The Part of the Year That Sucks

It sprinkled a bit on Saturday, and you'd have thought we won the lottery. The child and the chickens were so happy. But here we are again, with 100-degree highs and zero rain in the forecast for the next two weeks. Blehh. I hate this part of summer. I guess I mostly hate summer. It was pretty mild until about the second week in July. I'm ready for a break in this crap already. Ugh.

Hey, here's something fun: I can see decay on ANOTHER tooth in Mal's mouth. Hopefully, I caught it early enough that doubling up on brushing and finally forcing him to use fluoride will help. I guess he just has super porous teeth. We can't go in for another cleaning/fluoride treatment until January. I'm going with another dentist's office, because... I just am. We have friends who are really happy with their dentist's office. Then again, her kid doesn't have cavities (and brushes maybe once a week), so he sounds like D. D LOVED the dentist, because it was always kudos for no cavities.

Something funny I was thinking about the other day: I don't remember brushing D's teeth. Like ever. I know I did, up to a certain point. But I have no memory of it. Or of when we went from baths to showers. All lost to the ages.

I deleted my Instagram account yesterday. I'm still on Twitter, but who knows for how much longer. Social media is the way that many activists I enjoy communicate most, but also, I know I'm in an echo chamber. AND people hate re-tweet (or screen cap and then share) so much, then the same talking points are heaved on both sides, and it's just tiring. I'm still using groups on Facebook under a fake name, so I can follow "Be the Bridge" and a hyper-local inclusion group, and a smaller (than Austin) area homeschool group, as well as Buy Nothing.

The only thing I miss about social media is sharing cool pictures with everyone. As much as I have always enjoyed writing, I think I increasingly process stuff visually. Before Google Photos sucked up Picasa, you could just make your entire photo page public, and I'm sad that I have to share each individual album with people I want to see my pictures. Most likely, nobody cares about this nearly as much as I do.

The chickens are around 16 weeks old. Their combs are getting increasingly red/pink. This is/can be an indicator of sexual maturity, and on average, Easter Eggers can lay as early as 20 weeks. I'm hoping it will cool down a bit before they have to start working on that, though.

I joined an online chicken forum, and asked people more knowledgable than I: apparently, the seller was right and all six birds are pullets! I'm so glad, as we really like them all and wouldn't want to have to break up "the set" if any of them were cockerels. But also, there's a likelihood that we may end up with a couple dozen eggs every week! Some weeks, we go through that many (especially when Mal was loving scrambled eggs -- which he now hates -- and D is on a ramen kick). Otherwise, if we have excess, I think I'm going to offer half a dozen eggs at a time for free to whoever wants them. It'll be a nice way to meet more neighbors. Maybe I'll use them as a welcome wagon gift, with all of the new construction and people moving in.

Mal and I are going to go see the live-action Dora movie tomorrow, and I'm actually super excited. It looks very cute. Yes, I'm a dork. After that, he wants to go to the Lego store (which is so very far away) and see if they have any Minecraft mini-figs. So that'll keep us mostly indoors and air conditioned tomorrow.

One good thing: This heatwave makes me really glad we got solar panels! We're using a bit under 20 kWh of PEC electricity on the hottest days, which is less than a third of what we were using before. So that's pretty exciting.

Tomorrow is my parents' 50th anniversary! They're on a cruise and will be arriving in Quebec City in the morning, then will finish up this trip in Montreal for a couple of days. I want to go back to Montreal soon. And Glacier National Park. And I'd love to go to Yellowstone for the first time. Basically, I'd love to just travel for a year or so. D could take care of the chickens and the cats, so it'd totally work out. I should definitely start a GoFundMe, right? Right??