our newest baby

It's not uncommon for church kids to ask me: Any new animals? after visiting my house. If they ask this Sunday, I can say YES!

Not the best pic, but shows them both.

close up of the chick

strange angle with both

The crazy thing is that at least 2 of the 3 eggs this bird is hatching is not her own. I'm hoping the others hatch tonight or tomorrow morning. And we have a different bird sitting on a different pile of eggs now. So I'm thinking I may close her off and force the others to start laying elsewhere so we don't lose all the eggs. This is only the 2nd time we've had a hen hatch out eggs naturally (and the first one only had two hatch and neither survived past 3 days), so we've got optimistic hopes for this go around.

flooding

With every major storm (hurricane or tropical storm), or even torrential and long-term downpour, we can expect water to overcome the pond drain and head over the spillway (which is how it's designed so the water pressure won't break the dam). This week's 5+ inches in two days was no exception. Our pond level didn't get quite as high as during Hurricane Matthew, but came fairly close. 

Water rushing from the spillway down the hill.

This doesn't do the spillway justice. The water was a little over my ankle and moving fairly fast.

I thought this was a turtle, but as I got closer to snap the pic, I thought it resembled more of a frog. As I went around Bobby to zoom in, I saw the body and quickly backed away, which he found quite funny. As we returned from our walk it was actually out on the dam a little ways out of the water...a brown water snake.  I'm not sure but we think we saw an eagle take one off while fishing last week. 

Over the new drain pipe...it was actually swirling in slow motion like the water going down the bathtub drain!

And water gushing out the other side of the pond drain. We could actually hear it halfway from the house.

and silly me, even after seeing the snake, waded through the water on the spillway to see the other side. I was able to save a few of these guys (about half of them), but I tossed them downstream instead of back into the pond. We've got enough bream without saving any.

the rains came down and...

In our new church building, one of the artists has painted/illustrated children's songs along the walls. One of them is "The wise man built his house upon the rock".  Before two of our three year olds moved into their classroom, they had a LOT of questions about that song. Evidently it was new to them. And with all the rain we've had the last two days, I found myself humming it this morning. Which then made me think of the kids from church, which had me smiling.

 On either side of our driveway is a HUGE puddle. The geese are using it as their pretend pond, and instead of bathing in the real pond, they did it beside the driveway this morning.

 And all this rain has helped the first planting of green beans to come up. This one's little head is barely poking above water.

 Above is the whole row...in their river.

 And a few of the beans planted Friday didn't stay submerged in the ground, or else I missed some while covering them. But it was cool to see the few that were above ground but underwater sprouting.

And we have a few gullies beside the new driveway. I'm hoping once the grass seed takes root this won't be a problem anymore, but we'll see.

I can't believe I did that...

In all the craziness and upheaval of this week, I forgot I had a hair appointment today. Who forgets a hair appointment? Granted, compared to grieving parents and sick friends and a broken wheelchair hair is nothing, but I can only think of one other time in my life when I've forgotten about an appointment I had.

So tomorrow when I get home from our Quilts of Valor meeting and before the yardwork begins, I need to call my hairdresser tomorrow and beg forgiveness and ask for a reschedule.

On the flip side, while Bobby was at his meeting this morning I was able to go to the nearby Wal-mart and pick up a few things we needed, including tomato cages. Between appointments I was able to get all of them in the ground (though I'm still 3 short) and witness my dog chasing a rabbit around the shed. Earlier this week we saw an eagle dive for what we thought was a fish, but it came with up with a very long, wriggly thing. Do eagles eat snakes? If that is what it was, I'm very thankful it got it.

chair shopping

One of the motors in Bobby's chair died yesterday morning, so between texting family and phone calls from a friend in the hospital, we spent the day on the phone with insurance companies and medical supply companies. The company he has used for the last 30+ years is not taking our insurance. Hence all the phone calls. At some point toward the evening I started researching new chairs. We hope to know something tomorrow about whether or not his chair can be repaired and if so, will insurance cover it. Everything is so different with medicare. I'm just hoping whatever route we go everything can be completed by the end of May. Either way, it would be nice if we could have enough of an answer tomorrow to know whether or not to move the chair that is supposed to go into the driver's place in the van in its spot. Meanwhile, I miss his independence. It's the little things, like going to get his clothes off the closet door and they're not there because I didn't think to push him to the closet last night so he could pick them out. And we need to add an extra five minutes before we go anywhere so there will be time to get his manual chair tied down before leaving and untied upon arriving. None of those things are hard, but it makes me realize how much freedom he loses when he's not in his power chair and just how much I take for granted.

Truman

Today our family's smiling, buoyant, and vivacious Kaitlyn will go through unimaginable pain and heartache - delivering her stillborn son. I am heartsick. The child (yes, I know she's been out of college for several years, but I held this girl's chubby little hands as she learned to walk and played "house" with tupperware containers in the floor at holidays with her when she was 2), who has yearned to be a Mom for many years now is cruelly having that dream ripped away in one of the most awful ways imaginable. I know over 20,000 women go through this in America every year, but that doesn't ease the pain any.

So our prayers and thoughts continue to rotate between Kaitlyn and Nathan, and the grandparents who were so excited, and for the very hard days to come...the dates for the upcoming showers, the delivery due date, etc. Little Truman's nursery was decorated and ready to go, and walking by that room itself is going to be painful when they come home.  Sometimes life just hurts.

happenings

Yesterday evening we received word that a close friend of Bobby's was on his way to the ER. We knew someone from the church would be with his wife (who is on hospice), but since they have no family close by, we decided to go be with him. We left last night and headed back this morning expecting him to be having heart tests and procedures today (he had a heart attack), only to find out everything was on hold until they could get a clearance from his oncologist. About 4 years ago they operated on him to "remove" parts of both lungs due to cancer. It was to take 5-6 hours. They basically opened and closed him, as the tumors were so widespread the dr said there was nothing that could be done. The given diagnosis had a life expectancy of 6 months. That was 4 years ago.  So now the heart dr is waiting to make sure it's okay to fix the heart. As we left late this afternoon that clearance had actually come but there won't be any procedures until tomorrow when they transfer him to Raleigh. Meanwhile his wife is now in a hospice hospital and Raleigh. That situation hinges on everything else and remains a large question. Deep down inside I wonder if this will one day be my future - childless and in need of help but away from family. And regardless of what people say about the church being your family, legally, they are not and cannot make decisions for you without legal documentation, which makes total sense.

And while all this is happening here, miles away a distant family member is facing one of the worst days of her life, with some bad days to come. My heart is grieving for her. Sometimes there's just no words.

On the trivial side of things, the chickens like our new driveway, and have used it as a poop pad a fair amount. So I spent some of this afternoon hosing part of it off. We don't have grass along the edges of it yet, which fuels some of the dirt wash and also left me with some very muddy shoes.

In the creative arena I'm actually starting a new quilt project. Yes. I am very aware my goal last year was to finish 3 projects for every one I started, BUT this project involves using up some of my quilt scraps, so I'm not totally certain it can be counted as a new project. It's just a new quilt top. So far it's moving along fairly quickly, and I'm pleased with how it looks and how quickly it's progressing. And it's simple.

We have a chicken still on her nest, and if I'm remembering correctly she should have chicks sometime next week. Now I just need to figure out how to stop one of our donated birds from roosting and pooping in the garage. Today is one of those love/hate days with my chickens.

I'm behind and out of space in my garden area, though hope to get things rolling tomorrow. Tomato plants are growing well, some already have blooms; corn will need replanting; green beans should go in this week as well as okra. I can't believe how early things are growing this year. Pecan trees already have tassles and my flowers that bloom around mother's day are already about to pop open. I fear we are in for a very hot summer.

And if I ever get around to downloading pictures from my camera, I might actually post some.