Monday, February 2, 2015

Hiatus

It's been a LONG time since I last wrote anything here on the blog.  Almost 6 months.  Geesh, what kind of blogger am I?

Not for lack of things to write about or things happening in our lives... but more a lack of time and motivation to get any of those thoughts and activities out of my brain and into print.

Much has transpired since my last post of dropping our oldest off at college.

He's adapted quite well, by the way.  A few bumps along the road, mostly in the form of a 'not-quite-a-match-made-in-heaven' roommate situation, but otherwise I think he's done swimmingly in his new adventure.  (Mom's not faired too badly either, I might add.)  He finished out his first semester on the President's Honor roll.  Not bad, not bad at all.

Once we got him squared away at the university, it was full force ahead on our homeschooling front.  Choosing to utilize a virtual school for our homeschooling endeavors has had it's pros and cons.  One big con is being tied to someone else's schedule for start and end dates.  Overall, this hasn't been an issue for me, but sometimes, those first several days????  They can be a killer.  Especially when you have 3 in early elementary.  I felt like I was doing calisthenics as I danced between the three girls helping them with all their individual subjects.

I'm so glad we found our groove and I can pretty much sit in one place and just swivel back and forth!  As the second semester started, things got even better.  The girls knew their routine, they have advanced in their studies - especially reading, and all in all -- 'we've got this'!

The other big event since I last posted was the addition of chickens to our little homestead.  Yep, we finally have our backyard chickens.

Eight of them to be exact.

When our close friends moved to Missouri early this past fall, they decided taking chickens across country was a bit daunting and asked us if we'd like their little flock.  Of course, I said yes in an instant.

The chickens tend to be loads of fun.   Except -- maybe -- on those -26 - -43 degree days when the wind is blowing at 40 mph.  LOL!  On those days, I send the kids out to tend to the girls.  Ha.  Not usually, but occasionally. They are a lot younger and they always work together.  Two can work better and faster than one, right?

Today was a 'fun' day with getting the chickens set up for the morning.

The snow had been blown and drifted to form a good 3 ft mound right in front of the. run. door.  Swell.

Plan B.  Put the water and food INSIDE the coop since the hens most likely won't come out much today anyway, given their disdain for snow and wind.

Around I went.

I set the water in, put the food in, set up their scratch block, closed up the coop door, and headed to clean out the nesting boxes.

Wind howling, I tried to situate my bag to dispose of the waste for the compost.  Unfortunately, the wind grabbed it and blew it right into the coop. Sigh.  Fortunately I had extra bags (I've played this game before) and was able to complete my task.

However.... I couldn't leave a plastic bag IN the coop for the girls to get tangled in or try to eat and get choked.

So..... back around I went.  I was set to 'climb in' and retrieve my errant bag.

When I opened the coop door, what did I see?  A small lake where the girls had SOMEHOW dumped most of the 2 gallon water container.  How?  I wasn't sure.  My guess? They stood on the ledge of it and tilted it just enough for the water to simply 'flow freely' onto the coop floor.

ARG!

Back to the house. Waterer in hand.  I filled it back up.

I returned to the blowing wind and snow and prepared to flip the waterer over only to inadvertently  twist the bottom in mid flip - which resulted in another 2 gallons of water flying all over the snow drift in front of me.

Gulp!

You guessed it. Back inside I went for round 3 of project 'water the chickens'.

Water filled back up.  Patience teetered on thin.  I marched back outside.

This time I more carefully flipped the container over, being sure NOT to untwist the bottom.

Back to the coop I trudged.  My rake in one hand - to shovel out the wet sand - and waterer in the other.

By this point I'm DETERMINED to make this my LAST trip outside with the hens this morning.

I balanced the watered on the snow bank.  I opened the door to a flock of chickens awaiting their water.  I raked and scraped and scooped all the wet sand out of the coop and retrieved that silly plastic bag -- thanking it for blowing into the coop so I could find the river flowing inside.

Finally!  A nice level spot to place the water container.  I placed it, gently, into the coop.  Made CERTAIN it wasn't able to be tipped and toppled.

I shut the door and returned to the warmth of our little mountain abode.

I was so happy to have my nice, warm, winter, work gloves and my new Arctic Adventure Muck Boots.  My fingers and toes were toasty despite my morning of mishaps with the henhouse.

It's days like this that Doug questions my desire to have my little mountain menagerie, but.... despite the frustrations; despite the setbacks; despite the cold; despite my own mistakes and mishaps; I find it enjoyable.

Here's to tomorrow going a bit smoother.  ;-)