Floors & Ducks

Some days I leap out of bed and I’m busy all day from morning till night. Other days I drag my sorry self out of bed and it takes me many cups of coffee to get myself going and accomplish anything. Today was one of the latter days.

Once I had finished off the pot of coffee, browsed Facebook, and cuddled Hannah Joy, I got the post-hole digger out of the garage and carried it down to the driveway. I pulled my wildlife habitat sign out of the sand and dug the hole deeper. I had already dug my enchanted sign hole deeper a few days ago, but I didn’t think the habitat sign needed a deeper hole until Hannah ran around it and almost knocked it over. When we put the signs in place several weeks ago, our sandy ground was so dry that the sand poured out of the jaws of the post-hole digger like water and we couldn’t get the holes deep enough. Now that we’ve had more rain, I was easily able to dig deeper holes.

The flooring installers left a message on EJ’s phone this morning, but he couldn’t listen to it until his lunch hour. No matter how many times I tell Lowes people that they should call my phone, they still call his phone–I think because he originally gave his phone number as our main number. I’ve tried to change it, but it never seems to get changed. Because EJ can’t take the time to respond to personal calls at work, there’s usually a delay before he listens to the messages and then texts me so I can call them.

Anyway, I called the installers today and scheduled the date for them to put in our new floors. I had suggested to EJ last night that he really might want to take the day off when the installers come because repairmen and installation people always ask me questions that I don’t know the answer to, which makes me feel stupid. Plus, EJ would be able to tell if they were doing an adequate job or not. EJ said he didn’t think that the floor installers  would ask any questions that I couldn’t answer, but I thought that the people who hooked up our propane take or the guy who installed our new geo-thermal thingmajig wouldn’t ask me questions and they DID. So I was very happy when I could schedule the floor installation for Saturday, August 11. EJ will be home! I can just relax and let him handle everything. Yippee!

I enjoyed talking to the woman on the phone. We could have had the installers move our living room furniture and remove the carpet at an additional cost, but we chose to do it ourselves. The woman asked if everything had been delivered, and if the carpet was removed, and if the furniture had been moved. I said yes to each question and then added, “Well, except for the couch. It wouldn’t fit through the doorways so I had to leave it in the living room.” She laughed. “I’ve never had anyone tell me they couldn’t fit a couch through the doorway. How did you get it in the house in the first place?” she wondered. I told her that we had brought it through the outside door. “But I really don’t want to have to take the couch outside.” She said that she’d tell the installers to move the couch across the room as they worked. She said, “I’m sorry. This makes me chuckle.” I thought it was funny too and I’m glad that I could make her laugh.

After much thought, I’ve decided to sell try to sell my ducks. I know, I know, ducks are incredibly comical, endearing, and rather fun. However, they are also messy and a lot of work. Because they are water birds, they need a supply of water–a pool in the summer and a large bucket in the winter. I can fill the pool using the garden hose in the summer, but in the winter I have to lug buckets of water to fill the large heated bucket in the coop. They splash and get the coop all wet. So…I put an ad on Craigslist today. Hopefully someone will give them a good home.

Chickens are much less work and less messy, and require less lugging. I’m going to stick with chickens.