Any “Wallace & Gromit
” fans out there? If you’re not familiar with the shorts and movies, I recommend you look them up for a wonderful bit of silliness! I was thinking of this title earlier today; sometimes I start thinking about what the blog will be about quite early in the day, and this title just kept jumping to the top of the list. Then, as the day progressed and I was getting updates from Sue, I wondered if I’d be able to continue to work with it. Well – we’ll see how we do when we get down to the end. Some interesting things happened today. Ready to take a gander? Continue reading
a grand day out
13 Monday Aug 2018
Posted in Co-workers, Projects
Or at least the chicken tractor. That’s what we did before I went to work today. Sue thought it took longer than it should, but I thought we did it in pretty good time. The reason we did this? The banties were getting water in their coop on a regular basis and it wasn’t drying out in between the rains very well, so it was getting rather yucky in there. Sue had already taken out all straw from inside and they were left with just the bare floors, because they’re way old enough just to roost up on the roosts, and they were fine with that, but it smelled dank and musty – not a healthy environment. So Sue wanted to lift it off the ground, let more air circulate to dry it out (it already looks better and smells cleaner), keep them off the wet wood that’s underneath, and also provide them with a larger protected area of shade. So we lifted the tractor today and placed it on 1 large cinder block, plus a 1/2 block. That raised it enough that the chickens could get in underneath – maybe their food and water can go under there as well – in the front section where it’s easily accessible and can stay dry and cool during the summer rains and heat, then the water might not freeze in the winter. 
Yep. I’m a day late again. Totally not my intention. I got rained in at a friends house last night. Went over after work to have a glass of wine and catch up. It started raining around 6:30 and I thought – I should go soon so I can help put up the chickens if it starts raining at home. Started saying my goodbyes; at 6:45 it started absolutely pouring. I hurried on out and jumped in the car. They live on a dirt road and it was already flooding. I knew of two ways to get out, one was a short cut and fraught with gullies and dips that surely were flooded, the other was the more used way, down the quickly flooding road. It wasn’t deep, so I decided to slog it that way. I got half way to the main road that is blacktopped when a guy in a lifted truck flagged me down and said – “you can’t go that way. The wash is flooded and you’re car is too small. So I had to call Sue and let her know that I wasn’t going to make it – and I turned around to wait out the rain at my friend’s home. 
Here we are, past mid-July, and we are just gettin’ into the summer fun here. It’s difficult to believe that we’re over half way through the year. Ugh. As we were reminded today though, there’s still time to put up your lemonade stand. I never really tried to do that as a kid – we lived too far out in the middle of nowhere – so I don’t really relate to that, but the CPA we saw today kept likening us to two girls selling lemonade. After we left, we weren’t too sure if that was a slight or not. He gave us some good advice, which is what we were after… it was just a somewhat demeaning simile. Oh well, you gotta start somewhere, and lemonade is as good a place as any! It’s certainly refreshing, right? We do have some other summer fun going on around here, wanna dive in? 
We kinda had forced down time today… it wasn’t the plan, but I didn’t have a very good night and was not feeling well at all, Sue was feeling the affects of the orchard work yesterday as well, so we decided to have a down day. I went off to work and Sue was going to go take care of errands she’s been meaning to do. turned out it was a good thing too, but I’ll get to that. 
I’m craving hot dogs. I’m not sure why that is. Just had hot dogs over the 4th of July holiday, so what’s the big deal? Who knows. Maybe it’s just the summer weather that has me in the mood for a cookout or something. Last week we were in some of the cooler temps of monsoon season, this week – as we have mostly sunny skies again – it’s been heating up. Because it’s monsoon time, the humidity has been pretty high, though lower today than normal, it is still well over 35% and at 95°, that makes for some mighty sweaty weather about now. Maybe it’s the salt in the hot dogs that I want. Along with the temps, the other things heatin’ up are the projects we’ve got going. Thought I’d give a quick run down. 
Today was the first day that we’re trying out the new work schedule. I went in to the office around 10:30 this morning and we attempted to work on the goat shed and pen earlier in the morning. We worked on cleaning it out for about 2 1/2 hours and I totally forgot to take any photos. Had my phone in my pocket and everything. Just never took it out. Not that you haven’t seen this process before, but we had a few new things happen that might have been interesting to share. I’ll just have to give you the breakdown. 
More chicks! Yes ma’am! The second shipment of chicks arrived this morning. The box is always enticing. What will they look like? (have they all made it?) Exactly how much cuteness can be sent through the Postal Service anyway? Well, the answer to that is – a whole lot of cuteness can be sent through the Postal Service! Our Post Office is great. When the chicks arrive, they always call Sue right away so she can go pick them up before they’ve sat around for very long. What do they look like??? 
Wing and a Prayer 