I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
Thanksgiving
I meant to get on my computer and wish all my USA friends a Happy Thanksgiving! However, I was very busy preparing for our own Thanksgiving and I didn’t have time. So here’s a belated…
Wednesday I spent the day making pies. I planned to make two pumpkin pies and two mincemeat pies. Even though mincemeat is my favorite kind of pie, I promised JJ he could take one of them to his co-workers because none of them had ever heard of mincemeat. He also took them a jar of spiced apple rings because they had never heard of them either. These two items are part of our essential traditional Thanksgiving meal and we couldn’t believe they didn’t know what they were. I remarked to JJ, “They have heard of Thanksgiving turkey, right? And do they know about second breakfast?”
JJ came home after delivering the pie and apple rings to his co-workers with whip cream for our pies and two cans of cherry pie filling. “It sure would be nice if someone would make cherry pies!” he hinted repeatedly. So I made an additional two pies.
Every Thanksgiving EJ makes the turkey while I do everything else. It’s just one less thing that I have to do. I declared that I wasn’t going to make a huge feast for just the three of us, but no one was willing to give up a favorite traditional dish, so I make the green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, stuffing (from a box), and homemade dinner rolls. I was glad that I did because in addition to it all being very good, we love the leftovers. On Friday After Thanksgiving we all fix ourselves meals from the leftovers whenever we get hungry. A day or so later, I always make homemade pies from the leftover turkey.
We had a lovely, quiet Thanksgiving day. It was wonderful.
Today was a busy work day.
The Lowes crew is arriving on Monday to build our shed–which will be our new chicken/duck coop–so we had to dismantle part of the outside pen to give them access to where we want shed located. Actually we dismantled most of the pen.
Ok, this is sort of complicated to describe: Since the chickens/ducks will no longer be going into the garage, we are reconfiguring the outside pens. We are eliminating the duck pen–I mean, where it is now located. The new pen will begin on the right side of the garage door and go around the back of the garage. The garage door will then be outside the pen.
Today we reduced the size of the current duck and chicken pens as much as possible. Except for the few posts we still need in place (temporarily) so the ducks and chickens can still get outside until their new home is ready, we removed the wooden posts to the left of the garage door. We took out all the t-posts in the pen behind the garage, which is where the new shed/coop will be, and replaced them with the wooden posts. I pried out the staples holding the fencing to the wooden posts while EJ dug post holes and installed the posts we took out in their new location. EJ will use the t-posts for the snow fence along the driveway.
The weather had warmed enough on Thanksgiving that most of the snow is gone. The melted snow made muddy puddles in the duck pen, which they thoroughly enjoyed. They played and splashed while we worked. The chickens were very interested in what we were doing. I explained to them that soon they would have a wonderful new coop.
We had hoped to get most of the fencing re-installed on the wooden posts behind the garage and the t-posts put in along the driveway today. However, we will have to put off that job until Sunday because while we were still setting up the wooden posts in their new location, it began to rain…and at times sort of sleet. The rain/sleet was hard enough that we got rather soaked. The rain and damp was cold. We finished putting up the posts and then went inside to get warm and dry.
Mid-morning our power suddenly went out. It was a surprise because it wasn’t even raining at that time. I called our electric company and their automated message said that several counties were without power and it could take several hours to get it back on. Fortunately, our power came on after about 10 minutes.
My camera had developed a dark spot on the lens in one corner. Since I take a lot of photos, EJ bought me a new camera. It arrived today. I spent the evening hours trying to figure it out. It took me forever to figure out how to set up my camera so I could send my photos from the camera to my computer via wifi. I’m giving the old camera to EJ. It’s fine for what he wants to use it for.
My Chore Boots
I have a chore coat. It is the old coat I wear when I work outside. It is an old green coat with a brown collar and cuffs lined with green and brown plaid.
I’ve told EJ several times that I love my old chore coat, and I love that I really need to have a chore coat here in Northern Michigan. Of course, I wore this coat at our old house downstate when I had to do yard work or stack wood but somehow it seems more necessary and authentic in our Enchanted Forest, where I’m cleaning out chicken coops, spreading out straw, and lugging water buckets–and other such stuff.
Chore boots are also necessary because I don’t want to go to the store wearing boots that I walked through the messy chicken/duck coops in. In the summer, I have two pair of shoes that I wear when I’m outside. One is a pair of backless sneaker shoes that I can quickly slip my feet in and out of. The other is an old pair of New Balance athletic shoes. They are very beat up, have holes in them, the laces are broke and tied together, but they are so comfortable that I’m not ready to discard them. I wear them when I walk down the driveway for the mail or when I have to do hard work and don’t want my feet slipping out of my shoes. I have good shoes that I wear when I have to be out among people.
My chore shoes are great in the summer, but inadequate in the winter. Last summer I told EJ that I would need a pair of old chore boots and he found me a pair at Goodwill. When it snowed this last weekend, I started looking for my chore boots because I didn’t want to be slipping on the ice or walking in snow deeper than my shoes. And I didn’t want my regular boots to get all yucky. I only vaguely remember what the chore boots look like and I couldn’t find any that looked like what I somewhat remembered the boots looked like. But I found a pair of JJ’s old worn out hiking boots so I wore those out to do my chores.
Yesterday I said to JJ, “Can I have your old hiking boots to use as chore boots?”
JJ: “Which ones?”
Me: “The ones you don’t wear anymore because you bought new ones.”
JJ: “Sure. You can have them.”
Me: “Good. Because I already wore them yesterday when I did my chores and they have chicken and duck poop on them.”
JJ: “You know, you really should have asked BEFORE you wore them and got poop on them.”
Me: “True. It would have been really crappy if you had wanted to wear them. I mean, seriously, they have crap all over them.”
JJ’s old hiking boots are adequate as chore boots but they are hard to get on and off–I like to be able to easily slip my feet in and out of shoes/boots. Also, they have deep treads and the poop sticks to them and gets tracked in, even though I use Vladimir to wipe my boots on before I come into the house. Vladimir is our raccoon with a brush in his back for wiping dirty shoes on. Downstate we used him as a door stop and we occasionally stubbed our toes on him when we walked past him, which hurt so badly that we accused him of leaping out and attacking us. Since we moved to our new house, he has been in the garage. He hasn’t attacked me since I began wiping my dirty shoes on him. I think he’s much happier fulfilling his intended purpose. It was beneath his dignity to be used as a door stop.
Anyway…Since JJ’s boots were not totally adequate, I went searching for the boots EJ had bought me. I finally found them yesterday! At least, I was almost sure these were my chore boots. So I wore them out to do my chores in the afternoon. They were easy to slip my feet into and out of. They got covered in straw and poultry poop.
When EJ came home from work, I told him that I had found my chore boots! Later, he said to me, “Uh, those aren’t your chore boots. They are boots I bought for me to wear. Not for doing chores.” Oops. An hour or so later, Danny wanted out, so I asked EJ if I could wear the boots. He said yup–and please wipe them off in the snow. So EJ, Danny, and I went outside and while EJ waited near the door, I shuffled my feet in the snow to clean the boots as I walked with Danny. Then I clicked my booted feet together to knock off the debris and as I did, I quoted Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home; there’s no place like home; there’s no place like home.”
EJ said, “It didn’t work.”
Me: “What didn’t work?”
EJ: “Clicking your shoes together and saying “There’s no place like home.”
Me: “It did work.”
EJ: “No, you are still here.”
Me: ??
EJ: “Clicking your shoes together and saying ‘There’s no place like home’ is supposed to send you home.”
Me: “And here I am. At home. It so totally worked!!!”
There’s no refuting fairy tale logic.
We have learned that life can be difficult and that it’s very important to laugh, so we laugh whenever we can.
Like…JJ is a night owl and gets up much later than we do. He was still sleeping last weekend when I texted him:
“Dad and I are going to the farm store to get some straw…so we can build a house that hopefully the wolf can’t blow down. If that doesn’t work, we will get sticks…and then we will try bricks. We might also get a snow fence to keep the wolf off our property.”
JJ texted back: “Uh…what?” Then he came out of his bedroom and asked, “What was that text all about?” I replied that I had started out attempting to inform him that we were going to the farm store to get straw and somehow the story took on a life of its own and got away from me. Oops.
Last year I discovered that you can specify how to pronounce your name in your FB profile and–at least in the settings–you can hear it vocalized. Mischievously, I found a website listing a bunch of elvish-type names and inserted two names on my profile as the proper pronunciation of my first and last name. Zy-lee-uh AH-dhul-win has absolutely no similarity with my actual name. EJ also changed his pronunciation–I think he put down “Count Renfrew.” EJ has been wanting to change his pronunciation again so last night he changed it to UN-klnukklz CHUKL-BUNGK-ker. I kept mine the way it was. We kept playing the audio for our names and then laughing so much that we almost went into convulsions. JJ came out to see why we were laughing. We told him and he rolled his eyes and said “You guys are abusing technology” and then went into his bedroom. (He is not without his sense of humor. He was trying not to laugh.)
Just for the record, JJ often teases us as well. For example, on Election Day I drove JJ to the township hall so he could vote. I had voted earlier in the morning so I waited for him in the Buggy. After several minutes, JJ walked out with a very distressed look on his face. “What’s wrong?” I asked in concern. He said, “I thought I had registered to vote when we moved up here but it turns out that I messed up and I accidentally registered to vote in Nigeria.” Since this was his first time voting, I said, “Seriously? Oh, JJ, I’m so sorry…” Then my eyes narrowed in suspicion, “Hey! Wait a minute! There is absolutely no way you could ever register to vote in Nigeria for a United States election!” He started laughing, and so did I. In my defense for halfway believing such a ridiculous thing, I hadn’t slept well the night before and had been very busy all that day. I was tired and susceptible.
Yup. Sometimes we’ve just gotta laugh.
Turkeys and the Straw
Yesterday the power flickered off and on a few times through the day. Fortunately we didn’t lose our power for more than a couple of seconds but EJ was worried we might lose it so he decided to drive home last night instead of this morning. He drove through some pretty nasty weather, but I must confess that I was relieved to have him home.
Here is a YouTube video a guy named Charles Russell shared with Michigan Emergency Weather Notification at FB. It shows the weather we had in Northern Michigan last night and the nasty conditions that EJ drove through to get home to us. (The guy also took this video earlier in the day.)
Tomorrow when he gets home from work, EJ is going to remind me how to set up the propane heating so I can do it when he is not home.
With winter arriving so suddenly, I got our winter boots out of storage from the pantry yesterday. Our pantry is HUGE and stores a lot more than food. In fact, the previous owner had a jeep business–he installed lift-kits on jeeps–and I think our pantry used to be where he stored his jeep parts. It’s a large room with sturdy shelves. Anyway, JJ laughed at me when I said that I was going to spray my boots with spider killer spray before I put them on. However, I would think spiders would love to make their home in an unused boot and I didn’t want any nasty surprises. I sprayed JJ’s boots a bit too.
I opened the garage door high enough this morning so the chickens and ducks could go outside. I’ve read that it’s ok to let chickens and ducks outside in the winter. If they don’t like the weather, they won’t go out. A couple of hours later when I took Danny outside, I noticed that none of the poultry were outside so I decided that they must not like cold, windy, snowy, icy days, and I just shut them all in for the day.
In the early afternoon, EJ and I drove to the farm store to buy some straw. I’ve been reading on all the duck/chicken pages that straw makes good insulation in the winter. If I had known how icy the roads were, though, I never would have wanted to leave home. They were pure ice and we saw two vehicles in ditches on the way.
We were going to stop at a local farm store, but on our way we remembered that they are closed on Sundays. So we drove to TSC instead and bought four bundles of straw. The employee who helped us said that everyone was buying straw today; he had already re-stocked the shelves four times and he still had to go into the back room to get us some. I also bought two heated water buckets–one for the chickens and one for the ducks–so their water doesn’t freeze in the cold. Our poultry is so spoiled. I spent the afternoon spreading straw around and setting up their heated water buckets.
I found only four eggs today. I think it’s too cold for the chickens to feel like laying eggs. I read that extra eggs can be frozen and then used during the winter when the hens don’t lay is much, so I’ve been trying it. I haven’t yet had to use any frozen eggs.
On our way home from the farm store, we stopped at the grocery store where JJ works. They are having a great bargain on turkeys. If we spend $50 we can buy their store brand turkeys for 49 cents a pound. We bought some supplies for our Thanksgiving meal and the turkey. EJ’s sister invited us to spend Thanksgiving with her, but EJ is so tired that he really just wanted a quiet day at home. That’s fine. Today’s turkey was actually the third one we have bought during the last week. The price is so good that we figured we could buy several and freeze them so we can have a turkey now and then throughout the year. I love making–and eating–homemade potpies.
Snow and Wind
I can’t believe the crazy weather we are getting! Yesterday the temperatures reached 70 degrees and today we have winter. The high winds began to rise yesterday afternoon and this morning it began to snow. Both winds and snow has continued all day. The meteorologist forecasted wind gusts of 50+ mph and several inches of snow today.
Whenever we have high winds, the forest trees really begin to sway wildly. Often we hear creaking and sometimes crashing as a tree falls. It’s kind of spooky. I took a video of the winds this evening:
We made it through the night without losing power! The power flickered off once, but came right back on. We lost our Internet last night, but it was back by morning. The power flickered but so far it’s remaining on. I’m hoping and praying it stays on. EJ was going to return home from his hunting trip tomorrow, but he has decided to start home after dark tonight. I’m rather relieved. I don’t really want EJ to cut short his trip, or to drive home on dangerous roads and high winds (he’s a good driver and he says the roads aren’t that bad), but I’d actually prefer him to be home. Last year EJ taught me how to hook up the propane heater, but I’m not sure I can remember how to do it and I’d really prefer that he give me a refresher course before I have to do it myself.
When the weather is bad, I kind of miss the wood stove we had at our old house. If we lost our power, all I had to do was throw another log on the fire and we kept toasty warm.
This morning when I let the chickens and ducks out, I arranged the garage door so it was open just enough for them to get in and out. After the power flickered, I thought that it really wouldn’t be good if the power went out and I couldn’t get the garage door closed for the night, so I decided to get shut them in the garage a couple of hours early. When I went outside, they were all in the garage already. The weather had apparently gotten too nasty for them.
While I was putting the birds to bed, I got propane tank from the big wooden box in the chicken pen and lugged it over to the front deck. That way we don’t have to struggle with it if the power goes out in the night.
JJ is at work. I will be glad when my guys are safe at home.
Warm & Cold
EJ was able to get today off from work so he left this morning to go hunting at his friend’s parents 100-acre woods on the other side of the state. He expects to be gone until Sunday.
Early this afternoon, I heard the chickens squawking in alarm. They were making a terrible racket so I went out to the garage check on them. I found the chickens all hiding in the coop in the garage and the ducks all on their side of the garage. I couldn’t see anything wrong, but they kept squawking so I went outside to check around. I looked up and saw the reason for their alarm: a large hawk was circling around overhead. The hawk flew off and after a few minutes my birds calmed down.
It’s amazing how alert the chickens and ducks are to threats. I’ve even seen the ducks look up and watch airplanes flying overhead.
Today was super warm–close to 70 degrees! But meteorologists are forecasting at least 4-8 inches of snow tomorrow as well as 50+ mph wind gusts. The winds began to increase this afternoon and have gotten stronger and stronger as the hours passed.
JJ texted me from work to tell me that people just a few miles away have already lost their power because of the wind. I know where our flashlights and battery-operated lanterns are, but I couldn’t remember what to do about heat. So I called EJ and asked what to do if our power goes out. He told me where our propane heater is, and reminded me of where he keeps the propane tanks. EJ taught me last winter how to hook the heater up and turn it on, but I’m not sure I can remember. I sure could have used a refresher course, but of course, EJ had to be gone during our first wintry weather of the year. Well, maybe JJ and I can figure it out between us. Either that or we can cuddle up with Danny and the cats for warmth.
Winter Race
I woke up very early on Tuesday morning–about 3-ish–and couldn’t go back to sleep. I wasn’t able to get a nap because it was an extremely busy day with many errands to run. I fed, watered, and let the chickens and ducks out, went to vote, drove into the Emerald City and made a brief stop at Joann Fabrics for some yarn before going to an appointment, drove home and went with JJ to his dentist. On the way home, he stopped to vote and we made a brief visit to the grocery store where I bought a deli chicken and coleslaw for supper because after all the running around I didn’t feel like cooking. EJ voted on his way home from work.
Because of the early morning and busy day, I didn’t plan to stay up to watch the election results. Besides, I pretty much thought I knew who would win. However, I started watching the election results on the Internet (we don’t have our TV hooked up) and then I got drawn in. It was like watching a cliff-hanging movie. A friend and I “watched” the election together via FB chat, commenting back and forth as we watched the results trickle in. We ended up staying up until about 3:30 a.m., which means I was awake for 24 hours. Ugh. I felt as if I spent the rest of the week trying to catch up on all the sleep I had lost.
I won’t say a lot about the elections except that I deplore the violence that the Hillary supporters have engaged in. I can understand feeling disappointed, sad, upset, concerned, and a bunch of other emotions when people’s candidate loses an election. However, rioting, assaulting and insulting people because “their” candidate won is deplorable. The USA has been great because we have a free society, we have the right to speak our minds and vote for who we want, and we have a peaceful transfer of power. In a free election, sometimes “our” candidate will win an election, sometimes “our” candidate will lose. That’s the way it is. We don’t always get what we want. If “we” are concerned about the world view of the “other side,” we can work to change it through lawful and peaceful ways and protests. The smashing, burning, assaulting, and insults is nothing more than a tantrum and no matter who wins an election, both sides ought to speak against the violence. Our country is great because there is a peaceful transition of government.
Enough said.
In our beautiful, peaceful Enchanted Forest, we are in a race to get projects completed before winter slams us with cold and snow.
We have some windows that lost their seals, which means that condensation has gotten between the double panes. We decided that we’d rather pay for new efficient windows than higher heating costs so we are having Lowes replace the three worst windows. Although we first contacted Lowes in September, their crews have been so busy installing windows that we were down on the list. We’ve been contacted that the windows are now ready so I’m hoping they can get installed this week.
Although my solution/setup of having the chicken and duck coops in the garage is quite clever, it was only meant to be temporary. Our dilemma is that we have to have the garage door open during the day so the ducks and chickens can go outside. That’s fine during the summer but in the winter keeping the garage door open 1. puts EJ’s equipment at risk of weather damage, 2. would make it too cold for EJ to work in his garage, and 3. does not enable the poultry to escape from cold and snow. Also, I don’t know if we could get the garage door open if the snow gets deep, which means the chickens and ducks would be stuck inside all winter, and that would make it unpleasant for EJ to work in his garage. So what to do?
We are paying for our windows with our new Lowes credit card. When I saw how little our minimum monthly payment would be, I realized that we could very easily afford to buy a shed for a coop. EJ agreed. So we ordered a 10 x 12 shed. Since we need to get it set up before winter, we are having Lowes build it for us. They have scheduled the installation of the shed for Monday, November 28.
Once the crew builds the shed, we have to quickly get it painted and then get it set up: We need to set up fencing both inside and outside the shed to keep the ducks and chickens separate, we need to cut little doors for the ducks and chickens so they can go in and out without leaving the big doors open. We’d like to make the fencing around the outside pen more predator-proof. In addition, we hope to replace some of the t-posts with wooden posts because EJ wants to use the t-posts along the driveway for the snow fence. The dilemma is that so many tasks depend on completing other tasks. It’s like a brain game:
- We have to remove the fencing so the installers can get in to put up the shed.
- We can’t remove the fencing until just before the installers arrive because the chickens and ducks still need to be contained when they go outside.
- We can’t put up the snow fence along the driveway until we can remove replace the t-posts in the chicken/duck pen with wooden posts.
- We can’t replace the t-posts with posts until after the installers are finished and we reconfigure the outside fencing.
- We can’t put up the snow fence until after the window and shed installers have come and gone because we want the large trucks to be able to get up and down the driveway without them damaging our snow fence. Putting up the snow fence makes the driveway feel very narrow.
Meanwhile, winter is coming and everything has to be done before the weather turns bad and the ground freezes. The weather has been very nice for November–in fact, today I barely needed a sweatshirt– but I feel as if we are racing winter and I’m not sure which of us will win.
Yesterday we were busy with a lot of tasks. Ever since we moved last year, our bed has felt very uncomfortable. We wake frequently during the night and in the mornings with sore backs. No doubt something was damaged in the move, but we don’t know if the problem is the bed or the mattress so we have been tweaking things and trying less expensive measures first. We bought new box springs last year (we had to leave our old one behind because we couldn’t get it down the stairs of the old house). That helped a little, but not enough. So we bought a memory foam mattress topper, which helped a little, but not enough. So yesterday EJ built a platform to set inside the bed frame. We slept much better, not waking so often in the night, and with less sore bodies this morning. EJ says he thinks we will probably end up needing to buy a new mattress but he would prefer to delay it as long as possible…so we can afford to buy more books. He is my kind of man!
While EJ was working on the bed platform, I did laundry, cleaned, cooked, washed dishes, and dragged boxes of books out of the pantry to sort through. I put some books in the library to keep. Some went into a box labeled “garage” because EJ wants them in his garage. Others went into boxes labeled “donate.” And the books I think I can maybe sell at Amazon went into the “sell” box. I finished sorting the boxes this afternoon. I found it very odd that even though I put a few boxes of “keep” books in the library, and have at least four boxes of “donate” books in the entrance hallway, and even though I completely emptied a few boxes, I still seem to have just as many boxes of books (to be sold) in the pantry as I did before I started sorting. I suspect it’s one of those wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey, space-time continuum sort of things?
After our work was all done yesterday and the chickens and ducks had been put to bed for the night, we went outside to enjoy the super-moon.
I had always lived in a town until we moved to our Enchanted Forest. Because of the street lights, I had never realized that a full moon can light up the landscape so brightly that I don’t need a flashlight to see my way at night. I now really look forward to full moons. But the super-moon was so huge and so bright last night that I could very clearly see my shadow and the shadows of the trees in the forest. It was very amazing and beautiful. I tried to take a photo of it, but my camera does not have fancy lenses or filters and I don’t have technical expertise so the best I could do was this photo–and although I think it is somewhat interesting, it did not capture the hugeness of the moon at all:
I was, however, able to capture the colorful glow of the sunset. We have had some amazing sunrises and sunsets lately. I love the effect of the trees silhouetted against the glow of the sunrise/sunset.
I’ve been trying to walk down and up our driveway several times each day for exercise. Sometimes I try to run up the driveway, but the driveway is so steep that I cannot run for very long before I am huffing and puffing and in danger of collapse. The other morning I was walking down the driveway when I heard a rushing sound like the approach of a powerful wind-except all the trees near me were completely still. Then I looked behind me and I could follow the approach of the wind as the trees began to sway, closer and closer and closer until the wind passed by me and continued on it’s way. It was amazing. I love our Enchanted Forest.
JJ has struggled to figure out what he wants to do with his life. He has been interested in law enforcement so last week he talked to the director of the law enforcement program at his college. The director was impressed with him and JJ decided to major in law enforcement. He signed up for 14 credits for next term and now he has three weeks to figure out how to come up with almost $4,000 to pay for his classes. We have helped him with college a little, but we can’t help much. Mostly we help him with his medical bills. He continues to have periodic x-rays and blood draws to make sure that his cancer doesn’t return, and those procedures cost money, especially with our medical insurance going up. So he has to pay for his classes himself. He is working, of course, but doesn’t make enough. He has explored grants, scholarships, and financial aid with little success. So he is now looking into loans, the possibility of increasing limit on his credit card, etc. I’m praying he makes it. If he can take his desired courses, he can enter police academy next fall.
The Enchanted Library
I really enjoy the beauty of early mornings but the sun rises so early that if I didn’t have to get up to let the chickens and ducks outside, I would sleep right through the dawn. Instead, I get up early to let the birds outside as soon as the sun rises so they can enjoy as much daylight as possible. And because I get up so early, I get to enjoy beautiful mornings like yesterday.
The other day I tried to describe the ruckus that occurs when I open the garage door to let the chickens and ducks outside. It’s hard to describe so I took this video:
Our alpha Rooster’s name is Sassy. He wears a band on his leg with a Superman “S” on it. The other roosters have a Batman charm and a Captain America charm on their bands. Because of the charms, I named the one Bat-Roo (for Bat-Rooster). EJ named the one with the Captain America charm “Captain AmeROOca.” Ha ha.
I’ve been trying to get more exercise by walking down and up our long, steep driveway several times a day. Danny usually comes with me. Sometimes he meanders around and sometimes he just stops and waits for me.
At our old house, we turned the extra bedroom upstairs into our library. I have always, always wanted a downstairs library so the books would be easily accessible instead of hidden away upstairs. Our library in our new house is also in the extra bedroom but our house is one storm and the library is right next to the living room, which is perfect. EJ has been working on building the book shelves in the evenings when he gets home from work. He finally finished the shelves last night. Yay!
Today I spent most of the day organizing the library. EJ’s books are on the higher shelves and my books are on the lower shelves. I grouped them by subject: Dictionaries, history, literature, science, gardening, home improvement, crafts, fiction, and religious books. Our china cabinet holds my favorite Biblical/Hebrew books instead of china. Except for our desk and file cabinet, every available wall space has bookshelves. We also have a rocking chair in the library for comfortable quiet reading. A little stool can be used as a footstool and as a step stool to reach books on high shelves. Most of my paperback books are on shelves that hang over the bedroom and closet doors. The closet holds our printer and my crochet supplies and Etsy store items.
Libraries have a quiet peaceful feeling to them and EJ loved being there. This evening he began to further organize his books and to cull the ones he doesn’t want. We will either sell them or donate them. We still have about a dozen boxes of books in our pantry that we have to sort through.
It’s difficult to get good pictures of the library but it looks like this:
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
~ Jorge Luis Borges
Timey Wimey, Wibbly Wobbly
This morning I woke up and looked at the digital alarm clock to check the time. It said that it was 5:99 a.m. And then as I watched, it turned to 5:98…5:80… 5:40…5:99…I rubbed my eyes and looked again, and the clock was still timey wimey, wibbly wobbly. EJ woke a few minutes later and as he got out of bed, I said, “Do me a favor and look at the clock.” He did and then exclaimed, “What is going on?” and we started laughing. Obviously, we need to get a new clock. I browsed clocks at Amazon, but finally remembered that JJ has an alarm clock that he never really uses so I asked him if we could have it and he said yes.
EJ and I spent most of the day on Sunday organizing his garage. We still have to find places for a lot of things, but we both were amazed and satisfied at the tremendous progress we made.
Every morning as soon as it begins to get light outside, I let the chickens and ducks out, feed and water them, and collect Peeper’s egg. Peeper–the only duck giving us eggs–lays her egg first thing in the morning, while the chickens don’t finish laying their eggs until mid-afternoon. I have a clever system of gates to keep the chickens and ducks separated. During the day I have a fence that divides the pens and latches to the coop in the garage, but because I had to be able to close the garage door at night, I swing that fence out of the way at night and use an inner gate that divides them at night. When I enter the ducks’ side of the pen to open the garage door in the morning, Sassy, the alpha rooster, usually comes up to the gate to see what’s going on. He is always the first outside when I open the garage door so that he can check to make sure everything is safe for the others. Once I open the inner gate that divides the chickens and ducks at night, I have to step aside because the ducks stampede outside.
Sometimes things get a little crazy: For example, a few days ago as soon as I opened the dividing gate, Sassy chased one of the other roosters into the duck side of the garage pen. I had to let the ducks outside while getting the rooster on his side of the pen, but every time I got him close to the gate, Sassy would appear and scare him back into the duck pen. Finally, I got everyone where they were supposed to be.
Things can be just as funny in the evening when I close everyone n for the night. Most of the time things go well. In fact, usually most of the chickens are already in their garage coop when I go outside. Sassy is usually the last one in because he likes to make sure everyone else is safe. I always enter the outside pen through the duck side and herd the ducks into the garage. Sometimes one will escape around me, so I have to go back and get her. Meanwhile, the other ducks start coming back out of the garage. Some turn around back into the garage when I start walking toward them, but others escape around me. It can take a bit on those nights to get everyone in with some going in and others coming out. The crazy mornings and evenings make me laugh.
Meanwhile, for the last week we’ve had a mouse running loose in the house. The cats have caught it several times, but they keep letting it escape. The mouse is getting arrogant. A few nights ago, EJ suddenly exclaimed, “The mouse is walking right across the middle of the living room!” A living room filled with four cats. By the time I had grabbed a cat to show him the mouse, the mouse had disappeared. We miss Princess Winter, a cat we used to have. She wouldn’t play around with the mice. The moment she saw one, she’d ferociously pounce on it and we’d hear her crunch, crunching on its bones. It was rather macabre when we’d hear the crunch of bones under our bed in the middle of the night but…Princess Winter always got her mouse.
Yesterday I decided that I’m going to do my best to walk up and down the driveway several times a day for exercise. Yesterday I walked up and down five times. As I walked, I saw a flock of little birds walking on the driveway. They took off in a group whenever I got close. They looked sort of like sparrows, but not quite–and they didn’t really fly like sparrows. I wasn’t sure what they were. Then a Northern Michigan photography page at FB called McGill’s Nature in Motion shared a page of little birds that they identified as Snow Buntings. I compared their awesome photo to the not-so-great one I had managed to take of the birds in my driveway and I saw that they were the same. Cool! I’ve never seen a Snow Bunting before! I added them to my bird list.
The trees are still very colorful, but the slightest breeze causes the leaves to rain down and there are more and more bare branches visible. The night-time temperatures have also dipped down into the 30s, although this week we’ve had some warm days. I think today the temps reached up into the high 60s. It was nice.
Hermits
EJ has a very beautiful drive into work every morning. He gets to drive through forests and along the coast. This morning he texted me that the sunrise was gorgeous. Alerted, I took my camera outside with me when I went to let the ducks and chickens out. We have trees all around us so I don’t have a clear view of the horizon, but I could see the fiery sunrise through the trees. It was stunning:
I’m sure the sunrise was so beautiful because of an approaching storm. When EJ got home from work, he asked, “So what did you think of the snow?” JJ and I both asked, “What snow?” because it had rained here all day. EJ said that it had been snowing since about 4 p.m., and it snowed all the time he was driving home, and it was even snowing as he drove through the little town about two miles from us. But up in our Enchanted Forest, it only rained. And rained.
I have experienced all sorts of new things since I have moved north. Like propane. I’ve always lived in a town and I’ve never lived in a house that used propane. So…yesterday our new propane company brought us a tank. They filled it with 25 gallons of propane to last us until the fuel truck came to fill it all the way up because, duh, they can’t be hauling a huge tank sloshing with a bunch of propane. Well, the fuel truck came lumbering up the driveway about mid-morning today. After the guy filled our tank, he came to the door to give me the invoice. The guy filling the tank was one of the same guys who had been here yesterday and this time when Danny greeted him at the door, he gave him a dog biscuit, which Danny took very politely. I thought that was very nice of the guy.
I took some time to crochet this morning, but I spent most of my time doing laundry and cooking. I have to use the apples that we bought at the farm market a few weeks ago. Last week I made apple pies which I put in the freezer. Yesterday I made Apple Brownies, which were very good, and today I made Apple Hermits, which were even better. We didn’t know what “hermits” were–I mean, as far as food goes–but we decided after eating one (or two or three) that they must be called “hermits” because after tasting how good they are a person really wants to take all the cookies with him (or her) to an isolated place so he doesn’t have to share them with anyone. That’s our theory.
We all have symptoms of PTSD from a variety of sources and difficulties. Most of the time I think we are patient and supportive of each other, but sometimes one person’s PTSD symptoms get triggered and can also trigger another person’s PTSD symptoms, which makes emotions a bit difficult and messy. I think it’s difficult enough when one person in a family is dealing with PTSD symptoms. October is emotionally difficult for JJ because it was the month he was diagnosed with cancer. And this year was even more stressful because he had to have a blood draw and an appointment with his oncologist. He is really afraid of his cancer returning. His response to this stress triggered my struggles with abuse. We are trying to re-stablize our battered emotions.
I feel as if we are so weary that, well, it’s kind of like….If a wealthy person’s car breaks down and needs major repairs, he has the money to get it fixed. No big deal. But if a poorer person’s car breaks down, it’s a major problem because he doesn’t have the money to repair it. In the same way, normally we have had the strength to deal with problems, but we have gotten so depleted that everything seems to bankrupt our meager energy supply. Life doesn’t stop because we are tired, and there will always be problems that we have to deal with. However, one problem that we can diminish is toxic people who cause turmoil in our lives. We have decided that we just aren’t going to deal with them for a while. We are going to give ourselves a break, for however long we need. And, seriously, only those who respect the boundaries we set for ourselves will be allowed access to our lives.
In addition to not allowing toxic people in our lives, we also are filling our lives with as much delight as we can. Such as enjoying sunrises, chickens and ducks, and working with our hands, and enjoying the beautiful area we are living in….and enjoying our delicious Apple Hermits.
Oh! One more thing! EJ got home from work late today and he was tired, and it was raining, and it was getting dark so we didn’t band anymore chickens. However, with the help of google, I was able to figure out how to put the video that JJ had taken of us banding the chickens on Monday on Youtube so I can share it here. Just a warning, though: I don’t know how they do it, but without fail my guys somehow always seem to take HORRIBLE photos/videos of me. So I think I look pretty awful in the video. This is why I like to be the one on the other side of the camera. But here is our Chicken Roundup video.
Chicken Bling
Usually October is my most favorite month, but this October was difficult at the beginning and has continued to be difficult though the middle. Ugh. On November 1st I might throw a “I Survived October” party…assuming that I actually do survive it.
We usually go on a drive to enjoy the autumn colors, but this month was so difficult that we didn’t go on one. But there is always next year and, as I told EJ, when we lived downstate we would drive to Northern Michigan for our color tour and now we live in Northern Michigan so anytime we go anywhere we are technically on a color tour. So I’m ok with it. The leaves are now flying off the trees in a colorful rain and the temperatures are colder.
In preparation for the winter’s cold, EJ called the propane company. We are actually going with a new company that is less expensive. They came today while EJ was at work to bring the new propane tank. I had asked EJ if there was anything I needed to know or do or tell the propane guys and he said no, but they did ask questions that I didn’t know the answers to. Ugh. I hate it when I have to do something that I know nothing about–like pick up a car part or answer propane guys’ questions. I feel like an idiot. Oh, well, everything got hooked up ok.
In October, the huge ginormous spiders crawl onto the porch at night. That is not a good thing. A few times JJ came into the house through the door that leads into the living room because there was a giant spider on the door that we usually use–the one leading in to the kitchen. If I have to take Danny outside to do “his business” when it’s dark, I shine my flashlight around to make sure there are no lurking spiders. If EJ accompanies me, I make him go outside first to kill any giant spiders. The good thing is that the spiders lurk on the porch only in October, and then they are gone. And the other good thing is I am not quite as terrified of them as I was last year. I am still very scared of them, but I kill them rather calmly now rather than run away screaming. So I count that as a win.
I got tired of never being able to tell one duck or chicken from the next. I can identify Cuddles, Peeper, and Esther, the white Pekin ducks, because there is one male and two females and Esther is lame. Daisy, one of the Rouen ducks, has a blacker bill than the other two, but I couldn’t tell the other two apart. All the chickens look alike so I had trouble identifying most of them. So I decided to get the birds some Bling. For those who don’t know, Bling is expensive, ostentatious clothing and jewelry. I bought a package of colorful ziptie leg bands from Amazon that had cute little charms on them. The charms included 5 Flowers, 5 Hearts, 5 Lady Bugs, 2 Butterflies, 1 Superman, 1 Batman, and 1 Captain America charms.
With EJ’s help, I banded only the two Rouen ducks that I couldn’t identify. I gave them flower charms because they are named after flowers. The one with the red ziptie is Rose and the one with the purple blue ziptie is Lily.
The ducks weren’t difficult to capture or band, but we figured it would be more of a challenge to put leg bands on the chickens so we decided to just do 3 or 4 each day. Yesterday evening after supper, EJ, JJ, and I went outside to band the chickens. I captured the chickens and held them while EJ fastened the ziptie to their leg, and JJ videoed it with his smart phone. He uploaded it to Facebook and I can’t share it here. Bummer. It was really funny. Next time I will ask him to please use my camera so I can share it here.
We were able to band Henny Penny, the only one I could identify, mostly because she was so friendly. She is my favorite and she got a sweet heart charm. We captured the Alpha Rooster and banded him with the Superman charm. I figured the “S” insignia could mean “Sassy”, which is his name. He was totally not happy to be captured and he complained loudly. We were able to capture and band one more chicken and by that time the coop was in an uproar with Sassy shouting alarms and growling, and the hens echoing alarm, so we decided that that was enough for the day.
EJ and I banded three more chickens today. (JJ stayed inside to study.) The first one we caught was one of the Roosters. I banded him with the Batman charm. We agreed that we couldn’t call him Batman since he isn’t a “man.” EJ wanted to call him Bat-Chicken, but I preferred Bat-Roo, a shortened form of Bat-Rooster. My guys groaned at the name, but I figure that these are my flock and I get to name them. After we got him banded, I realized that I had forgotten to bring the scissors so EJ could cut off the excess bit of ziptie. I had to hold Bat-Roo while EJ went into the house for the scissors. Bat-Roo was not happy. He occasionally struggled in my arms and I’m sure he was screaming swear words at me. I never knew that roosters could cuss so colorfully.
The second chicken we caught was the third rooster. We put a Captain America charm on him. I told EJ and JJ that his name was Captain Roo. Again they groaned at the name. Captain Roo also screamed swear words at me while we banded him. I’m really glad that I can’t understand the language of chickens.
The third chicken we banded was a hen. She was more docile. I was so rattled by the roosters that I can’t remember what charm we put on her. Now we just have four more hens to band.
In addition to killing spiders and banding ducks and chickens, I have been spending my time making new items to sell in my Etsy store. (There is a link to Teric’s Treasures at the top left of this page.) EJ has been working on making more shelves for our library, he has begun building an enclosed porch, and we have done a few other odd jobs to prepare for winter.
Duck Rescue
Some of our windows need replacing because the seal on them are broken and condensation has gotten between the panes. We decided that we’d rather pay for new windows than have high heating bills because of the bad windows. We also decided that it would be better to have them installed than try to do them ourselves, so several weeks ago we contacted Lowes about replacing the three worst windows. They finally called us yesterday to ask us to come to the store and sign the contract for the windows. I was hoping that we could get the windows installed before this, but apparently everyone and their brother has been getting new windows so the installers are super busy. Hopefully they won’t be installing our windows in -50 degree temps or a historic blizzard!
On the way to Lowes, EJ wanted to stop at Gander Mountain just to look around. When we entered the store, I saw a display of a gilly suit. I exclaimed that it would be so much fun to have a gilly suit and go sneaking around in the forest. EJ laughed and then told me a story from his childhood about a guy who scared his scout troop during a camping trip by wearing a Big Foot costume that his wife made. News spread around of Big Foot sightings, so the scout leader decided to randomly show up around the county dressed as Big Foot. Apparently it made the national news, and then people starting declaring that they were going to start carrying guns to protect themselves so the leader finally confessed.
After we browsed in Gander Mountain for a bit, we continued on to Lowes. As we pulled into the parking lot, we saw a huge inflatable marshmallow man. I begged EJ not to let me get too close to it because it aroused violent urges in me and I felt a strong desire to go up and punch it in its stomach. EJ said that I could always sneak up close to it in a gilly suit…and then we began to joke about what we’d do to the giant marshmallow man. (Don’t worry, Lowes, we were just joking.) Later EJ told JJ that I had wanted a gilly suit and I told him about wanting to sneak up and punch the giant marshmallow man. JJ looked at us as if we had gone completely nuts, but I showed him the photo I had taken to prove that, yes, we had actually seen a giant marshmallow man. LOL.
Early this afternoon I went outside to see if I could move the second dog house. Then I noticed that one of our rouen ducks was not with the others, which is totally not normal because the ducks ALWAYS stick close together. “Birds of a feather flock together” is totally true about ducks. I saw the duck sitting just outside the fence so I walked up to her, and she let me get quite close, which is also not normal for our ducks. The rouens, especially, never let us get very close to them. She acted very listless, and wobbly, and I saw that there was drool on the ground. She had been perfectly fine when I saw her a short time before so I figured that she must have eaten something toxic while she was free-ranging with the others. Worried, I went inside and told EJ that one of our ducks was sick. He went outside with me and I was able to walk right up to the duck and pick her up. EJ sat in a lawn chair and held her. She hardly moved and she drooled on his arm. I thought, oh, crap, I don’t know anything about caring for sick ducks and our little duck is going to die. While EJ continued holding her, I went inside and googled her symptoms.
I love the Internet! I found that someone on a duck forum had described the same symptoms as our duck was experiencing. Several people suggested giving the duck activated charcoal. So I called our farm store to see if they sold it. I figured that if it was something that helped ducks, they might have some. They didn’t. The internet said that Woolworths sold activated charcoal, so I called the one nearest us. They said they were all sold out. So I called our local Meijer store and asked the pharmacist if they sold activated charcoal. He said they did. I asked if they had any in stock. He checked and said that they had one bottle left, and then he asked if I would like him to reserve it for us and I said “YES! We will be right there to get it!” EJ shut our sick little duck in the garage pen and we drove off to the store for the last bottle of activated charcoal. As we were paying for it, we told the pharmacist that it was for our sick duck. He asked, “Did she eat something toxic?” and we said that we thought so.
Once we got home, we emptied the powder from the capsule into a dish of clean water. I got out a syringe to squirt it into our duck’s mouth. But we learned that we can’t ease a syringe of medicine into a duck’s mouth like you can a cat or dog. There’s no way to get their bill open. So we just sort of dipped her bill into the medicated water and she took a few swallows. She seemed to revive a bit, but she still twitched and wobbled a lot and I was afraid she would fall unconscious into the bowl of water and drown, so I sat out in her pen with her. I put some of the charcoal water into a smaller container and occasionally I dipped her bill into it and she swallowed, even though it was clear that she didn’t really like the taste. Amazingly, it wasn’t long before she looked more alert. After awhile, she was able to stand and as time went on she grew stronger and stronger and began walking around. Eventually, I opened the gate and let her join the others in the outside pen. I heard them all quaking as if they were glad that she could join them. She seemed almost back to normal, although she continued to twitch her feathers.
I think she’s going to be ok. I’m really glad she didn’t die. Having two pets die in a week would have been too much to bear.
I probably should tell Zack the pharmacist that he helped save a duck’s life?
Surviving October
October is usually my most favorite month. I love the vibrant colors of the trees and the pumpkins and other squashes. I love the wind making the leaves twirl and dance. I love the look of harvested fields. I love the sunshine highlighting the brilliant autumn colors, but I also love the drama of the thick dark clouds behind the trees. I love the chill in the mornings. I love wearing jeans and sweatshirts. October is beautiful.
But this October kind of sucked.
October 10th is the anniversary of the day–in 2013–that we took JJ to the doctor and learned that he had a mass. A couple of days later–October 12th–he had surgery to remove the mass and we learned that it was cancerous. This year JJ had his followup appointments with his oncologist in early October, just a few days before his cancer anniversaries. As various cancer anniversaries and medical appointments approach, JJ gets more stressed. He is afraid his cancer will return. He tends to lash out. Not fun.
Since JJ is now an adult, I figure it’s up to him to choose whether he wants us to go into the exam room with him. This year he chose to go alone while EJ and I waited in the reception area. After his appointment, he said that the oncologist said that everything is looking good, but he wants JJ to return in four months for another appointment, and then return again four months after that. JJ also needs to have a blood draw and chest x-ray before each appointment. JJ didn’t ask why he needed to return after such short intervals. By now we had expected that the intervals between appointment would be lengthened, not shortened. It’s a bit worrying. We try not to worry but…before cancer, we never really imagined that it would happen to any of us. I mean, part of us knows that bad things can happen, but it’s an abstract thing that happens to other people, not to us, and certainly not to our teenaged son. After cancer, we know that it can happen to us, and it did happen to us, and sometimes cancer can return.
Another difficulty involves emotional abuse. After years of trying to understand and deal with my abusive family and toxic friends, and after years of educating myself about emotional abuse, and after years of hearing many victims’ stories, I have learned a thing or two about abuse, including how abusers tend to behave. They are very predictable. It’s as if there is an Abuser’s Bible filled with abusive strategies and tactics that every abuser reads and follows. It’s almost funny that if one victim tells her story in a victims’ group or forum, the other victims will declare, “Wow! You could have been telling MY story.” They are that similar. So earlier in the summer, I predicted EJ’s family’s next move if they were, indeed, following the Abuser’s Bible. I would have preferred to have been wrong but I wasn’t. Being right just makes my heart ache. And it makes me tired because…here we go again.
And also our cat Tesla died this October, and this last week EJ hurt his finger, which I will get to in a moment.
There have been good things about this October. Like my birthday. I always ask EJ to give me the gift of a memory, which includes going on a drive to enjoy the beautiful trees. We usually go either the weekend before or after my birthday–whenever the colors are most beautiful and we can get away. Most of the trees in our area are still mostly green, however, so we haven’t yet gone on our color drive. However, the day after my birthday, on the way home from the oncologist, we stopped at a restaurant called Cousin Jenny’s for some delicious pasties. And that weekend we drove to thrift stores and found three lovely pictures. One is of a beautiful house set in the transition between autumn and winter with some leaves still on the trees and snow on the ground. We hung it in our bedroom where we have other beautiful pictures of houses. The other two were impressionist pictures of gardens. We hung them in the living room where they complement the other impressionist garden pictures. I think impressionist paintings are my favorite–especially those of a rainy autumn day.
Also for my birthday, JJ gave me a $25 gift card. I spent some happy hours browsing through Amazon. I ordered several books and then had the fun anticipation of waiting for them to arrive in the mail. I think I got the last book yesterday. And a good friend gave me an awesome puzzle about Michigan. Since most of the places depicted in the puzzle are places I’ve been to, it’s actually a puzzle of memories. My friend also gave me a bag of turkish coffee that many people in Israel enjoy. It’s also called “Jerusalem mud”–and we can understand why because the grounds remain in the bottom of the cup like mud. It sounds sort of gross but it’s very tasty. Because it is such special coffee, we have one cup every Shabbat. That way we can savor it and make it last.
We have been busy preparing for winter. We have a ton of things we want to do. EJ finished fixing the leak in the master bathroom. He still has to finish putting up drywall because he had had to tear open the wall in the master bedroom to get to the leak and then we have to paint the bedroom wall–and maybe we can also paint the master bathroom. We put away the outdoor furniture. EJ has put up posts along one side of our driveway so we can find our driveway during the heavy winter snow. He has to put up posts along the other side as well, I think, and then put up the snow fence? When the nights started getting cooler, we brought my house plants inside and I spent a happy time finding places for them all. We need to protect our fruit trees from winter-hungry deer. We have to get the propane tank filled. We are waiting for Lowes to install a few new windows. Apparently everyone and their brother are getting new windows installed in their homes before winter. I just hope our windows get in before the winter storms arrive. I imagine guys trying to put in windows during a raging blizzard.
Now that we have six ducks, they don’t all fit in the plastic dog house that we were using as their coop. EJ was going to try to get coops built, but then we remembered that the previous owner left behind two very sturdy wooden dog houses that are bigger than the plastic doghouse so we decided to replace the plastic dog house in the garage with a wooden one. Danny never uses the doghouses. EJ would have moved them, but he has enough stuff to do so I decided that I could manage on my own. It was quite a chore moving the dog house because they are so well-built and very heavy and I could hardly even budge them. EJ has a large piece of heavy plastic, which I suspect might have once been a truck bed liner, that we have been using as “sleds” to move heavy items. I managed to tilt the dog house and JJ slid the sled under it. Once we had the dog house on the sled, I found a thick branch and I stuck one end under the “sled” and then pulled up on it, which inched the sled forward. Then I repeated the process, slowly inching the doghouse down the hill. Once I reached the driveway, the method didn’t work so well–I think because the stick slid across the gravel rather than dig into the ground for leverage. So I found a rope, looped it around the sled, and then pulled. Because the doghouse was so heavy, the rope cut into my hands and I couldn’t pull very fast or for very long. However, I was determined and I was able to move the dog house little by little. I had to unfasten part of the fence to get the doghouse into the pen. I wasn’t able to take the doghouse into the garage from the duck side because of a post, so I had to take it through the chicken side. This involved unfastening a portion of the fence dividing the duck and chicken pens, pulling the doghouse into the chicken side while also not allowing the chickens and ducks to mingle. Then I had to reassemble the dividing fence, pull the dog house into the garage, and position the coops so that everything fit, the coop doorways were facing the right way, and so that I could latch various gates.
I had had short sections of fencing running alongside the top of the coop, but I saw that the chickens loved sitting on the coop roof and they couldn’t perch so easily with the fencing fixed at the apex of the coop–also, they were able to get through the fencing. So I found a length of very tall fencing which I placed beside the coops rather than on top of them. The fencing reaches from floor to ceiling to better keep the chickens on their side of the garage. It also enables them to sit on top of the roofs of the coops. I think some of the chickens now sleep on top of the coop roof at night.
I didn’t fully reassemble the outside fencing because I’d first like to move the other dog house into the outside pen before I permanently refasten everything. I’m not sure whether to put the second dog house on the duck side or the chicken side. And after all my effort, I was tired and needed a break for a bit. We would like to eventually get the coops out of the garage, but we have to be able to protect the chickens and ducks from predators. It’s not going to happen this year.
The door of the sturdy wooden dog house was too high up for the ducks to get into so EJ needed to build them a ramp. He didn’t have a single piece of wood wide or long enough for the ramp, so he cut two triangles and planned to attach long slim boards to make slats. He was using his bandsaw to cut the long boards into the proper length when he accidentally sawed his finger. I thought he had sawed off his finger.
I have always been so empathetic that I “felt” suffering and often fainted–or came to it–whenever I saw, read, or heard about it. I struggled in science classes, couldn’t watch medical shows, and found it difficult to visit people in the hospital. When I was in my mid-20s, I went to a behavioral specialist to learn techniques in how to deal with it. The techniques involved learning how to relax my body and distract my mind. They really worked and I did really well for years. I could visit people in the hospital, I endured medical procedures and surgeries and even had a couple of blood transfusions. However, when JJ was diagnosed with cancer, my empathetic sensitivity returned–and, it seems to me, even increased. During our first visit with the oncologist in 2013, when the oncologist told us how bad JJ’s cancer was, I almost fainted and he made JJ get off the exam table so I could lie down, which was very embarrassing–but it became something we could laugh about and JJ and I made bets about whether or not I would faint at each new procedure we had to face. I almost fainted (but didn’t) when we went to “chemo class” to learn about what to expect when JJ had chemo. I had to leave the infusion room each time JJ was hooked up to the IV’s. EJ stayed with him and I returned after the needles had been inserted. And when I first saw JJ after he had surgery to remove a cancerous lymph node, he looked so white and vulnerable that I felt faint so I walked into the hallway, leaned against the wall, and slid to the floor. I was able to rejoin him after I regained consciousness because I was more prepared.
Since JJ’s cancer, I’ve been more sensitized to all suffering and have to be careful about what I see, hear, watch, or read. Aware of this, EJ wouldn’t let me see his cut finger and he insisted that I stay home while JJ accompanied him to the hospital. I would have gone with him. The hospital put a splint on EJ’s finger, gave him a tetanus shot and antibiotics, and sent him home. EJ said his finger didn’t even hurt all that much. I wasn’t sure how he would be able to work with the huge bandage on his finger, but he seems to manage ok. Whew. Every time I think of him sawing his finger, I feel light-headed and sick to my stomach.
The ducks really wanted into their new doghouse coop, so until EJ’s finger heals and he can finish the ramp, I got attached a piece of wainscoting onto the unfinished part of the ramp. The ducks are able to get into the new coop easily now.
So…the first half of October has kind of sucked this year, and I’m just hoping to survive the second half.
Tesla & Esther
The week was eventful with both good and bad in it, and happy and sad. It started out rough, but got better as the week progressed and ended well.
JJ doesn’t really know what he wants to do with his life, so he is taking college classes that sound interesting to him. Since he has to work to pay for his classes, he only takes one or two a semester. This term he took a Political Science class. Wednesday he came home from class laughing. He said that one of his fellow students had declared that anyone with a serious illness, such as cancer, is “genetically inferior.” Apparently he thinks that they shouldn’t be given medical treatment or financial help but should survive–or not–on their own. You know, “survival of the fittest.” If they receive treatment and reproduce, they are weakening the gene pool. Sometimes insensitive comments really hurt JJ, but this comment was so over the top, so horrendously and shockingly bad, that all he could do was laugh. His whole class was shocked by the statement. He said after class he asked the student to clarify his statement and the student seem to not really be holding on to this belief too strongly–which he shouldn’t since he also has a serious illness–he suffers from diabetes. He also has a service dog. I’m not sure why. So he, himself, by his own standards, would be in the category of “genetically inferior.”
Wednesday when EJ and I went out to put our poultry to bed, we discovered that our cat Tesla had died. I thought I had emotionally prepared myself for her death because she was very old and had become very frail and I knew that she probably wouldn’t last too much longer. However, I ended up crying a bit as EJ buried her on the slope of our hill.
A few evenings ago EJ and I were sitting on our porch when we saw a flock of about 200 Sandhill Cranes flying high overhead. They are getting ready to go visit my friend in Texas. We share custody. I get to enjoy them in the summer and she gets them in the winter.
Yesterday EJ’s sister and her husband came to visit. We all went to lunch together, which was really nice. They also brought us squash that they had grown and tomatoes that his sis had canned and some seeds from their hollyhocks. I’m excited about planting them next Spring. Our old house was very shady so I could mostly just grow shade-loving plants. I think it was thoughtful for them to bring us the products of their garden. Last year we moved to Northern Michigan and this summer we spent the first part of the summer preparing our old house to sell so we haven’t yet had time to put in a garden. Hopefully next year we can get a garden in. My sis-in-law has offered to teach me to can because I don’t know how. I freeze a lot of our veggies but would love to can tomatoes. In exchange, I could teach her to crochet. 🙂
EJ’s Sis and hubby also brought us Esther, their pet duck. They were sad to part with her, but they felt she would do better with us and our other ducks. Esther was injured last year so she walks with a limp, but she manages ok. She is still adjusting to her new surroundings but the other ducks seem to be accepting her–and Cuddles is overjoyed to have more females.
Michigan has enjoyed a historically abundant harvest of apples this year and we wanted to have apples to celebrate Rosh Hoshana so we drove to a local farm market this morning. The drive was beautiful–well, it’s always beautiful, but it’s looking and feeling very autumnish now. The trees are still mostly green, but every day there are more splashes of color. The temperatures are warmish and coolish at the same time. I alternate between t-shirts and sweatshirts. The morning was rainy/drizzly with heavy clouds hanging very low. We saw mist rising in pillars from the forests. One actually looked rather like a water spout, but I don’t think it was. I tried to get pictures, but whenever we had a clear view we were in areas where we couldn’t stop for a photo and when we were in places where we could pull over the view wasn’t good. Here is the one almost decent photo I got. See the rising mist?
There are orchards and vineyards all over Northern Michigan–and farm markets. The one we went to this morning is not very far from us. I loved it. They had lots of varieties of pumpkins and squashes piled up and the vivid colors and textures were really beautiful. The trees of the orchard were heavy with apples. We could have picked our own apples, but we chose to buy them because we had other errands and stops and chores to do. I like sweet apples and EJ likes tart ones so we chose a half bushel of Gala apples for me and a half bushel of Cortland apples for him. Tomorrow I’m going to make apple cinnamon challah bread and later in the week I want to make lots of apple pies to freeze. I wasn’t going to make any dessert for my birthday, which is quickly approaching, but with all these apples I think I will make a Dutch Pennsylvania Cake, which is one of our favorites.
When we got home, EJ finished fixing the leak in the master bathroom while I made homemade bread. He also worked periodically on the shelves in the library. During one of his trips to the garage, he found a hen had escaped into the main part of the garage. He had to chase her down and put her back in the pen. So the chickens can’t escape again, he finished putting snow fence over the top of the cage containing the coops in the garage. While he was working on fastening the snow fence, I could hear the loud upset complaints of the chickens. Every little change in their environment upsets them.
The Leland Blues
Today EJ and I went adventuring.
We wanted to go rockhounding at least one more time. We always look for Petoskey stones, but we also wanted to see if we could find some Leland Blues, which are found near Leland. And, of course, we always collect interesting rocks. We have always collected rocks but don’t know much about identifying them. We’d like to learn…and also start polishing the rocks we find.
We headed up M-22 toward the town of Leland. M-22 is considered one of the most beautiful drives in Michigan, especially in the autumn when the colors are at their peak. Even though the trees are just beginning to get a little color, the drive is still very beautiful with many awesome views of Grand Traverse Bay and Lake Michigan.
We had almost reached the town when we stopped at a local grocery store so I could use their restroom. When we went into the store, the cashier asked if he could help us, and EJ said we were looking for snacks and a restroom–but we noticed a sign that said they didn’t have a public restroom. The cashier (I wonder if he was a manager) said that normally he is very strict about not letting anyone use their restroom–the last time he let someone use it, his phone was stolen–but he would let me use it. He guided me through the back room, which led past offices and through the kitchen/food preparation area to the bathroom. I was really amazed that he let me back there. People are so nice up here. After I used the restroom, we bought picnic foods: whitefish pate, crackers, apple cider, and a couple other things.
Once we reached Leland, we stopped in at Fishtown, which is the town’s historical district and features rustic shanties and docks reminiscent of life and commercial fishing one hundred years ago. There were a lot of cute little shops there. We walked through it but then continued on our way–because our main goal was to go rockhounding.
We never did find a good place to go rockhounding in Leland. I’m sure there is a good place, but we just didn’t find it. So we decided to drive up to Grand Traverse Lighthouse, which is in Leelanau State Park at the tip of the Leelanau Peninsula. We had visited this lighthouse in the winter but this time the lighthouse was open so we could go through it. The living quarters were awesome–I could so totally have been a lighthouse keeper! And we climbed up and up and up on smaller and smaller stairs until we reach the very top of the lighthouse. The last segment of steps were so steep that we had to come down backwards–like coming down a ladder. On our way down, I missed the last step and almost fell…but didn’t.
After we toured the lighthouse, we walked down to the beach to look for rocks. We found several interesting rocks, but no Petoskey stones or Leland Blues. Another couple was also rockhounding and they asked us what we were looking for and what we had found. I showed them my treasures and they told us that a really good place to look for rocks was at Betsy Pt., which was only about an hour down the road. Since we’ve wanted to visit the lighthouse there, we decided that that would be our next stop.
We ate our picnic in the Suburban and then we continued down M-22 along the coast of Lake Michigan. We finally reached Pt. Betsy. We walked up to the lighthouse but decided not to tour it because EJ’s knees were hurting from climbing the Grand Traverse Lighthouse.
We walked down to the beach. We had an awesome view of the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes in the distance. (We could see it clearly, but it didn’t really show up well in the pictures.) We walked along the beach for two hours, first in one direction and then the other. The day was beautiful and it was very peaceful. We decided we would return here again to look for rocks. Although we have seen pictures of Leland Blues, we realized that we were sure exactly what they looked like among all the other rocks on the beach.
There were maybe a dozen other people on the beach, all of them looking for rocks like us. We encountered a couple who asked what we were looking for and what we had found. That seems to be the questions asked when meeting fellow rock hounds. I showed them a couple of rocks that I think are honeycomb coral fossils (?). The woman said she had found a couple of Leland Blues and she tried to find them in her rock back to show us what they look like, but she wasn’t able to find them among all the other rocks she had collected. Oh well.
I also filled a disposable cup with sand from the beach to send to my friend in Texas. I’m trying to get her sand from different locations in Northern Michigan.
We had a really great day together.
Poultry in Motion
You know, in many ways my life is very unexciting. I mean, I’m not off traveling the world or climbing mountains or parachuting out of planes. But in other ways, there’s never a dull moment!
I declared to myself that except for getting two geese, I was done adding to my flock. But then I shared my video at FB of the ducks all swimming in their pool and EJ’s sister commented that she and her husband have a female duck that they’d like to get rid of. She was injured last year and walks with a limp. Her name is Esther. I asked EJ if he’d like the duck (I knew he’d say yes but I thought it was polite to ask first) and then I told my sister-in-law that we’d take Esther. Later EJ and I stood outside the pen admiring our new ducks. Cuddles came up to us and I told him, “Cuddles, we are getting you one more female!” As if he knew exactly what we were saying, he got this incredibly joyful “Wow!” look on his face–like a child opening Christmas presents–and he quacked happily. We laughed. EJ said he never would have believed Cuddles’ reaction if he hadn’t seen it himself.
JJ told me that we need more chickens because one of his friends told him that roosters won’t be happy unless they have about six hens each. We have three roosters. That would be 18 hens! I’m not sure we are going to get additional hens although I also don’t want to be traumatized by rooster battles. I came across a meme a while back that said something like “first you get four chickens, and then ten, and the next thing you know, you have 50.” That’s pretty much true about chickens AND ducks….and cats. This is how we end up with so many animals.
This morning I opened the garage door to let the chickens and ducks out to enjoy the beautiful day. Later I went to check on everyone and found most of the hens on the roof of their coop, one hen was on the coop roof on the ducks’ side of the pen, and one chicken was on top of the dog cage itself. The coop is in the dog cage in the garage and keeps the poultry in “their” section separate from the rest of the garage. I have fencing stretched across the top of the coop roof dividing the chickens and the ducks, but because I have to be able to shut the garage door at night, it doesn’t go all the way across the pen and the chickens have figured out how to get to the other side. I used my “rooster whacker” cane to nudge everyone to their proper side. Later I went out to the garage and found three hens on the coop roof on the ducks’ side and one sitting on a cabinet on the other side of the dog cage in the main part of the garage. So I found a piece of fencing and tried to construct a dividing fence that they couldn’t get over. Maybe. Hopefully.
Cuddles and Peeper love to free-range and they were waiting at the gate for me to let them out. I hate to keep them in their pen all day but I’m apprehensive about letting the new ducks out because I’m not sure they recognize their new pen as “home” yet. However, they were following Cuddles and Peeper around and I know the older ducks recognize “home” so I let them all outside. After they happily waddled off, I grabbed some laundry to hang on the clothesline. The morning was autumn cool and beautiful and it really was pleasant listening to all the happy coos and clucks and quiet quacks of the chickens and ducks.
I let the ducks remain outside for several hours, but the new ducks often sit outside the pen and I don’t know if they know how to get back into their pen. So I decided to herd them back into their pen to give them a chance to learn their way into the pen and to associate their pen with “home.”
Only the new ducks are quite nervous and very wily. I would get them headed between the truck and the pen on the way to the doorway of the pen, but then they ducked under the truck and snuck out the other side and around to their beginning point. I tried to use my “rooster whacker” cane as a shepherd’s crook to guide them around the corner, but they would go the opposite way. Finally I used tires, an old wheelbarrow, and old fencing to make barriers to guide them into the pen, but they simply ducked under the truck rather than continue into the pen. It took me about an hour, but I finally got all the ducks in the pen and I closed the gate. Whew! I think I’ll keep them contained in the pen until I’m sure they know that this is their home. I hate to prevent Cuddles and Peeper from free-ranging, but…I’m considering trying to steer the young ducks into the outside chicken pen so that they are contained and so Cuddles and Peeper can go free. But not today. I’ve had enough trouble for one day trying to get various birds where they are supposed to be!
