Hello. Hello... Hello....

Hello.  Hello...  Hello....



Hi.  The last time I wrote in here was today, one year ago.  My link showed up on my FB page.  I hadn't forgotten about this, but honestly it has been a tough couple of years and I didn't know if I wanted to write in here anymore.

Today is the Winter Solstice.  Lots has been going on in our little home over the past few months.  I made the mistake of saying to someone that all our animals have been healthy lately.  Hee hee...probably the next day, I come home after a lovely day out with my family and my husband greets me at the door.  He told me that something attacked our oldest chicken Penelope and she had passed.  I was upset, but she has lived longer than any of our other original chickens.  She had a good life, I thought.

It was stormy out, so my husband got ready to go out and bury her for me.  And boy was he surprised to find her standing at the back door when he came out!!  I think he calls her zombie chicken now.  In any case, she had been attacked by something.  It was so late I couldn't really figure out what to do with her, but I knew that she could not be put back with the other chickens.  So I enclosed her in the secure run-around pen that we have, gave her some water and food and a box with straw to snuggle in if she got too cold.  She woke me up at 3AM, letting me know that whatever had gotten her was back to finish the job.  She was safe, but very distraught by the time our dog and I got out there.  As it was still pitch black, I hung out there raking with my head lamp on in order to discourage the thing...still not sure what it was...not to come back.

Once it got light out, I gave Penelope a good bath (have you ever seen a chicken in a bath?  They really like it once they realize that they are not going to be cooked.) and cleaned her wounds with hydrogen peroxide.  I read that on the web.  She was pretty beat up with most of her feathers off her neck and a puncture wound in her side.  My husband helped me get our dog crate out and filled with straw.  We put her in the dog crate in our laundry room.  The first thing that my husband said to her  was, "I know you have been wanting to get in the house for a long time, and see, you finally made it."  Penelope has always liked to sit at the back door and she tried to come in when we opened it!

I am not sure what day that was, but it felt like she was out there for a while.  As of yesterday, she is back out in the coop with the other girls - Ruby and Rosy.  These names are thanks to my young friend, who wanted to name them.  We got these girls as grown ups a couple months back.  They and Penelope seemed happy to see one another.  That was a relief.

In the meantime, while Penelope was still recuperating, our youngest and most feisty cat Yoshi started yowling.  We couldn't figure out what the problem was.  I honestly have never had cats before his older sister and brother.  He kept eating and drinking, but now that I think of it, his belly was very rolly-polly.  We brought him to the vet and found that he didn't just have a urinary tract infection, but he was completely blocked.  He had to stay at the vet for five days!  We have been asked to continue watching him very closely and he has to eat special food, but he is doing so much better!

My beautiful Mom passed in March.  It was as lovely a death as I could have asked for.  But it was hard and continues to be hard all the same.  We made it through Thanksgiving...but for me, Christmas is a lot harder.  So many memories all wrapped up.  I am so thankful though for the time that we had with her after her stroke.  It was a trying time, but a beautiful time as well.

Let's see, it has been raining like crazy this fall and winter so far.  Our back yard is a messy, muddy muck pit.  The front yard is just as bad, as there was NO rain this past summer and the grass has mostly died in the front.  I am tempted to do some gardens out there!

We did have a garden this year!  That was kind of a miracle.  The things that grew well were lemon cucumbers, tomatoes and the berries - blueberries and raspberries.  The sun was hard on the leafy veggies this year. Will try to do a more shady spot for them next year.  We did use chicken manure in the boxes and the rhubarb especially liked it.  It is fun to talk about gardens when it actually snowed for a bit today!

My husband got a bit interested in the garden this year.  He fenced it off, so the chicken (we only had one at that time) would stay out and not eat everything in site and so our dog would stop making a race track over the garden beds.  Then when the weather turned, he gathered cardboard, cleaned the beds, covered them with cardboard and then with leaves.  They are sleeping soundly and preparing the wormy-goodness for next year.

My husband made points with me today too...I came home to beautiful twinkle lights all around the living room.  He spiffed the place up too.  I was so tired after work that I just laid down on the couch and reveled in the beauty all evening. Christmas is coming!

Beginning again

And so it begins again.  I haven't written here since March of this year.  It is now December.  I think I gave up.  I think I wondered what this is for.  But I have decided that if it is for nothing else, it is for me.

Today is the Winter Solstice.  The shortest day of the year.  I am glad.  I am looking forward today.  Waiting for a little more light every day.

I usually hate moving out of summer and into Fall/Winter.  But this past year, I prepared emotionally.  I did well.  I began to look for the good in it.  I reminded myself how very blessed I/we are. I reminded myself that my Mom is still here and she still gets to laugh and enjoy.

My Mom had a stroke at the end of April 2014.  It has been a rocky year since then.  And because of this, I didn't plant a garden last summer.  I bought plant starts.  I set them outside.  I let them fry in the sun.  But I didn't cry about it.  I just moved on. I got a few potatoes who decided to volunteer.  That was fun.

I read up on how to prepare my garden for next year.  I have since covered by garden beds with cardboard to kill the weeds and then with leaves.  I will eventually cover them with wood chips (the kind that come from chipping up tree branches).  I have chicken manure to spread on top of that.  I watched a really cool video on how this helps with water retention.  It is going to be a experiment this spring/summer. It isn't pretty at this time of year, but I have decided that it ok. 

Sometime during this year, we had to put our big dog down.  It was a very sad story and I have decided that I do not want to share it.  I am still in mourning about him.  He was such a neat dog.

Also, one of our sweet bard rock chickens passed away more recently as well.  She went quietly, but it was a big loss for me.  The weird thing is, that the other two have now started laying again.  They took a nice, long break and decided to start laying again in the middle of winter.  Funny.

In the interim, we got a new kitten.  What a little hellion he is!  His name is Yoshi.  His favorite thing to do is chase my 19 pound cat around the house.  With that in mind...I will share more about him some other time.  

I have been reading a lot about people living in tiny homes.  Our home is not really considered "tiny" at 1000 square feet.  I wonder what our house would be called...moderate?  In any case, I have been feeling a little cramped this winter.  We have really worked on clearing out the living room and making it more livable.  That has been a blessing.  I saw something in one of those tiny houses that I thought would work in mine.  I asked for shelves high on the wall in my bedroom for Christmas.  So far we have put two of them up.  It makes it really nice to be able to have some stuff up where it can be seen and not so jumbled up.  I think open side tables really give a feeling of spaciousness too.  I also asked for black-out curtains in my bedroom.  I finally found some that look like they might work.  I am hoping to get them up soon.  I wake up really early every day and for some reason, even early on the weekends!  So I am hoping that getting black out curtains will help.  They are a lovely lavender color that matches my bedspread.  I hope my husband won't mind the girly color very much.

There you have it.  My first post in 9 months.  I have missed writing.  And I have missed you.