Raindrops Keep Falling…

Posted on October 24, 2017 by TJ

It’s been raining, raining, raining, non-stop since Sunday afternoon. Day and night we hear the pitter-patter drumming of rain on our roof. We’ve had 5-6 inches of rain so far and it is still raining. The weather forecast shows clearing on Thursday and then it’s back to rain again. JJ said someone at work told him we could get a foot of rain before the skies clear. At times like this, I’m especially glad we live on a hill top. Otherwise, I might be tempted to start building an ark.

The temperatures have fallen dramatically. I’ve had to wear my winter coat and hat for the first time since last winter, and I carry an umbrella when I walk down to get the mail. I haven’t yet had to wear boots, although I think I’ll get them out tomorrow so I have them ready. I’ve heard that we should expect snow soon.

EJ cleaned the furnace filter yesterday after work yesterday so I turned on the furnace today–but I set it at 60 degrees because it’s still warm enough in the house and I would rather wear sweatshirts and sweaters than pay high heating bills.

The duck pen is flooded and I sink several inches into mud every time I go to the coop. I told EJ that if he comes home from work and can’t find me, the first place he should search is the muck–to make sure I haven’t disappeared down into it. Of course, the ducks don’t mind the rain. They seem to enjoy playing in the rain, and puddles, and pool.

The chickens don’t like the rain at all. They have been staying mostly safe and dry in their coop–although yesterday I was surprised to see Captain AmeROOca outside. He looked bedraggled and miserable with his beautiful tail feathers soggied and drooping. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more miserable chicken. I wondered if Sassy, our alpha rooster, had banished him from the coop as punishment for some offense. Poor guy.

I usually only see Madeline in the mornings when I go out to the garage to feed her and Annie, our outside cats. Madeline likes to roam. However, she has stayed in the garage with Annie for the last two days. It’s been too wet even for her. Although I did find another dead critter in the usual place near the door this morning. I couldn’t tell what it was because its head was missing. Yuck. I tried to avoid looking at it too closely as I picked the body up with a shovel and threw it outside. Almost every morning I find a dead shrew or mouse lying in front of the garage door. Madeline is very prompt with her rent payments. 🙂

Half the Christmas lights went out in the coop on Sunday so this morning I got out the extra strings of lights–the ones I had removed from the wire deer that the previous owner left behind. Most of the stings didn’t work, or only half worked. I found only one string of lights that completely worked. I took out all the light bulbs from the non- or half-working strings, testing each bulb to see if it worked. I put the working bulbs in a sandwich bag. Then I sloshed out to the coop and changed all the bulbs in the non-working sections. They still didn’t work. So I sloshed back into the house, grabbed the string of lights that worked, took it out to the coop and hung them up. Now I have a cheerfully lit coop again. I asked EJ if he could install a regular light in the coop. The Christmas lights are festive, but they have always frustrated me because they always go out. EJ said he could, but I don’t know when we will get to it. We have more important things to do–like put up the snow fence and the protective fencing around the fruit trees. I hope we can do that this weekend. Forecasters are saying we could get snow within the next 10 days.

When I have an order from my Etsy store, I make it a priority, but when I don’t have orders I work on new items. I have a lot of projects that I would like to make. This winter I would also like to teach myself macrame. Years ago I learned to macrame in summer camp, but that was a long time ago and I have to relearn how to make the knots. There are a lot of beautiful macrame projects I would like to try–like owls and trees of life. I love both owls and trees.

I hope it’s not pouring down rain when EJ and I go on the Owl Prowl at the nature center this weekend! I’m really looking forward to it!