After a LONG day in training with the Board of Elections, I had an appointment to give blood last night. Bear in mind that with my long-standing fight against iron deficiency, it is not unheard of for me to be unable to give blood because my iron count was too low. Yesterday it 42 ! (It has to be over 12 to give, but a "normal" reading is over 35.) I was so happy! And my bp was in a very healthy range, not bordering on too high. So even though I'm not losing all the weight I want, all my exercise IS paying off in other ways! I will never be rid of my freckles, will never grace the cover of a magazine because of my beauty, will never have a man do a double-take when I walk by, BUT it is very nice to be heading in the right direction for a healthier self. Who knows? I might actually have more energy by the time I reach the big 40 than before I hit it! Hey, a girl can always dream.
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Last Sunday I had the following conversation with one of my little friends who was being VERY still in a chair: Me: How are you this morning? B: Both good and bad. Me: Really? Tell me what's good about this morning. B: shrugging, mmm, Life's just good. Me: Okay, what's so bad? expecting to hear he just got in trouble for running at church B: My stomach hurts. Clearly NOT what I was expecting! Me: That is bad. Is it a "I ate too much" hurt or an "I'm hungry" hurt? B: looking very serious, Well, I did eat half a bowl of cereal this morning. Me: uncertain as to whether he's full or not and holding jr church candy: Would a piece of candy help? B: sitting straight up in his chair, NO! That would make me hurt even worse!!! I guess I certified myself as crazy, offering candy to someone with a hurt stomach. Doesn't Mrs. Monica know ANYTHING? While I've laughed to myself some over that interaction, I've thought about it qui...
It's coming. We had an earthquake on Tuesday, which had almost everyone all excited. Friday/Saturday Hurricane Irene will make her presence known, though of course no one really knows how much. So today's list is my hurricane prep: cutting grass (because it needs it BEFORE it rains)
adding some roofing to the chicken house
bringing in the chairs and hammock from the pond
taking down what is still remaining of the old goose pen
buying batteries
stocking up on water
and that's it. At times like this I am very thankful I don't have a place at the beach to worry about. I can simply go about my normal life and not have an extra house to weatherize or clean-up. :) Although I have to admit, I did tell Bobby it would be REALLY cool to head to the beach after church Sun AM and spend the night so we could get shells churned up by the storm on Sunday night and Monday morning. Unfortunately, I don't think that is going to happen. But it's nice to dream.
This month is not even over, and so far it's held: an earthquake felt here in NC, prompting Bobby's building to evacuate
a snake in the hen house
two mice in the house, one of which managed to eat all the bait off the trap without being caught for 3 nights running (and Bobby watched it do it the first night!)
a chicken who laid about 10 eggs out in the field before we could find her nest, prompting us to pull out the incubator
the beginning of Christmas shopping! :)
some major cleaning in the Bryan household
a 24 hr stomach bug
a new great-nephew, born Sunday am
some interesting discussions with friends
Before the month is out, we'll have also faced a hurricane, election training and interviews, a football game, and weather permitting, a baptismal service. And I thought August was going to be a quiet month!
Today while waiting at Duke Eye Center for a friend to have surgery, I was able to read To Fly Again by Gracia Burnham . Her testimony, recorded in the book In the Presence of My Enemies , challenged me like few books do. Today's book was a much easier read, though just as thought provoking. Maybe because last night's Bible study was from James 4, [dealing with how God's grace is bigger than anything we face, and I realized I don't always (okay, seldom is more like it) actually live my life that way], but it was like God was gently reminding me of last's night lesson in a different format. I told Bobby on the way home that so many times I focus on the problem, the sin, or the temptation, and not on God's available grace to see me through. Is that a lack of faith, perspective, doubt, or what? Gracia ended her book on the same note. After her husband's death, she said she was living her life in survival mode, as if the best of her life was over. Only aft...
Did you know that chickens take baths? They do. Only with dirt, and not water. So now instead of the Beagles digging holes, my chickens are building dirt bath spots near the house. At least they're not ankle breakers and are up against the house or under the ramps. Leif, the head rooster, taking his bath in front of my puny (thanks to scratching chickens) hosta. See how they fluff their feathers up? Sometimes they look like they're having convulsions as they flip around. And the nesting saga continues. Above is the nest under the shed where at least one hen continues to lay. And here is one of the nesting boxes with the plastic egg. And that same nesting box after the chickens found the egg, kicked it out, and then pecked it apart. No funky colored eggs, for us! Until two days later, and then we'll lay an egg or two near the plastic eggs we've kicked beside the feeder. And then Joy, oh joy , we had FIVE eggs laid there! So I...
In the words of Charles Dickens: It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. You know how sometimes you get that burst of energy and you get a lot of stuff done and you're feeling on top of the world? Most of last week was like that. I love those kinds of week. We were planning to do something on Saturday and I was actually on top of housework so that could happen (gasp!), and then things started to get a little crazy. Thursday night Bobby found a war movie about the holocaust on tv. While I'm not crazy about the holocaust, I do think it's a somewhat good thing for us to be reminded of the importance of taking a stand against evil. But for those of you who know me, I don't handle war/violent movies very well. I can seldom sleep after watching them, and when I do sleep it's full of nightmares. We're 3/4 of the way through this movie, which I stupidly keep watching in between loads of laundry and sweeping/mopping floors, when out of the corner of ...
(my apologies to Laura Numerhoff for stealing her writing concept) If you give a chicken a plastic egg in hopes that she will lay one beside it, she will want a clean nesting box to go with it. And when you gather the cleaning supplies for the hen house, you'll realize their nesting box needs a larger border. When you pull out the scrap wood and jigsaw to cut the border, the hens will get upset because you're making too much noise in the garage. But when you quickly finish in the garage and move to the hen house, they'll be curious about what you're doing and will come to supervise and to squawk. So to help them calm down, you'll move their food outside. And once the hen house is ready and clean, you'll realize they need more food. When you get more food from the garage, you'll see them nesting in the brooder box in the garage and realize you forgot to put the plastic eggs (now separated and scattered throughout the pen) back into the nestin...
It's finally happened to us. People always ask me about it and what we do, and I've never had an answer for them. But this past week, it hit us. For 2 weeks now we've been getting 3-7 eggs a day. And then, one egg. The next day...nothing. I knew that meant one of three things: 1) the heat had finally gotten to them 2) they had a virus or 3) they were laying somewhere else. Bobby was convinced it was number three and took several short trips outside in the heat trying to find their new nest. We kept hearing the "bwak, bwak, bwak, BWAAAK" cry they make right after laying, but would go to their nesting sites and ...NO eggs. At the end of Day 2 of this, I saw a group of hens huddled behind the little red shed, which is very odd. Yes, all the grown-ups had laid two days worth of eggs UNDER the shed. I've never had to teach a hen where to lay before, but according to my chicken Bible , it is possible to do with these little clay or stone eggs called ...
Several years ago I offended two fellow believers by laughing when they said Jesus was a peaceful person. I asked them what was polite or peaceful about calling people stupid, or a cemetery, or a hypocrite, or a poisonous snake, ESPECIALLY when those people were the respected rulers of the day? I often wonder if people who go by the name Christian a) actually read the Bible or b) think about what it's actually saying. Our church has been doing a "read through the Bible in 3 years" study, and today's passage had God telling Israel because of their violations of his law that he would smear their own feast "feces" in their face. EWwww. But it also reminded me of our trip this weekend. If I lived in a country where it was wrong to disagree with the leaders of the day, where it was illegal to own a copy of the Bible, and to dare believe anything different amounted to either torture or death, what would I do? The Valdensians (also called Waldensians as it t...
We saw the above house in Pittsboro while on our way to the mountains. It was the strangest house I've ever seen. Evidently this isn't a modification, for Bobby remembers thinking it funny as a child. Evidently a governor lived here at one point. I think the sign said it's now a Masonic lodge. And if seeing one funny house wasn't enough, the latest issue of This Old House had a link to their website that had several galleries of funny (or strange houses). Here's my favorites from their collection: Szymbark , Poland This just makes me laugh, and I would love to visit this house in person. Created by a designer who wanted to demonstrate "wrong-doings against humanity". Visitors have stood in line for as long as 6 hours to tour the house, and many come out feeling "sea-sick". Kalambaka, Greece... This 1,000 foot cliff drop has housed monastaries since the 11th century. Six of them are open to the public, " assuming, of course, th...