Will this be a wrap up? No. Will it be one last post in under the wire for the year? Yes.

First things first I will say the biggest lesson learned from 2023 is to not let the universe know you have a favorite chicken.

So… yeah. Ricotta is no more but so is the possum. You know that sound in Kill Bill that Beatrix gets when she’s about to go all murdery? That was me after the loss of Ricotta.

3 nights of live traps later and I caught the asshole possum. As it was the day after trash day (didn’t want a possum corpse in the bin for 6 days) he didn’t get shot but he did get shaken out unceremoniously on some train tracks far away from my house, and conveniently near a large colony of feral cats. I have hopes for how this whole thing shook out. They have some INSANE claws when seen close up, they look way less dangerous from afar, let me tell you what.

The second lesson learned in 2023 is that chickens are easily replaceable.

Meet Ricotta (2). She’s the almost all white one in the center there, and may be a more aptly named Ricotta, in fact, what with that coloring. Behind her is a VERY Ricotta (1) looking second new chicken, named Chickpea, so at least there is still one around with a short fat stature and grumpy face. (I got a spare because…reasons.)

From left to right up there is Sugar (she’s either a drag queen rooster or the goddamn largestSplash Orpington hen I’ve ever seen.Time will tell.) Ricotta (2), Chickpea, Salem, and Peep… who is very quickly trucking herself towards being a predominantly black chicken with small white speckles. That doesn’t fall into any recognized Orpington color that I know, so she may well be a mix. Still a little vulture-y looking, but less so now that she’s losing the mostly white wings.

November and early December was EXTREMELY busy for work- each month selling more than I sold in a year at the last company, but it’s finally slowed down a bit. It’s also fiscal year end, so our race to the finish-line to make numbers is almost over as well. I liken it to being like a salmon swimming exhaustedly upstream to spawn and then die. But we start again in January and hope, in sales and all things, springs eternal.

In the midst of that we had a fairly sedate Thanksgiving, which we ended up hosting a bit last minute, but it was fine. My husband smoked a turkey, we had sautéed green beans and walnuts instead of green bean casserole, and I made a fresh cranberry and orange chunky sauce instead of buying storebought.

Anything put in canning jars for storage seems way more involved than it actually was- fyi.

With Thanksgiving over we trucked CRAZILY into December. My youngest’s birthday is in December. My husband’s birthday is in December. Christmas is in December. Its a whirlwind of gifts and parties and work and more gifts and…one other thing and if you guessed I would fucking add another pet in the midst of that madness you would know me too well.

Don’t promise you’re kids they can get a kitten when they turn 8 lightly, folks. So yup. The youngest turned 8 and her kitten is sitting right next to me as I blog right now, in fact. He’s a goddamn joy to have around, this one- we’re all pretty big fans. His name is Asher- which, fun fact- when they get a kitten they get to also name said kitten pretty much whatever they want, too. Oh well.

Whelp. We’ll call it there, I guess. As a post of chickens, cooking, and cats seems to be pretty damn on the nose for me these days.

Happy Holidays to all, and to all a good night!