Sick, sick, sick

Finn has been an entirely different guy this week. And not in a good way.
He got vaxed on Tuesday (more on this experience later) and we expected him to be grouchy afterwards for a day or so. Lucky us, he not only got grouchy but ran a fever. It was just slight at first, but by mid-day Thursday his temp was up to 100.7. Poor, poor little man. Plus, despite our efforts to get him to drink more liquids he still ended up constipated Friday and Saturday. And he's developed a cold. He's a complete mess. And his sleeping at night because of all this is pretty much non-existent. Last night he joined us in bed at 11:30 (he had finally gone to sleep in his own bed at 9, 2 hours AFTER he was supposed to). And he slept fairly well with us til 3. Then he got up, had a bottle and would not go back to sleep. Not where was supposed to anyways (i.e. in between Steve and me). He tossed, he turned, squirmed and squiggled. Rolled over so many times that Steve gave up and moved to the floor. Then Finn wrestled around with me for a good half hour trying to find a comfortable spot that didn't involve either of us hanging off the edge of the bed. He finally settle down, upside down and diagonally across the center of the bed. I'm sure that a lot of this battle could have been avoided had we brought the vaporizor into our room for him, but I'm allergic to the menthol. Sigh. And today he's just as stuffed up and miserable. He woke up at 7 this morning and went back to sleep at 8:45 and napped til 12. He woke up fairly happy after that. But by 2 he was ready to go down again. I just want my normal, healthy little guy back. Ugh.

On the upside, his long naps left me time to look up a yummy french onion soup recipe (I want to suprise Steve with it this week), bake cookies to send to Bobby and Katie (chocolate chip!), and do some research on chicken coops. With us looking at a few farm houses for rent I'm hoping we can get a few hens for the spring. Nothing says homemade like slaughtering your own chickens in the fall! I picked up an issue of Hobby Farm yesterday and they had a whole section on rare chicken breeds and composting with chicken manure and fancy-schmancy coops. I get pretty excited about such things. I got REALLY excited about the Omlet Eglu coop. Until I looked it up on their website and discovered that the whole set up runs about $500. Ouch. While it is a very complete kit, and would be preceisely what I'd need for under a half dozen hens, that's just too pricey. So I guess we'll have to build our own little house for the birds. I'm sure my dad could help us build one like some of the fancier models in Hobby Farm. I so want my own little farm. My dream farm is right across the street from where Steve works. I sigh and dream each time we drive past. Big ol' farm house, giant barn, roomy shed, fields upon fields for planting and grazing. Someday, someday. For now I guess I'll just have to hope we can score one of these rentals and that they'll let us keep a few hens out back and plant a few rows of veggies.