This is Gilligan. I’ve told you about him before — how as a kitten he was just a little slow. His name was supposed to be Forrest Gump, but then the guy who played Gilligan died, and we decided to name the kitten in his honor. I don’t know why.

Gilligan is a unique cat. I’m sorry if this seems like a gross thing to tell, but he urinates directly into the drain in the bathroom sink. I don’t know how he learned to do it, but apparently he figured out that if water disappeared down there, pee would too. It’s the next best thing to toilet-training him.

He is also obsessed with brushes. Paint brushes, makeup brushes, basting brushes — if it has soft bristles, he’s there.

I’ve had to start hiding my makeup brushes in my dresser drawer, because otherwise he will jump up on the dresser and root around in my cosmetic bag until he finds them. And then I never see them again. I have a Physician’s Formula loose mineral powder in a little domed box with its own tiny brush inside the dome. He will knock the entire cosmetic bag to the floor to dislodge the top of that powder box. Then he’ll grab the brush and run.

I put the final coat of paint on the kitchen cabinets a few months back. Then I washed out the brush and left it on the edge of the sink to dry. I forgot about his brush fetish, so I didn’t make sure the door to the downstairs was latched. It was less than two minutes before I heard the brush hit the floor, and here came Gilligan, prancing back up the stairs with his “kill” dangling from his mouth.

But the basting brushes are the most common victims. They’re defenseless, really, because they have to dry in the dish drainer. Right out there in the open. And Gilligan shows no mercy.

I actually decided to just let him have one. I thought maybe if he had one of his very own, he’d lose interest in the others. And he loves his brush. He carries it around the house, jumps into the empty bathtub with it, or knocks it under the sofa or the bookcase and lies flat on the floor looking at it and meowing pitifully until I fish it out for him.

But it hasn’t distracted him from constantly seeking other brushes. The craziest thing about it is that he doesn’t get up on the kitchen counter except when there’s a brush in the sink. It’s like he smells them as soon as he walks into the room. Then he finds them, steals them, and lies on the floor making out with them.

I set a trap for Gilligan a few weeks ago, leaving his favorite basting brush tantalizingly close to the edge of the counter. He came down the stairs and walked straight over there, not caring that I was settled on the kitchen couch with my camera. He has no shame.

Featherpaws arrived for the last shot. I think Gilligan was prepared to defend his trophy to the death, but fortunately Featherpaws (who has claws) didn’t challenge him for it. She just went upstairs and curled back up on Ben’s pajama pants.

And Gilligan and his brush lived happily ever after.

We used to go to the local farmer’s market every once in a while when I was little. I’m not exactly sure why we stopped — I just I know I hadn’t been there in years. One Saturday morning in April, though, Ben and I decided to go, and now I’m in love.
First of all, the fruit and vegetable prices are great. I’ve been buying sweet potatoes at the grocery store for 98 cents/lb. — the last time, four potatoes cost me almost $7.00. But at the farmer’s market, they’re better quality and 50 cents/lb. I like that.
Second, there’s a fridge full of local Happy Cow Creamery products. The 2 lb. rolls of fresh butter for the same price I’d be paying for store butter. The whole milk — I’m not a big fan, but my beloved husband with his super-duper, ultra-efficient, high-speed metabolism loves it. The cheese — I’m almost afraid to try it because it looks too delicious and I’m afraid once I get started I’ll eat the whole block.
And third, did I mention that the prices are amazing? My sister and I love lemon verbena — we were originally fascinated with it because in Gone With the Wind, Ellen O’Hara always has its scent in her clothing. But it can be hard to find and expensive. Well, unless you go to the farmer’s market, where Kristin bought an enormous shrub of the stuff for $12 two weeks ago.
(On a sidenote, lemon verbena is supposed to be an anaphrodisiac (the opposite of an aphrodisiac). Since learning that, I’ve always wondered if Ellen wore the scent deliberately — maybe she figured three daughters were enough. You figure that in her role as midwife and local medical expert, she probably knew her way around an herb garden…)
I don’t plant very many flowers because our house is almost entirely buried in trees and only hostas and liriope seem to like it here. But I love growing herbs. I usually start them from seeds, but when I can get twelve healthy, well-established young plants for $20, it makes the whole process of planting seeds and coddling them till they sprout just to yank half of them out for spacing purposes seem like a waste of time.
I have a little border of tough perennials like rosemary, lavender, and sage around the patio, but since they get a lot of shade from the pecan tree in the backyard, I decided to keep my sun-loving herbs mobile this year. And anyway, what’s better than a galvanized tub with herbs tumbling over the sides?

The rooster is crowing. And the hens are talking. Oh, yes, they talk. And when their pen is only about a hundred feet from your bedroom window, you hear every word.
Back in junior high, I had 45 laying hens and a very lucrative egg business. At least, it seemed lucrative to a 12-year-old. My brother-in-law even had a rubber stamp made for me to use on my egg cartons, proclaiming me the proprietor of Omega Ranch Farm Fresh Eggs. I was hot stuff, I tell you what.
But after a few unfortuate episodes involving my chickens and our neighbor’s flower beds, ORFFE went under. And we went back to buying eggs at the grocery store.
A few years ago, Mom started her own little flock of Araucanas and Americaunas, the Easter egg layers. She shared the eggs with my sister and me, but it didn’t always leave many for her.
So in January, Ben and I decided to get a few hens of our own. Because there’s just no comparison between a fresh egg and a store-bought egg. I would break one of each into a skillet to photograph the difference for you, but to do that I’d have to buy a dozen eggs. So I’ll just tell you that fresh eggs are great and show you our chickens instead.

This is Festus, our rooster. He might not lay eggs, but he takes pretty good care of his ladies, herding them all into the henhouse whenever he senses a threat. Just let the shadow of a hawk drift across the pen, and Festus is out there rounding up the girls and shooing them to safety. It’s nice to know they’re so well cared for. Plus, well… he was free when we bought three hens.

This is my favorite hen, the Barred Rock, treating herself to a spa pedicure. She lays big brown eggs and follows us all over the pen like a puppy. She doesn’t have a name, which is sad. Actually, Festus is the only one with a name. Poor nameless hens.

These are the ladies in a “My word, somebody sneaked a camera into the dressing room!” moment. The black one with the white earlobes on the roost is a Blue Andalusian and our only white egg layer. (Earlobe color usually tells you if a hen lays white or brown eggs. Unless they lay blue and pink eggs like Mom’s hens, which do not have blue and pink earlobes. Although that would be cool.) The three other black ones are Plymouth Rocks, and the brown one is a Rhode Island Red, who lays enormous brown eggs that fill the palm of your hand.

I think the Barred Rock is wishing she had asked her nail technician for this color after that spa foot bath. Either that or she’s contemplating eating my toes. I once had a pet hen, Esmerelda, who would sneak under the picnic table by the pool and peck at guests’ polished toenails.

And this is the payoff. Big, beautiful eggs that make everything taste better, even baked goods. They also seriously help to keep our grocery costs down. If I’m getting close to exceeding the budget, we just have eggs for dinner for a few nights.

The hens eat our vegetable scraps, provide unbeatable fertilizer for the garden, and keep us well-stocked with eggs — all for literally pennies a day. And knowing that the eggs we’re eating are free from pesticides, antibiotics, and anything else we don’t want with our omelettes? Well, that’s just priceless.