girls rule, boys drool

That's the word on the playground, apparently. Also, the other way around.

Yes, school is back, and all the hubbub therewith. I find myself with more free time than I've had in almost a decade (though "free" may be an overstatement. It would more accurately be described as time to put a dent in the mountain of tasks, large and small, looming before me. Can you hear the sad violins playing in the background?).

Yesterday I worked for hours on the new and improved Chateau Chicken, since some friends are giving us their pair of Leghorn layers (that's "Leggern" to those of you interested in improving your Chickenese). This could work out well for a couple of reasons: Leghorns are big layers (and I mean BIG - have you seen the size of those monsters?), but they're not so much into going broody (sitting on the eggs). Silkies, on the other hand, rarely get around to laying because they go broody so easily. They love sitting on any eggs they can find, even those of other hens. Silkie roosters are apparently the same way - they'll keep the eggs warm and help raise the chicks. How's that for the "sensitive male" so many women dream about?

Last weekend we did the horse show thing, and tomorrow's the County Fair show. Don't know if we'll be going though, since Zzari stepped on the boy's toe this week and it's still sore.
That's about it for this Friday - short and sweet. I'd like to add "like me," but I'm more the tall and cranky type.Follow @nicole_mcinnes

chop wood, carry water, ride school bus

It occurred to me today, driving along the 4-mile cinder road that runs across the north end of the prairie from our house to the Interstate, that the Nicole Show plays with much less static interference in California than it does in Arizona. Not that I'm not a self-centered navel gazer here - far from it. But living the way we do in this state requires a level of interaction with the basics of life - food, warmth, shelter, transportation - that is completely unnecessary in the Bay Area, where tap water magically appears via miles of ground pipe and where you have to put forth some serious effort if you want to drive on a dirt road. It's taking a good deal of energy just to get used to the idea of our return to rural life, much less actually doing what needs to be done. I'm afraid I've taken to the past year of relative luxury like a moth to a flame, and the end result might be the same if I don't cowgirl up right quick.

Yesterday my husband and brother-in-law moved our new, several-hundred-pound wood stove from the bed of the PowerStroke (that's our old Ford diesel truck for those electric car drivers out there - not that there's anything wrong with electric cars) to our living room, where it waits on a pallet for the Wood Stove Installer Guy (the WSIG, not to be confused with the WIG) to come out and set it up. It's too late in the season to get a wood cutting permit from the Forest Service now, but come Fall we'll be filling the Thermos with hot cocoa or apple cider and heading out with the stock trailer toward Ash Fork, or the Rez or the Grand Canyon to cut next winter's wood supply.

Between now and then we'll make hundreds of water hauling trips either to the local water station, or to the one near the big truck stop between here and Flagstaff if the local one's down. And if we're still closing out this 8-year-or-so drought cycle when summer rolls around, it's likely that underground water table will get too low to supply both of those wells, and we'll have to drive the 30 miles into town to fill up the 500 gallon tank before driving it back home and emptying the water into our cistern. Add thirsty horses to that equation and you can start to see how water quickly becomes a precious commodity here.

One thing that won't take any getting used to - and to which I'm looking forward come tomorrow morning - is the return of the school bus into our lives. There's nothing quite like the rush of hearing that big yellow behemoth rumbling down our washboarded road at 7:35 a.m. and realizing that if the boy does not cram that last piece of toast into his mouth, put on both of his shoes, find his backpack and don his winter parka all in one simultaneous moment, he's going to miss the bus, and Mom will have to drive him to school in the 12-degree weather. Which does not make Mom happy. And as we all know, if Mama ain't happy, ain't NOBODY happy.

Okay, okay, I'm still working on the self-centered, navel gazing thing, but - Lord have mercy - the toenail polish from that last luxurious California pedicure is barely dry. So please, you rural wunderkind neighbors, cut me some slack. Except for Jackie who, if she's noticed my citified status, has been kind enough to bite her tongue.Follow @nicole_mcinnes