I find it interesting that sometimes a thought will be running round and round in my head and then a friend or family member will bring up the exact same thing. Happens with Sue and I a lot – probably because we live together, happens with Mom a great deal too, and often with my admin at work. Now, I find the connection is still there with friends back home. Case in point: when I was growing up, we had a retired Navy Chaplain in our church, Rev. Ted Herman, who never needed a microphone when he took the pulpit. I guess all those years preaching on the deck of ships at sea just gave his voice resonance. At the end of his services, as his pastoral blessing, he would intone a special prayer, the tenor of which had been rattling round in my head a great deal lately, but I could only recall a few specific words, “this troublous life…” and then vague ideas surrounding that sentiment. I think it had been in my mind so much lately because of – you guessed it – the horrendous winds we’ve been struck with. THEN, today I had a message from our friend Tracy, back home, asking about this exact same prayer. She was trying to remember it, but could only think of “grant us safe lodging… and peace at last”. So I just gave in and finally googled the few words I remembered with the addition of “Prayer” and found it. It’s called the “Prayer of Blessed John Henry Newman”.  I’ve put a photo of it above.  It also came to mind today because of some lodging issues we have of our own right now. Well, chicken lodging anyway.

The wind has been creating maintenance needs. When I got home and finally out to the main chicken coop, I found Sue struggling with feed bags in the wind, trying to staple them up on the doves’ enclosure because the wind had totally ripped off their wind screen. It was that really heavy plastic, I think we used to call it Visqueen (?) (- yep, looked it up and that’s the right spelling). That wind screen had been up for a while and I guess it finally couldn’t hold on any longer. We were having winds over 50 mph again today (Wednesday), along with rain. We often use feed bags as temporary wind protection, but its hard to staple them up by yourself during the winds. I held, Sue stapled, and we got enough up to provide shelter for them, it’ll just be a bit darker than normal. The angle of this photo makes the enclosure look a bit like the Shrieking Shack from Harry Potter, but it’s not that bad. Don’t you think we should get advertising funds from Dumore Feed Company???

Sue told me she also had to reattach the heavy banner we’re using as a wind screen on the green house for the two small chickens in there. It had ripped off and the wind was creating little twisters inside. She said the rooster was really upset. We like to use outdoor banners because they are made of a heavy material designed to stand up to sun and the elements. The Sunday School at FCC has sent us a couple to use, for which we are eternally grateful!
     I had been concerned that the RCW might tip again, but it is staying upright through out all this maelstrom… the extra supports seem to have really helped. Dustin was just in though, and he said that the roofing materials are starting to come off, and that we’ll need to do some repair work on that. Took a look at that when I was out putting everyone away, and it seems like just the flashing has been ripped off of the windward edges (addendum: Since it is now Thursday, I can update the above to read – “Sue did some repair work on that this morning.”) So, seems we are still providing safe lodging for everyone – a rest from the troublous winds. Can’t wait for them to be over and we can rest in peace. Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

Yesterday’s and Today’s Weather: Wednesday we were experiencing extreme wind conditions. They did start to calm down around 6-ish last night and this morning is amazingly georgeous! Currently, Thursday 11:08 a.m., it is 54° with 34% humidity and 0% chance of rain. Our high is predicted at 59°. Last night the overnight low was 30° and tonight it looks to be around 34°. This morning’s sunrise was at 6:29 and sunset is expected around 6:26.

Egg Report: Tuesday – 40 chicken, 3 duck, 0 goose. Wednesday – 34 chicken, 3 duck, 0 goose.