After moving to the country, we decided to be chicken lovers and bought some baby chicks. The Mister of the House loves them so much he built them their own cottage in the backyard. And my oldest child, Rainbow Girl, well let's just say her Saturday morning cartoon days are over!

Rainbow Girl: Mom, can I have some chocolate frosted sugar bombs for breakfast?

Mrs. Olsen: What dear? I can't hear you over the anguished clucks of your starving chickens. Get to work!

And it's not just losing the mind-numbing Saturday past-times that gives me such pleasure, it's the rush to get our "chicken work" done before school even starts. Let's follow Rainbow Girl, shall we? Here we are on a school day, rushing to get her work done before she has to go to The Big House.

This ain't no Bridge to Nowhere. Take me to the cottage, pronto!

First my disturbingly bow-legged daughter pulls some fresh feed out of the bin (that is an optical illusion by the way, what is up with that?). We buy the feed that has no antibiotics, because we're not doctors and we think our chickens are fine the way they are.

Good Morning Martha! Good Morning Agnes! What's up Samantha? (You would not believe the names we have come up with for our our winged friends. The Mister of the House will bring home a new chicken and spend more time naming them then he did with his own offspring! I tell you he looooves those chickens).

Here's Rainbow Girl bringing in the fresh stuff and loading it on top. And would you just look at that kid? No farm girl is better dressed.

After greeting Rainbow Girl personally, the chickens take the back door to get some fresh air in the yard. This is where Rainbow Girl throws them our food scraps. Who knew what our feathered friends would gobble up? They love melon rinds, banana peels, zucchini, cucumbers......rice and curry. (Yes, rice and curry. But only when these leftovers have the rare opportunity of being overlooked in our fridge). Samantha, Martha, Agnes, Pepper, Guadalupe.....they have put our combost bin out of business.

Rainbow Girl has to do a couple runs between the cottage and the house. The outdoor water station gets changed everyday, so there's always a way for Agnes to cleanse her palate between the main course: rotten cucumber rinds, and dessert: double-chocolate cake (hello? Of course I was kidding. Chocolate cake only lasts about 73.6 seconds at my house. These ladies practically kill each other to eat a grasshopper....I'm not wasting cake on them).

After digesting their 7 course meal and getting some fresh air...the chickens eventually lay some eggs. They need some time to do it, we let them get to their work while Rainbow Girl is at school.

And would you look at their individual cubbies crafted by The Mister of the House? They have nice fresh wood shavings so they can get cozy when they need to....well.....you know. It's......uncomfortable. They cluck really loud and I feel like I'm going through childbirth again. I have to run away.

We make sure that whenever Rainbow Girl harvests these little protein wonders, she says thank you to the chickens. It's hard work! Thank you Martha, Agnes, and Samantha!

My point and shoot camera is not doing justice to these eggs. The one front and center is from our favorite lady, Samantha. I would add that no camera ever invented could make Rainbow Girl look bad, what a cutie!

Now Samantha, she's the white one with light green feet, and her eggs are the same color....a beautiful light mint green. This is how she got her name, in honor of Dr. Seuss. I will not eat them Sam I am, I will not eat Green Eggs and Ham! What was that? You guessed it! Yep, The Mister of the House did come up with that one. I only came up with Guadalupe, and I can't even remember which one she is.

So now it's back to the house to get the eggs rinsed off and placed in the fridge. What was that sweetie? I'm sorry we can't watch Spongebob Squarepants, we've got an egg delivery to make!

Rainbow Girl gets some eggs packaged up and ready to deliver to her select clients: Grandma Cozy as well as some of those genetically-mutated Olsen Aunties. It's great spending some time in the kitchen with my little girl. We talk about how her day went.

No kidding, there's a new boy in your class, huh?

Rainbow Girl: Yes, he's sooo different from everybody else.

Mrs. Olsen: Different? That's okay.....what do you mean? Is he taller than everyone else? Does he have buck teeth?

Rainbow Girl: No mom, he's just...*sigh*....different.

Mrs. Olsen: Well....what's his name?

Rainbow Girl: I don't know! I have a crush on him though.

Mrs. Olsen: You don't even know what a crush is. It's an orange drink! That's all a crush is okay? An orange drink! It's called Orange Crush, got it?

Hmmmphff.

After all of this chicken stuff on top of Rainbow Girl's full day at school, her homework, reading time, 3 meals, riding her bike around the block, wrestling the little brother, making her bed, and brushing her teeth.....then she's ready to call it a day.

The next morning we wake up and start all over again.

Rainbow Girl: Mom, can I have a jumbo pumpkin spice muffin with a side of hot chocolate full of melting marshmallows for breakfast?

Mrs. Olsen: Hmmm. Well yes! Yes you can, but I get to pick your school clothes today.

Rainbow Girl: Okay! Okay! Okay! Please pass the bag of marshmallows while I wait!

Have a great day at school! Don't forget your bonnet and tell Whats-His-Face hello for me!

To get to my house, of course. They head straight for the front door.

It's so cute to hear chickens try to knock on the door. They just cluck really loud and start flapping their wings, scratching the glass with their feathers. Hang on there, just changin' a diaper, we're on our way! My son loves to pull the blinds up and get a sneak peak at door-callers, make sure they're legit and all.

Nope. Definitely not my kid. Yes on the needing some glass cleaning, no on the my-kid part.

Oh, what was that? I'm sorry, this isn't Mrs. Olsen's house? Wait a second, I'm Mrs. Olsen! Who's talking here?! I'm confused.

No, this is not Mrs. Olsen's house, but it might as well be the address for The Mister of the House, he loves it so. You see, with our recent move to the country this past summer, we got three things we never had before:

1. a real honest-to-goodness backyard
2. water rights
3. and chickens

The Mister of the House, with all his entrepreneurial venturing and business sense, has got some good old-fashioned handyman skills to top it off. He built this sucker with his own two hands, and it's the beginning of our experiment called Living-Closer-to-the-Land-and-Knowing-the-Source-of-our-Food. Or for short we'll call it Being-a-Little-Closer-to-Natural-Living-but-Still-Being-a-Wannabe-Hippy. Yeah, that's a much easier way to say that, much better said. Okay, third time's a charm, it's called: Teaching-Your-Kids-To-Work.

Moving on.

It really does have a name though, it's called Bok Bok Cottage.

Now keep in mind it's a little cluttered. It's still a bit of a work-zone. We've still got some touch-up paint to do, got to find the perfect weathervane to mount on the roof, but it's powered up and ready to take our chickens on an egg-laying adventure over the winter.

Correction: The Mister of the House is actually much more handy with help from our awesome friends and family. Thanks Greg, Janis, Mike, Sara and Herm for your help with Bok Bok Cottage!