moved in 8 years ago before Christmas. I dreaded tackling the job. My dining room, kitchen, breakfast area, back entry and living room are a continuous wall. There’s no stopping point so I knew I’d be doing all those rooms. I also wanted to do the entry and my office, possibly even the hallway. I decided on white pretty early even though several people tried to talk me out of it and everyone I told said, “White?” in a horrified tone.

You wouldn’t believe how difficult it was to make a decision on what shade of white. I assumed it would be easy. I was wrong. I went in and chose a color, came home and painted my dining room and hated it. It has a blue undertone and was wrong, wrong, wrong. I chose again, Roman Column from Sherwin Williams and it was right, right, right.

I had three helpers on Saturday and we got three rooms finished. I have lots left to do, but I’ve made a good start.

The red chairs are new (overstocks.com). I wanted something petite so we could squeeze more people around the table. I have three tables in my house and they are all full, overflowing and people eating on the living room chairs every Sunday. Also, I hated my wooden chairs that came with the table after I painted them white. However, I moved them in the living room (bottom picture) and now I like them again.

Ignore the guinea pig cage in the corner. My house will never look like a magazine cover because there will always be messes, pets, and piles of clutter.

I love the way my turquoise dresser looks against the white wall and also the children’s art (and one of Sara Mincy’s paintings) above it.

This is the living room with the Blonde paint that was everywhere. I don’t hate this color, but if I was going to repaint, I wanted a change. This room, hopefully, will soon be white too.