Signs of spring

So these were made over a week ago, but life has been a little busy.

Duty

Last night we had the opportunity to attend the play Duty by Tim Stevens at the Garner Performing Arts Center. Mr. Stevens has previously written a few historical plays that has been performed in both churches and at the GPAC. This one dealt with the 7 men from Garner who died in Vietnam and told a little about their stories, as well as some of the other Garner natives who fought there and survived. It was heart wrenching, but very good. My heart still hurts as I hear of the treatment our veterans received when they returned home. When our Quilts of Valor group presents a quilt to a Vietnam Vet, it's not uncommon for some of them to say it's the first time a non-family member has ever thanked them for their service. At one of our recent presentations, a vet told me he joined a group that served family members of fallen comrades when he returned home. He said one of them still haunts him to this day. The only people at the funeral and the grave-side service was the immediate family, the preacher, and the group of veterans. No one from the community or the church or the boy's school came out to pay their respects. He said there was not a dry eye on his bus on the way back to base.

One of my neighbors shared after the play that her brother also served in Vietnam. She said her mother went to mass every day, even if meant walking, to pray for his safety. She also baked snickerdoodles once a week to mail to him, as it was his favorite food. I think the family got a little tired of the snickerdoodles. She said they quit being her favorite, and even now she seldom eats them.

I'm thankful for the town of Garner and the commitment of its townspeople to honor its veterans, whether it be through a play at the local theater or through the hard work that went into the Garner Veterans Memorial at our local park. I wish there wasn't a need to recognize those who struggled so much and sacrificed so much, some of them even with their lives, but I'm thankful to live in/near a town that understands the importance of people over policy. It really does matter.

wide eyed emoji would fit here just fine

Somewhere around 10 this morning I discovered that today was March!!!

I'm not ready for March!

And yet, here it is.

So today on March 1 of 2019, I called the credit union about a charge we hadn't made that appeared on our credit card. At their request, filed a report with the police department. Paid bills. Went to pick up a part at the hardware store that wasn't what we needed. Tried to explain exactly what we were looking for, and when the owner found out we were attempting to repair Bobby's shower chair, he told us to bring it in. So we did, and he had the old wheel out and the new one in less than five minutes!! When I told him I had been trying off and on for several days to get the old caster out, he winked and said "It helps when you have the right tools."  And so it does. So we've had the highs and the lows for the day, and it's only half over.

Biddies are slowly adjusting to the hen house. They love the space and about half of them have now ventured out of it into the pen. They love having space to run in the house, though with the drop in temps they're huddling under the heat lamp quite a bit. I think we might run the back-up lamp out there as well the first of next week as the temps are supposed to go extremely low during the night. Two of them are starting to figure out that I'm the creature that gives them food and water and am not a terrible monster. These don't appear to be the brightest birds we've ever had, but that may change as time goes on.

Three of the 4 goldfish have died. Yesterday I was afraid the last one wouldn't make it either, but today it is swimming all over the place and acting like a normal fish.  This has been a good reminder of why we buy the cheap fish and not the super cute expensive ones.

graduation day

Yesterday did not go as I had planned. My goal had been to finish repairing the chicken coop and move the biddies outside. They've been jumping on top of the brooder box when I go to feed them, so it was more than time. And since yesterday was supposed to be our only good and sunny day, it made sense to do it then. Except I ran out of time. So I went to bed thinking that my window of opportunity was totally gone.

But around 10:30 this morning, the rain stopped. I really only expected to have 15-20 minutes, but I have had ALL AFTERNOON outside working. :)

Freckles wanted to help me move the biddies SO bad. It has been driving her crazy these last few weeks that she can hear commotion and chirping but cannot see what is going on. It doesn't help that my overly jealous dogs think they're getting treats and they're not. (No, I do not think mealworms would be a good treats for dogs!) She finally found a way to jump up and keep her head just over the opening as I was trying to catch the last four. And with each group, she'd follow me from the garage to as far as she could go toward the chicken pen.

But not Little Dog. He stayed where he could observe, but away from the squeaking and chirping.

And the hole? It's not pretty, but it is repaired with hardware cloth (I think that's what it's called), which is very hard, not easily bendable and should be a better deterrent.

If you look closely, you can see the hole in the chicken wire behind the hardware cloth.

And all the biddies now have plenty of room to hop, fly, and move...with the heat lamp on.  They've yet to venture outside and discover the water container yet.

And since the rain still hadn't started when all of that was finished, I tackled pulling down some of the dried bean vines in the garden. I got all of the butterbean plants, but stopped when I got to the fence line with the green beans.

And what we jokingly call "the garden annex"...all but one pile of the hay bales are mucked up and placed in various locations. The pile in the middle is full of ants, so I'm not quite sure how I'll deal with that yet. Some of the landscape fabric underneath has holes, but I think I can make it last one more year. So hopefully I can get more straw bales out this week so they can be weathered before planting time.

Still have several things that need to be done, but not sure if anything else will get done before church tonight. Happy Wednesday!

Projects and people

Well, the flower bed is ready for some warmer weather so I can get the rest of my bulbs in the ground.

And in the midst of moving things for the floors and hatching chicks, the table cloth covering the mess under the aquarium table was ruined, and after staring at the aquarium for a few weeks I decided it was time to set it back up. So I bought a backdrop for it this morning, and it is now acclimating and getting ready for future inhabitants. The filter pump still works, though it's very noisy.

We bought chicks from the Little Birdie Hatchery to go with the 5 we hatched (the last 3 never fully hatched and 2 that did didn't last, hence the mess from the incubator on the tablecloth). They're all growing like weeds. I've handled these the least of any birds I've ever had, and it shows. They're also not the smartest birds we've ever had. Usually by now they know I feed them. These haven't figured that out and respond like I'm a monstrous hawk about to end their lives.

In the last 3 weeks our Quilt of Valor group has had 3 presentations and another scheduled tomorrow. I also have 3 forms on my desk for more...and 2 of them are not close by. I don't mind organizing things and being in charge, but I would like for someone else to step up to the plate and help with some of it. I think bbn it's a worthy cause, but I'm not ready for it to take over my life.

Mom's lupus has been in flair up mode since January, and Dad and Bobby have both been experiencing irregular heartbeats. I have my sugar test tomorrow which does not thrill me as I have NOT been good in my eating these last 3 months.

Meanwhile I am very close to getting everything put back in place and tackling a few unfinished projects (while contemplating new ones....haha).

Hopefully there will be more pictures in the near future.

Will this ever end?

After we lost our flock last month, I took 18 eggs that had not been refrigerated yet and stuck them in the incubator. I did as the instructions say, and removed the egg turner on Saturday, which was 3 days before hatch date. Sunday the hatching began, which really surprised and excited us! I thought since we had early hatching, everything might hatch early. But no such luck.

We had five hatch Sunday through Monday morning. Then Monday we had one hatch with its embryo sack attached (meaning it didn't eat it) and that is not a good thing. It lasted until Tuesday, making me think it might make it. We had another egg pipe on Monday(the first cross-shaped crack the bird makes), but instead of continuing to peck all around at the egg so it could pop open, it made a hole big enough for its beak and stopped. 24 hours later there was no sound and no movement. During the night Monday we had two others start piping. One is still chirping and moving, though very slowly. The other cracked over half of its egg and I've not heard anything nor seen any movement since. There are several things that can cause this, and I have to remind myself that it could be 2 more days before the others even begin the hatching process, but I'm ready for everything to get busy and happily and healthily hatch.

Until then, I'm hearing a lot of interval chirping.

And the five outside in the brooder box?  They're cute and fluffy and growing.

Saturday - phase one &two

There was a break in the weather Saturday so I started a project I had wanted to do most of all last year.
So here's phase one: pulling up the bricks bordering my flower garden. Half of them had sunk fairly deep into the ground.

And phase two, which I started Saturday and finished today, was digging up what was left of my old flower bulbs.

And because I never totally do things in order, I started moving stones from behind the shed and filling in the brick holes before I finished digging up the bulbs.

So phase 3, putting up the stones, was mostly completed today.

So now we're heading to Home Depot to get one bag of cement and several bags of gardening soil, which I can hopefully put out tomorrow and plant the bulbs before the cold weather hits tomorrow night.