Here we go...

Lots of folks are blogging these days. Lots of those folks have chickens, make zucchini pickles, enjoy sharing information and opinions, live somewhere you've never heard of, and can make a fairly ordinary life seem decently entertaining.

Hey, I do all of those things. Does that mean I should blog? I think you'll be the judge of that. But I'd like to give it a try.

Now for the Q&A portion of the inaugural post. It'll help you get to know me and decide if you want to keep reading.

Q: What's the story with "Hell Mountain"? Is that really where you live?
A: No, we live on Norton Mountain in Starksboro, Vermont, a small town somewhere between Burlington and Montpelier. It's quite lovely up here now, in mid-August, but by January you'll know why my husband (who was born in Connecticut but would never admit it) dubbed it Hell Mountain.

Q: You're on the chicken bandwagon (with every other American yuppie). Did you do it for love or money?
A: I did it for eggs, which I don't currently eat both due to textural issues and the fact that I am a cheegan.

Q: Cheegan?
A: A vegan who can't give up eating cheese. It's my dairy crutch and the addiction is shameful. I made the word "cheegan" up. It's apropos, but I also worked in advertising for almost 10 years. You can't shut that stuff off.

Q: Back to the chickens.
A: My dream plan, after a winter's worth of research to find the cold-hardiest, egg-layingest breeds, led me to carefully select a dozen day old chicks and two ducklings from a mail order operation in Middlebury. I am not going to name it because I am not particularly happy with how my order on paper translated to what I actually am raising right now. My intention was two Buff Orpingtons, two Buff Brahmas, two Araucanas, two Jersey Giants, two Black Australorps, two Rhode Island Reds, and two Khaki Campbells (the ducks).

Q: I am not sure I like where this is going.
A: Agreed. But let's press on. They were all cute as buttons, but as they grew I realized that the ducklings (which were three in number due to a processing mishap) were looking awful mallard-y, the Brahmas were white, the black chicks (Australorps and J.G.s) appeared to be all the same, and a R.I.R. and Araucana were shaking some pretty roosterish tail feathers. So my order and winter's worth of research were flat-out botched by the aforementioned, yet unnamed, peep vendor. One of the ducklings got out and was snagged by our Jack Russell, Douglas. The other one flew away. The R.I.R. roo is okay-fine and will probably make a good protector of the flock, but my suspicion is that the Araucana roo is going to be reinvented as coq au vin. He's loud and rough with the ladies. There's no place for that, not even in a place called Hell Mountain.

Q: Is that all you do? Complain about chickens?
A: No, I'm actually an elementary school teacher. I complain about kids too.

Q: Interesting dichotomy.
A: There are a few parallels. My non-chicken-based job is to run the after school program at Bristol Elementary School. I also recently gave myself a job teaching there because I know how talented I am as an educator and how valuable I am as an employee.

Q: When can we chat again?
A: As soon as I have more to say which, knowing me, will be fairly soon.