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healing & progress

3 weeks ago this Saturday Tim Beatty, Josh McLean, and myself began dismantling and rebuilding the large hen house. I already had all the doors off and had torn what was left of the netting we had for the pen's roof off. While Tim built the frames for the pen's new roof, Josh and I worked on gutting the rest of the house down to the frame. The parts that were rotten (like the bottom of the back board and edges of the floor) came off very easily. The parts that weren't (like the top of the back board and the center parts of the floor) did not. Josh tackled the floor while I removed the wire from the top of the roof and the back board. While using the sledgehammer to knock out the top of the back board, my little finger somehow got wedged between the 4x4 post, the board, and the sledgehammer. I washed and wrapped it, and changed the band-aids several times throughout the day, and did my best to do jobs that involved holding my arms up to keep the swelling down. By that night, we realized it needed wrapping, and there was no way my left hand could wrap something on my right side. So we called Bobby's cousin Cindy, who is a nurse and lives down the road, to come wrap it. She showed up all excited and had even brought her suture kit. Thankfully I had done everything that needed to be done, other than ice it (which I tried but that made it throb worse), so she just bandaged it WAY bigger than I would have ever done. She was a little disappointed not to give me stitches, and said had I called her when it happened she would have given me stitches. I was kind of glad I didn't. :)

It took 3 days for the the first joint not to be black. Yesterday was the first day it was not swollen, which has me very excited. One of the swollen parts has also peeled like crazy and two of the blood spots have washed away. I tried to type with it yesterday, but that still doesn't feel good so I'm typing with 9 fingers instead of 10. Strange, but I'm adjusting!

As for the pen and house...the pen is 99% finished (need to close off one section and add 2 more bricks around the botttom) and the house is almost finished. Josh, Tim and I completed the roof of the pen and the house that Saturday, and Tim came back while we were in AL and finished the floor and house. I spent a day re-vamping and re-installing the nesting boxes and roosting bar when we got back, and a day painting. Still have about 3 more hours of painting to go (maybe Saturday afternoon?), and then I should be ready to post pics. The chickens have been staying there, and last night was the first night they all voluntarily went inside at bedtime. WhooHoo!!!!




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