I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
Ups and Downs
September has felt very autumnish with cooler temperatures during both the day and the night. Even on days that reach 80 degrees, the mornings start out cool so a jacket feels comfortable. I dress in layers so I can shed jackets or sweatshirts over the course of the day. At this time of year, however, 80 degrees doesn’t feel as hot as in the summer months.
EJ’s spirits had been good mostly. Luke, his physical therapist, gave him a few exercises to help with his balance but after two sessions, he said he wouldn’t need to return. So he took EJ to the next room to sign up for the gym membership at the hospital. The benefits of exercising at the hospital gym are that they customize the exercises for EJ and monitor his health as he exercises AND if there is a problem, he’s already at the hospital. I’m continuing to look for and experiment with new recipes. Two of them we really liked. One–a butternut squash soup–we gave a thumbs down to. It was too sweet and not filling enough.
EJ got a little discouraged yesterday. He has to take his blood pressure several times a day to try to get it in the “normal” range. Yesterday his blood pressure was very high and he ended up coming home from work after a few hours because he didn’t feel well. Today his blood pressure is good and he’s feeling much better. Because his blood pressure is up and down, he can’t always manage to work a full day yet. I think he’s worked about four full days so far. EJ’s sister said that her husband was extremely tired for a month after his stroke a few years ago.
I’ve peeled and froze three-fourths of a bushel of apples so far. I listen to an audiobook while I work so it’s quite enjoyable to sit at the kitchen table working as Hannah Joy sits underneath and gobbles up any peels that fall to the floor. I still have to do some pears that our friend gave us, but I’m not sure what to do with them yet. I’ve never dealt with pears before. I’ve also seeded a few more heads of sunflowers. Today I’m thinking about cutting up bell peppers from our garden to freeze and also making butter.
Our one hen is still sitting on eggs in her nesting box. Our nesting boxes are actually kitty litter boxes filled with straw. They are the hens’ favorite places to lay their eggs. The boxes are on top of one of the sturdy wooden doghouses that are inside the 12×10 shed that is THE COOP. Chickens like to roost and nest on the roofs of the little houses inside THE COOP. EJ was concerned that if chicks hatched, they’d fall off the doghouse. I was concerned that the hen wasn’t leaving the nest to eat and drink. So yesterday evening, when the chickens were beginning to drowsily settle down for the night, I put a jacket over the hen’s nesting box so she wouldn’t peck me and moved the box with her inside into the other doghouse. It’s the same doghouse I called “hospice” when I put White Feather in so she could die in peace. Now I am calling it “the Maternity Ward.” I put food and water inside for the hen and shut the door. If she is broody and we do get chicks, they will be safe until they are old enough to join the adults.
Our son is heading back to work on his Great Lakes bulk carrier. I’ve been learning a lot about bulk carriers–both from his stories and from videos I’ve found on YouTube (I’ve shared several of the links on my Everything Links page.) I’ve always enjoyed learning about various jobs–they are always more complicated and interesting than you might think. I’m also learning about trains, airplanes, and other things but I now have a personal interest in ships. I’ve learned about what the ships look like inside, what different crew members do, how ships are loaded and unloaded, how holds are cleaned, what crew quarters look like, and about the foods that cooks serve crew members. Our son tells us the more personal stories of life aboard ship.
Our son has said that cooks are rotated between ships. Some cooks are bad, some are good. The cook last month didn’t go out of his way to cook good meals or accommodate the crew. He had set an hour time frame for meals and if someone didn’t make it in time, too bad, he had to scrounge. Our son said that the cook on one ship he was on served macaroni and cheese for every meal for several weeks and the crew members got bound up and couldn’t poop. However, one cook was once a strong contender on the cooking show “Iron Chef.” He went out of his way to provide very delicious meals for the crew. I believe our son said the Iron Chef cook is scheduled to be the cook on his ship this month.
Our son said that at some ports, it’s possible for family members to come aboard his ship, get a tour, and eat with the crew. That sounded awesome! I’d love to do it! Except there is no elevator or helicopter to get us aboard. Instead, we’d have to climb up a long ladder on the side of the ship. I thought our son said it was an 80-foot climb; EJ thought he said it was less. But regardless, it was a long high climb and we declared “Thanks, but no thanks.” I’m sure neither EJ or I could handle the height or have the strength and energy to handle the tiring climb. Maybe if we were younger. Sadly, we have to pass.
We have a rule in our home that we can’t get to work until the coffee pot is empty. I’ve just emptied it so I guess it’s time to get to work.
Broody?
Things seem to be calming down a bit as EJ and I adjust to life after his mini-stroke. He still gets easily tired, but I assume it will take time to get more or less back to normal. He has worked a couple full days.
Once EJ is through with his physical therapy, he hopes to join a gym. There is one located at the hospital where staff monitor participants’ health as they exercise. Memberships are inexpensive and the benefit is that if something goes wrong, a person is already at the hospital.
We’ve eaten basically healthy, but we need to make changes. We are going to follow the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) Diet. I’ve been searching the Internet for recipes and many of them look very delicious. I’ve begun printing some of the recipes out and organizing them in a binder.
I’ve been keeping busy harvesting produce from our gardens. I’ve been cutting up apples from our fruit trees to freeze, cutting up and freezing or drying vegetables from EJ’s garden, and drying and grinding herbs from my garden. I’ve also been deseeding sunflowers. It’s a never-ending task because as soon as I get one batch of whatever I’m working on completed, more of them have ripened. This is a good problem to have, however.
Yesterday I heard Sassy, our alpha rooster, sounding his Defcon 1 alarm so I went out to make sure the chickens were ok. He was the only one standing outside ready to defend his flock. All the other chickens were hiding out in the coop where, no doubt, Sassy had sent them for safety. I looked around but didn’t see any threats, although Sassy obviously was aware of a threat. It took him a long time to calm down. I wondered if he had seen a coyote or fox nearby.
Chickens are actually very interesting critters. I’ve read that chickens can recognize 100 different people, they have around 25 different “words,” and they adopt their humans into their flock. When a rooster is mean it’s because he believes he outranks the humans. I’ve always nipped in the bud any show of aggressiveness so my chickens settle down, understanding their place and that I am the boss. Roosters keep watch over the flock and protect it with their lives. When I’ve handed Sassy a treat, I’ve seen him take it, drop it on the ground, and call the hens over to eat it. He’s a real gentleman.
In the seven years I’ve had chickens, I’ve only had one broody hen–several years ago. We didn’t want chicks then, so I kept taking the hen away from her nest until she got over it. I suspect I’ve got another broody hen. My chickens are all mild-mannered, but this hen is staying in her nesting box and is in a foul mood (haha, pun intended). Whenever I try to reach into her box, she puffs herself up and then pecks at me. Hard. She acts like a woman with PMS. LOL. If she is actually broody, we will let her hatch her eggs even though it seems like the wrong time of the year for chicks. I took a photo of her today (below) and also this video. I shone a flashlight so you could see her better because even though it’s not dark inside the coop, it is a bit dim for videos. You can see her glare at me, puff up, and peck.
Returning
I think that almost the most difficult part of a difficult time is trying to return to everyday life. During the crisis, a person (or family) is in survival mode. He runs on high alert and finds the energy to do what needs to be done at the moment. After the crisis is over, energy levels crash. It’s like borrowing energy with a credit card.
I found that true when my son had cancer in 2013-2014. We dredged up energy to help him battle cancer. We had the energy to take him to his medical appointments, chemotherapy, and surgery. However, when the treatments were finished, we crashed for about a year, having no energy for anything. Then we dredged up energy to move north, and when we were finished moving, we crashed again. After that, I’ve found that we crash more easily after crises. We’ve been so tired since EJ’s return home from the hospital that we’ve been going to bed by 8 p.m.
Not every form of tiredness is physical. Sometimes it’s also mental and emotional.
Since EJ’s return home from the hospital, we’ve had to process his mini-stroke and its effect on our lives. I think both of us feel EJ–and our life–is more vulnerable. What can he do or not do? What can he eat or not eat? Will this happen again? Will it be worse? When our son had cancer, it really hit us that bad things can shake our world. A few years ago, I began calling these world-shaking crises “life-quakes” because, like earthquakes, they shake and shape the landscape of our lives.
EJ returned to work on Friday. He said everyone warmly welcomed him back. He managed to work 7 hours of his 10-hour shift and then came home. Saturday was his normal day off. He’s back to work today. We shall see how long he lasts today. I’m assuming that his energy levels will gradually increase.
I fell behind and have been trying to catch up on all the work that didn’t get done while in crisis mode. Life continues whether we are here or not. I’ve been doing a few loads of laundry. I’ve been putting them in the dryer instead of the clothesline because it’s less work. The grass was long from days of rain; I mowed it. The day I mowed was nicely cool so I didn’t feel overheated by the task. I raked in the gullies that had formed in our driveway by heavy rain. EJ and I picked some tomatoes and I blanched, peeled, cut up, and froze them. We picked ripe peppers and I cut them up. I freeze bell peppers and dehydrate and grind hot peppers. I picked some herbs and dried them. They need to be ground up. I cut off the heads of some sunflowers, removed the seeds, and stored them to give to the wild birds this winter. Already more tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and sunflowers are ripening and need to be harvested and processed again.
We have six apple trees which EJ and I have planted over the years since moving here. We planted several different varieties. EJ keeps track of when each variety is ready to be harvested because they get ripe at slightly different times–some earlier and some later. The gala apples, my favorite, were ready to be harvested this weekend. We got a half-bushel basket full. Our friend visited yesterday and brought us half-bushels of apples and pears. I need to cut them up. I’m contemplating what we should do with them after that: freeze them? can them? make them into applesauce? make them into apple and/or pear butter? Definitely keep some for eating fresh. I love cutting up apples, melting peanut butter, and dipping the apples in the melted peanut butter.
That’s Little Bear photo-bombing. LOL.
I’m trying to decide which task to do first today. I think I will harvest some herbs because it’s best to do it in the mornings. Then I will process them. Next, grind the already-dried herbs. Then blanch, dice, and cut up the tomatoes I picked yesterday evening. If I have time/energy, I will start on the apples or pears.
Message Received
When I got home from the hospital last Thursday evening, I got on Google Maps to consider my route to the hospital the next day. I told Google Maps my origin and destination and then moved its highlighted route to change to the street I wanted to take. Then I examined the readjusted route and noted various streets that I could take if I missed the marked route. The next morning, I told VIKI, our GPS, my destination, diverted to the street I wanted to take, and she actually easily got me to the hospital without me getting lost.
`When I reached EJ’s hospital room, he was already dressed in his going-home clothes because they had cleared him for discharge. However, we had a 3 1/2 hour wait for the discharge papers with instructions to be sent up to his room. I don’t know why everything takes so long to get done in hospitals. Fortunately, our son had messaged me before I left home that his ship would reach the Soo Locks at Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, at around 9 a.m. that morning. Some people enjoy ship-watching (including us) and they can do so on several Youtube channels that livestream ships going through various canals, rivers, and ports. When I got to EJ’s hospital room, I quickly got the appropriate Youtube channel up on my phone and we watched our son’s ship go through the Soo Locks while we waited for EJ’s discharge papers. The next day–Saturday–we watched our son’s ship as it headed into Duluth. There are many webcams along the shore in Duluth so we were able follow his ship’s progress in real time as it entered the canal and traveled to the dock where it began to unload. We saw deckhands working on the ship, but they were far enough away that we weren’t quite sure which was our son. However, he was disembarking in Duluth so we knew the guy getting into the taxi was him. The livestreams don’t save the footage but later our son sent us a video someone had taken of his ship as it went through the canal. I paused the video and took a screenshot of our son, which I marked below. I verified with him that, yes, this was him. That was cool.
When EJ’s discharge papers finally arrived, a nurse reviewed the information with us. EJ’s stroke was very minor and it didn’t seem to affect him very seriously, although it really scared us. He was told that he could drive and return to work with no restrictions as soon as he felt up to it. He decided to wait until after his physical therapy session and a follow-up appointment with his doctor, both of which were today. They agreed with what the staff at the hospital had said. EJ is scheduled for more physical therapy sessions for the next month just to make sure he’s doing ok and to make adjustments to his life. He plans to return to work on Friday.
As I wrote in my last blog post, “Being lost to me feels like standing at one of those ‘You are here’ kiosks. But it’s as if the whole area is erased and the only clear place is where I am at currently. The streets are all unfamiliar, I don’t know how or where they connect, and I don’t know exactly where I am or how to get where I want to be. It’s sort of like this:
Over the last week, I’ve pondered that during times of crisis, the feeling of lostness seems to increase in severity and size and engulf other areas of my life. In fact, the feeling of lostness seems to be very tied to anxiety and panic attacks, all of which are symptoms of PTSD. It’s not just soldiers who suffer from PTSD. Anyone who suffers a trauma, including abuse, accidents, etc., can suffer from PTSD. Our nephew, who is a veteran, once told us that “PTSD is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.” I think my PTSD is caused by the emotional abuse by our families, our son’s battle with cancer in 2013-2014, and other difficult experiences in our lives.
Helena Knowlton wrote an excellent article on her website called, How Trauma Affects our Brain, Body, Feelings, Thoughts, and Healing. In the article, she explained that
“God made our bodies to be amazing. He created automatic body systems to help us in emergencies. If you step off a curb and almost get hit by a car, the alarm bells ring in your brain, sending a message to your nervous system to go on high alert, and then lots of things happen in your body to give you speed, strength, and focus to get yourself out of danger….This system was designed to calm down as soon as the danger is over. During abuse, the alarm bells are ringing constantly and this causes dysregulation. The calming, regulating part of our nervous system takes a back seat to our survival system, and our body gets stuck on high alert. This changes our brain and physiology and causes the symptoms of chronic, complex PTSD. Trauma isn’t just about what happened in the past. It doesn’t end when we leave the abuse. It’s the imprint that the abuse left on your brain and body.” After living with abuse, we experience the world with a changed nervous system. It takes much longer to return to baseline, it spikes quickly, and stress becomes harder and harder to handle. “It’s like our nervous system becomes a TSA agent and every circumstance or person is a potential terrorist. And when we are accused or rejected by friends, family and the church, this ingrains threat even more deeply.”
A few of the many symptoms of unresolved trauma that Knowlton lists are:
~ Anxiety, a chronic sense of panic
~ Feeling like your nervous system is on high alert
~ Feeling overwhelmed by life
~ Feeling unsafe even after you are out of the abuse
~ Having a hard time thinking, concentrating, making decisions
~ Trouble sleeping
~ Being exhausted
~ Feeling lost…
Knowlton continues “These symptoms aren’t originating in your mind or your feelings or your choices.
They don’t come from a character flaw or moral failing. They aren’t from sin! [Or lack of faith.] They originate in your body and your brain that’s been dysregulated by the trauma of abuse.
Last night I had trouble sleeping because I was worried about EJ. The possibility of losing him, the ordeal of getting to the hospital, the stress of hospitals and medical procedures, the exhaustion we felt trying to handle everything when we got home, etc., has caused panic attacks for the last week. Also, I’m anxious about hospital bills. So I fervently asked God for help. I reminded Him that He promised to supply our needs, He promised to do more than we can ask, think, or imagine, and He promised that He will be “a very present help in the time of trouble.” I told Him that I needed Him to reassure me that He will keep His promises and be very present NOW to help us.
And then…
Wait. First, let me give some background.
I love quotes and I have another blog that’s a database full of quotes I like. I can schedule quotes ahead of time so I save quotes that I come across as I browse the internet in a file and once a week or so I sit down and schedule 2-3 weeks of quotes at a time so that one is posted each day. They also are posted each day on this blog (in the menu on the right side of the screen). Today’s quote, which I randomly scheduled several weeks ago, “just happened” to be a direct answer to my nighttime prayer that God would reassure me that He would keep His promises and help us:
God can be trusted to keep His promises.
It can’t get much clearer than that.
When It Rains, It Pours
There is a saying that goes “When it rains, it pours,” and that has been true for us both literally and figuratively this week.
At 6:30 a.m. yesterday, EJ messaged me that he had felt very dizzy at work so the wife of the owner of his company was driving him to the hospital. She is a retired nurse who now works at the company. Since we only have one vehicle, which was still at work, I didn’t have a way to get to the hospital. Our nearest friend lives two hours away, which wasn’t helpful in this situation. The wife asked her husband if someone from the company could take me to the hospital, but with her and EJ gone they couldn’t spare anyone. So instead she arranged for her mother to take me, which was unbelievably gracious. Actually, the mother dropped me off at the company and I drove our truck to the hospital. The wife stayed with EJ until I reached our truck which wasn’t all that far from the hospital.
Thank goodness for GPS because I have a horrendous sense of direction. I can get lost ANYWHERE. So the GPS got me to the hospital, which is actually a complex of several buildings, but there it ended. It didn’t show me where the entrance of the hospital was or how to traverse the halls of the hospital. I wasn’t sure where the front entrance was located. From the parking lot, I saw an entrance that didn’t look like the primary entrance. It had a sign that said “Patient Drop Off” so I thought it might lead to the ER room or something. I eventually learned that that was the correct door. I wondered how I’d ever find my way to EJ through the twists and turns of hospital corridors, but the person at the information desk helped me. Seriously, I need an app to help me find my way into and through buildings and not just near them.
I found my way to EJ in the Emergency Department. He told me that he had had a CT Scan, and the results were good, but since he was still very dizzy, they were going to admit him for more tests and observations. They suspected he had had a mini-stroke. We waited for several hours until they took us to his hospital room in the Heart Center of the hospital. It was actually a nice room with a beautiful view out the window of a huge castle-like building that had once been an asylum and was now a bunch of little shops. EJ’s room is on the upper floor of the hospital and as we look out the windows, we mostly see forest spread out beneath us. A person wouldn’t even really know that there was a city under the trees with busy streets lined with stores. Here’s a photo of the view out the window that I took yesterday.
In addition to anxiety about EJ, I had to drive home through pouring rain. All summer long we haven’t had all that much rain, but yesterday it rained all day–and not just a light rain, but a deluge. We’ve heard that some areas got 5 inches or more. There were flash flood warnings everywhere. Fun fact: Not only am I severely directionally challenged, but I don’t enjoy driving in a downpour where I can’t see far ahead. It’s especially difficult if I have to drive through a rainy night because lights reflect on the wet road. Furthermore, there was construction on my route home. EJ’s co-worker told him that one evening it took him four hours to drive home. So we thought it best for me to go home before rush hour traffic and before the roads flooded.
I didn’t have trouble with traffic jams but the drive home was hellish because the rain-laden clouds made the day gloomy and dark. There were periods of downpour which made the road difficult to see. Some roads were already beginning to flood with water creeping from the sides and splooshing as cars drove through. I was exhausted and stressed and I almost got in an accident. When I got home, my son called and I burst into tears. He would have come to help, but he’s out somewhere on the Great Lakes on a ship. He would have sent his girlfriend to help, but she has no transportation right now because the transmission in their car is ruined. My son is working on the ship to earn money to buy a new car.
Through the evening, there were occasional periods of booming thunder. I thought, “All I need to complete this day is for us to lose power.” Thankfully, we didn’t.
I chatted with EJ’s one nice sister after I got home and she said she’d asked her husband if they could drive over the next morning (a 2+ hour drive) to take me to the hospital because they have a very high truck that can easily get through flood waters. I felt relief at the thought of help. I didn’t find out until this morning that her husband said “no” because he didn’t want to leave their dog home alone all day. Our families are emotionally abusive and I’ve learned through the years that I can never count on them to help when we need them. Not ever. I can’t even count on the few (one) nice family to help. I muttered to myself “family totally sucks” as I burst into tears. I’m tired of always having to be strong without support.
Then I wiped away my tears, got into the truck, and made my way to the hospital. I got lost. The route home is very uncomplicated but the way the GPS wants to take me TO the hospital involves an intersection that is really quite tricky to navigate and people easily get sucked off in an unintended direction. I didn’t feel up to dealing with it. So after checking with Google Maps before I left home, I turned down a road that was easier and more familiar. That began a battle with the GPS, whom we call VIKI after the evil computer in the movie I, Robot. I was hoping that if I turned down the familiar road, VIKI would recalculate the route to the hospital. However, I suspected that VIKI kept trying to get me turned back toward the tricky intersection. So I kept half ignoring her and half following her instructions until I got thoroughly confused. At one point, I pulled to the side of a quiet street and called EJ. He didn’t answer because there were medical people in his room doing tests so I left a message, “I’m freaking LOST!” Being lost to me feels like standing at one of those “You are here” kiosks. But it’s as if the whole area is erased and the only clear place is where I am at currently. The streets are all unfamiliar, I don’t know how or where they connect, and I don’t know where I am or how to get where I want to be. I started driving again, and it turned out that I wasn’t far from the hospital. VIKI finally guided me in and I made it to EJ’s room.
While I was trying to drive to the hospital, EJ underwent a bunch of tests. We don’t know the results of many of the tests but we know that EJ had a mini-stroke and that there are signs that this isn’t his first. Periodically someone would come into the room to test EJ. One asked him a bunch of questions to test his memory. One took him on a walk down the hall to test his balance. He did very well on the memory test and has only a slight problem with his balance. He will be scheduled for physical therapy later at a closer easier-to-drive-to hospital. Everyone said that they’d approve EJ’s discharge. We had expected EJ to be discharged this morning, but we waited and waited and waited through the day and heard nothing. I asked a few nurses if they had any idea if/when he’d be discharged. They said they had no way of knowing. They said there is probably a wait for all the test results to get in. Also we’d have to wait for the doctor, who only seems to visit in the mornings. I didn’t know whether to stay or leave. We just knew that the moment I left EJ would be discharged. Finally, I left at 6 pm because I had to drive home before dark and I also had to get Hannah Joy cared for and shut the chickens safely in their coop before the night-time predators came out.
I hated leaving EJ behind and he is bummed that he wasn’t discharged today. I told him I’ll take him home the moment he is discharged.
We are both concerned about how we will pay medical bills. We are already stretched to the limit financially, pinching every penny. We don’t know when EJ can return to work, which means no income. I’ve saved as much as we can, but it’s not much. And we’ve got other concerns.
We’ve had a deluge of rain and also a deluge of trouble.
When it rains, it pours.
Days of Labor
Yesterday was Labor Day, which is a federal holiday in the USA to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the work and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United States. Many people celebrate with cookouts–a last hurrah before settling down to autumn and winter. We celebrated by laboring. As EJ often says, “We worked hard and got a lot done.”
Last Thursday EJ mowed the lawn while I blanched, diced, and froze a large bowl of garden tomatoes that he had harvested. Sometimes EJ likes to can them, but when he can’t get to them in a timely manner, I freeze them. In our family, we have a policy that whichever one of us has a desire to do something is the one in charge of doing it. He/she becomes the “job boss” while the other provides “hero support” if needed. So EJ cans while I freeze/dry herbs and vegetables. He bakes bread in the bread machine while I cook most of the meals. He takes care of the vegetable garden, while I take care of the herb garden. I do the housework while EJ does maintenance and repairs. Things like that. I usually mow the lawn but sometimes EJ does it.
After the tomatoes and lawn were done, we went grocery shopping. With prices so high, we have created a “priority list” for shopping. Gone are the days when we could make a large list for extensive shopping. We now determine how much money we can spend–sometimes little, sometimes a little more–and then we buy only the highest priority items that fit within our budget. Everything else is kept on the list for another time.
During the holiday weekend, in addition to my normal chores of laundry, cooking, and watering the garden, I peeled, cut up, blanched, and bagged carrots for the freezer. Hannah Joy took up her position under the table so she could eat any carrot peel or piece that fell to the floor. She’s our cleanup crew and she takes her responsibility seriously. I also went out and carefully picked a bowl of nettles–using tongs so I didn’t touch the prickly/burning stems–which I then put into the dehydrator and later ground up and stored to use later for tea. Nettle tea has a lot of medicinal uses. I also picked some of our sunflowers and we sat at the patio table on the deck and took the seeds from the heads. I sorted through them to select the best for next year’s planting and then stored the rest for the wild birds to eat this winter. We also had to pick out the worms. I am going to have to look up how to naturally prevent worms in sunflowers. We don’t use toxic herbicides on our plants.
We’ve had several weeks of very autumnish weather, with cooler days and nights. The days were so cool, especially in the mornings, that I often wore jackets. Even when the temps warmed up in the afternoon, there was an underlying coolness in the air that felt nice. The nights were so cool (low 40s) that I put a heavier blanket on the bed. This week, however, the temperatures soared into the low 90s during the day. It was so hot yesterday that when we went out to shut the chickens in their coop in the evening, we were horrified to see that the vegetable plants were wilted. We quickly watered them and they revived quite a bit. I watered them extensively this morning to help them make it through today’s hot temperatures. There is a possibility of rain in the forecast for the next few days so I won’t have to water the gardens. Unless, of course, the rain misses us, which it often does.
The weekend was so busy that today I am taking it easy. Mostly. Which is good because the temperature remained so warm last night (low 70s) that I didn’t sleep well. Fortunately and happily, the temperatures will begin cooling again tomorrow.
On Friday I emailed the rescue woman we are adopting two barn cats from because I hadn’t heard from her in a week or two. I know she is busy and has to rearrange her schedule to deliver the cats to us, but I just wanted to keep in touch and maybe get an estimated day for delivery. The woman has several “foster families” that take care of the many cats she has rescued and is trying to place in homes. She emailed me that a recent tornado had destroyed the home of one of the foster moms and she’s been busy trying to re-rescue the missing cats. She sent me photos of the destruction. Wow. I vaguely knew there had been severe weather downstate, but I hadn’t realized how damaging the storms were. One of the photos showed that the 70-year-old foster mom’s home–it looked like a trailer or modular home–was upside down on top of a car. My heart goes out to her and I am praying for her because I was told that she didn’t have house insurance. I reassured the rescue woman that we can wait patiently for our cats while she deals with this problem. (FYI: our cats aren’t among those that were living at this home.) I merely alerted the rescue woman that our driveway becomes impassable without 4-wheel drive when winter hits.
Our son is currently working on a Great Lakes bulk carrier as a deckhand. It’s hard and dangerous work but the pay is excellent so whenever he needs extra money, he signs on for a month or so. EJ and I enjoy tracking his ship via marinetraffic.com as it travels around the Great Lakes. There are also Youtube channels that air live stream webcams in various places to watch the ships as they pass. It’s quite fun. When we know our son’s ship is going to pass a webcam, we get on the appropriate channel and watch it go by in real-time. It’s possible we could actually see our son on the webcam, although so far I haven’t. I’ve also been learning different information about ships–what types of jobs the crew does, what they eat, what products the ships transport, how they load and unload ships, the history of the ships, the canals they travel through, and so on. A couple days ago, marinetraffic.com showed that our son’s ship was going to travel to the northeast part of Lake Ontario, which was very unusual–as in, we’ve never seen him travel to Lake Ontario before. Our son later told us that someone made a mistake and their destination was actually near Detroit. However, that “mistake” made me wonder how ships make it past Niagra Falls, which connects Lakes Erie and Ontario. I looked it up and learned about the Welland Canal and St. Lawrence Seaway, which is very interesting. I’ve always enjoyed learning about different types of jobs and I now have a personal interest in Great Lakes ships. I actually like learning new things about everything, which is why I’ve been compiling my page of Everything Links. Every time I learn new things, I add the links to the Everything Links.
Some Good In This World
As I wrote in my last post, Millie went missing and Theo seems lonely so we posted at the Michigan Barn/Working Cat Program that we are looking for two barn cats to adopt. Multiple people responded and for a short time, we thought we might end up with FOUR new cats.
We had originally decided to adopt from a cat rescue place south of Ann Arbor. That’s quite far from us, but the woman said she socializes the cats and she’d be willing to deliver them to us. However, we felt uncomfortable with the amount of information the application form she sent us asked for. (I suspect our response is due to our abuse history in which information was manipulated, twisted, and used against us.) So we said “No thanks” and messaged a local person trying to find homes for the feral cats her recently deceased Mom had cared for. Then the first person, the rescue woman, messaged us that the information on the application was actually intended for people adopting indoor pets. We only needed our name, address, phone number, and email. She told us that she had never adopted out barn cats before but she had two cats who really didn’t want to be pampered inside cats.
We didn’t want to tell either of these women that, “Oops! Sorry, we contacted you but we are canceling” so we were resigning ourselves to adopting four cats. But we ended up canceling the local woman because arranging a time and place to pick up the cats was not working out. So we are now back to two cats. Whew! What a relief! Our new cats are named Sammy and Prissy. I’m not yet sure when they will be delivered. The rescue woman is an ER nurse and has to arrange her schedule to make the trip.
At this time of year, I always take the old poopy bales of straw out of the coop and replace them with new bales of straw. Our coop is actually a 12 x 10 shed. Inside the shed is a “fancy coop” that we bought when we got our first chickens and two sturdy wooden dog houses that the previous owners of our house left behind. I put some of the bales on top of the fancy coop, dog houses, and ledges and the remainder of the bales I stack up. The straw bales provide insulation in the winter and the chickens like to roost on them at night. I draged the old poopy straw into EJ’s garden. He uses it as fertilizer, to cover the garden in the winter, and to hold moisture around his plants the next year.
Whenever we get new outside cats, we keep them secured for 2-3 weeks to teach them that this is now “home.” I plan to secure Sammy and Prissy in the fancy coop in The Coop. Not only will they learn that the coop is Home, but it gives the cats and the chickens time to get to know and accept each other. I raked out old straw and replaced it with some new straw. I had previously taken out the old screen at the bottom of the coop so I could reach the eggs the chickens were laying in the far back corner. I made a new screen “door” that I could open and close by cutting a cattle panel down to the right side and covering it with chicken wire. I made “hinges” by hammering in big staples. I often make doors and gates this way. The fancy coop is relatively large, but I needed a shallow litter box to fit under the second “story.” I wandered around in the garage and ended up finding the plastic tank of a vaporizer/humidifier whose motor had stopped working. I cut the top off and–voila!–I had a shallow litter box. Now all I have to do is wait for Sammy and Prissy to arrive.
The blue barrel EJ made me for the poultry feed was only half full so Wednesday we drove to the farm store and bought 5 more bags of feed. When we got home, we took the bags out to the coop. I poured the feed into the blue barrel. It holds a lot of feed! It took all 5 bags to fill the blue barrel to the top. We had also bought another bag of cracked corn for the chickens, which I stored in a metal container. Corn raises the body temperature of chickens as they digest it and helps them keep warm in the winter.
It’s difficult to capture the coziness of the coop in a photo. It’s far cozier than it appears. I especially enjoy the coop in the early mornings and evenings when the chickens are in their roosting places on the straw, drowsily chirping. It’s very peaceful.
EJ and I often repurpose items. The other day I finished reaching a book and got another from our home library. I noticed that the cover was ripped and it wouldn’t take much for the pages to fall out. So I constructed a sturdy cover by taking the cardboard back from a pad of paper, cutting it down to the right size, and using packing tape to fasten it behind the ripped cover. Now the book holds together and the pages won’t fall out.
In the Spring, we bought several little trees at a tree sale that our local Conservation District has each year. One of the workers suggested that to give the trees a good chance, we plant them in pots for the summer and transplant them in the ground in the late Summer or early Autumn. That sounded like a good idea so that is what we did. Our Sassafras trees didn’t make it, but the five Hazelnut trees, the two Mulberry trees, and the three elderberry bushes thrived. EJ planted them in the ground yesterday. Theo and I helped.
EJ’s chore boots finally fell apart so we went to the thrift store yesterday to see if we could find him some new ones. We love shopping at thrift shops because 1. We can find good items at low prices and 2. It feels like treasure hunting. We never know what we will find. EJ found several comfortable pairs of boots and shoes for $5 each. I looked for a new chore coat because mine is getting worn and ragged but I didn’t find any. However, I did find some washcloths, dishcloths, dish towels, and a beautiful comforter set for the guest room. I also found a pretty new sweatshirt, a nightgown, and seven more Louis L’Amour books. All this for around $50. In a retail store, these items would have cost several hundred dollars.
Off and on over the last year, our son has been working on a variety of Great Lakes boats. In the ocean, these vessels are called “ships” but on the Great Lakes they are called “boats.” I think it’s interesting learning about this line of work. The work is dirty and dangerous, but it pays well and he gets to travel around the beautiful Great Lakes. He can decide which ships he works on as well as when and how long he works on them. I enjoy following his boat’s progress on a marine tracking app. Yesterday our son messaged his dad that one of his boat’s engines had suffered catastrophic failure, which caused pieces of the huge pistons to fly around in the engine room. I thought his boat would be out of commission for a while, but I checked the tracker app and it’s already headed to its new destination.
I’ve spent this morning drinking coffee, writing, and checking up on the latest news. I keep close watch on what is happening in the world, but I don’t write about it here because this blog is one of the places where I relax and focus on good things. I think physical, spiritual, and emotional health is important to take care of. I once read that there is a Jewish belief that it’s a sin to focus only on the bad events in the world and not also on the good. I’m not Jewish, but I think that’s a true thought. It reminds me of what Samwise told Frodo in The Lord of the Rings:
Frodo : I can’t do this, Sam.
Sam : I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo : What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam : That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.
The rest of today I will be doing a bunch of small tasks–such as making more shower cleaner, baking soda, and butter…
A Friend For Theo
Our weather is feeling very autumn-ish. Although the daytime temperatures are mostly in the low 70s to mid-80s, there is an underlying coolness that signals that summer is nearing its end. Last night the temperature dipped down to 45 degrees for the first time. EJ says that on his way to/from work, he sees trees beginning to change colors. Autumn is one of my favorite seasons (along with Winter, Spring, and Summer) but it’s always a bit of a surprise when it comes. The change from Summer to Autumn feels sort of like jumping into a cold lake on a hot day. The first plunge is a shock, but once in, we adjust and enjoy it.
This morning we saw two deer eyeing the ripening apples on our trees. We have fences protecting the trees, but some branches are hanging over them. I hope we can get the ripe apples before the deer do.
After we moved into our house, EJ made a cat entrance into the pantry/storage room where the litter boxes are. A few months ago, Hannah Joy figured out how to get through the door to access the “goodies” the cats leave in the boxes (yuck) so EJ made the entrance even narrower. She somehow was still able to wiggle her way through. I’m not sure how she managed it. A few days ago EJ made the entrance even narrower. When he finished, he shut a cat in the pantry and watched to make sure he could get out through the cat entrance. He could. So far Hannah hasn’t gone through. Here’s hoping…
EJ finished my poultry feed barrel. It’s awesome. I poured 3+ bags of feed into it and it’s not even half full. With our next paycheck, I want to buy a few more bags to fill it all the way up.
Thursday EJ and I drove to the local Farmer’s Exchange to buy ten bales of straw for the coop. The straw has been harder to find this year and I was getting a bit concerned that we wouldn’t be able to find any. Our normal places are out of business, are sold out, or aren’t selling it to individuals anymore. The Farmer’s Exchange didn’t have many bales left, but we were able to get what we needed. It was a little more expensive than straw bales that we found advertised elsewhere, but we had to weigh the cost of the straw from a nearby location with the cost of gas/time from cheaper sources further away.
When we got home with our straw, EJ stacked the bales in the garage until we can move them to the coop. In the next day or two, I will drag out the old straw for EJ to use in the garden and move the new bales in. The straw bales insulate the coop to keep the chickens warm in the winter and the chickens like roosting on them at night.
A month or so ago, we lost our outside cat, Millie. Outside cats don’t live as long and she was getting old. Theo seems to really miss her. He’s been peering in the windows and meowing plaintively. So we decided to get two more outside cats to keep him company. We are pursuing getting the cats through the Michigan Barn/Working Cat Program, which finds homes for cats who prefer to live outside. We had gotten both Theo and Millie from them.
We almost went with a cat rescue place from downstate that contacted us from the program–they would have delivered the cats to us. However, the 3-page application form they wanted us to fill out asked for a lot of private information that we weren’t comfortable providing. I understand that they want to make sure the cats are going to good homes–and we want that too. We know there are awful people who don’t treat animals well. However, we don’t think it’s necessary to have to provide EJ’s place of employment, driver’s license number, number of years that we lived at our house, type of house we live in, whether we plan to move soon, the history of all the cats we’ve ever owned, and so on. I mean, why would they need to know his employer? Are they planning to call them up to ask if he would make a good “cat dad”? What possible reason do they need his driver’s license number? It’s not as if we are paying for the cat on an installment plan (there is no fee). Why do they need to know what type of house we live in? Why do they want to know who will be the primary caregiver of the cat, feeding and playing with it? We very much love our cats and provide them a good home, but we are adopting a cat, not a child. We told the rescue place “Thanks but no thanks.”
EJ and I are private people and we don’t feel comfortable with any business/person wanting too much private information. A few weeks ago EJ contacted a website that was buying used cars so we could maybe sell our Xterra, which needs more work than we want to pay for. They wanted a photo of the front and backs of his driver’s license and title and a bunch of other intrusive information. He felt it was a possible scam so he backed out. “Thanks, but no thanks.” We are willing to provide necessary information, but some information is “none of your business” for the transaction we are considering.
We are continuing our efforts to find a friend for Theo. We are contacting the next person on our list of possibilities as Plan B. Plan C is to contact our local animal shelter. We’ve gotten animals from them before (including Hannah) and they are really good. We just want to make sure we get a cat that prefers to be outside.
Dam It!
EJ and I are always tweaking things. We do something, observe it, and then either continue it, stop it, or make adjustments.
Last year at about this time, EJ made a couple new birdhouses to add to the three we already had. We then used each post that the birdhouses were fastened to for one of the three posts that hold up deer-proof fencing around our apple trees. The birdhouse posts are wooden and the other two posts around each apple tree are t-posts. Last Spring, I eagerly watched to see how many birdhouses were occupied by birds. I think bluebirds moved into two, but they seemed to fight each other and other birds for territory so I thought, “Hmmm. I need to move the birdhouses further apart.” I had to wait until this time of year when the birds had raised their families and their houses were empty.
In order to get maximum enjoyment out of birdhouses, they have to be placed where we can actually see them. For days as I sat in my place on the couch, I looked out the window and considered where to put the birdhouses so I could see them but the birds wouldn’t fight over territory. I finally developed a plan.
Moving the birdhouses was hard work. We use t-posts for many purposes. They hold up fencing in the garden for vegetables to climb up, they enclose fruit trees to protect from the deer, and they line our driveway to mark it so we don’t drive off it in winter deep snow. You wouldn’t think we would lose our driveway in the winter, but it can happen. I had to scrounge up t-posts and removed some from fruit trees that had died. Digging up t-posts is hard work because the posts are driven deep into the ground. I use a shovel to clear away some of the dirt at the post, then wiggle the post back and forth to loosen it, and then slowly pull up the post with all my strength. Once I had the t-posts I needed, I pulled up the wooden posts. Then I replace the wooden posts with the t-posts. I drove the t-posts into the ground with the post driver, which is very heavy. I put the driver on the end of the t-post and rammed it up and down, up and down to drive the post into the ground. Once the t-posts were in, I wrapped the fencing around the posts surrounding each apple tree so the trees were once again protected from deer.
After I finished installing the t-posts around the apple trees, I carried the wooden posts to the places I wanted them. When I thought I had a good place, I temporarily drove the post-hole digger (a different tool) into the ground, then walked back to the house and sat in my place on the couch to see if I could see the birdhouses through the window. I had to make adjustments and walk back and forth several times to find the perfect locations. Then I used the post-hole digger to dig a hole a foot deep. It’s not easy because our soil is sand and sometimes the sand runs out of the post-hold digger like sand through an hourglass. But when I had the hole deep enough, I lifted the post, settled it into the hole, and packed the dirt around it. I used a level to make sure the post was straight.
If you are unfamiliar with what t-post drivers and post-hole diggers look like and how to use them, here are some quick videos: t-post driver and post-hole digger. They are handy tools. In looking up these videos, I discovered that a t-post driver can also be used to remove t-posts. I’m not sure I have the necessary strength to use this method, but it’s worth a try.
When I had gotten all the posts in place, I put away my tools and went into the house and settled into my place on the couch. I can see all three birdhouses. One remains up close among the apple trees. The other two are across the driveway. One of those can be seen to the left of the apple trees and one can be seen in a gap between two apple trees. They are rather far away, but I can see them clearly with binoculars. I placed a fourth birdhouse at the edge of the forest on the other side of the property. I have to walk to the window to see it but it’s close to the house so I don’t have to use binoculars. The fifth birdhouse is just outside EJ’s vegetable garden. Hopefully, the birdhouses are far enough apart that the birds won’t fight. I’ll have to wait until next Spring to find out.
We bought four bags of poultry feed last Friday. I was able to get a bag of feed in the metal trash can that we are using for a feed bin, but I was concerned that mice would get into the other three bags. EJ and I sat and considered our options. We can’t afford to buy a mouse-proof large feed bin (aka “metal trash can”). EJ checked online to see if he could find used ones for not much money. He did find someone selling them locally, but then he remembered that we already have some large plastic drums–the size of burning barrels. He cut the top off one and has been making a wooden lid for it. It looks great, and I can’t wait until it’s finished.
When we first moved into our house eight years ago, our driveway was a mess. Erosion had created deep and wide trenches along and across the steep driveway. I think that’s why our house didn’t cost more than it did and wasn’t snatched up by others. No one wanted to deal with the driveway. We spent our first summer shoveling (literal) tons of gravel and stone into the trenches. Thankfully, besides delivering gravel and stones, the “gravel guy” gave us advice on how to fix the erosion. I spent several years building a series of rock dams across the filled-in trenches along the driveway to slow down the rush of rainwater that would wash the soil away. After a couple years, plants began to take root which also helped slow the rush of water and hold the soil in place. Problem solved.
At least the problem was solved for several years. Although my dams slowed the run of water, the sand gradually began to bury some of the dams so that the water is not slowed by them but rushes over them. We have no problem with erosion in areas where the plants are thick, but it is occurring where the plants are few. So once again, I am building some dams. Mostly I am digging out buried rocks and rebuilding the dams, but we also have a pile of potato stones (rocks the size of potatoes) that I’ve been using. It’s going to take me several days to re-dam the driveway, but I will dam it.
Monsieur Mouse
Three or four times lately, I’ve heard an odd sort of thumping in the house. I didn’t know what it was, until finally…Wait. First, let me tell you that our house has an unheated hallway connecting the house and the garage. At one end of the hallway is the door into the garage and at the other end is the door into the kitchen. In the middle of the hallway is the door leading into the pantry. The pantry is a large unheated room with very sturdy shelves which the previous owner used to store the jeep parts that he sold. We call the room “the pantry,” but it is actually large enough that it is storage for many things other than food, Our house would be too small if it weren’t for this room to store extra items in. When we first moved to this house, we put the kitty litter box in the pantry–a perfect place away from the rest of the house. EJ made a little cat door so the cats could access it but not the dog, who likes to eat what the cats leave behind. (Yuck.) A couple days ago, I couldn’t find Hannah Joy. Usually, if I don’t see her, she’s doing something she shouldn’t and it was true this time. I discovered that the thumping I had heard had been her wiggling her way into the pantry through the cat entrance where she then ate, uh, what the cats left behind. EJ made the entrance a little narrower–hopefully small enough that Hannah can’t get through. So far, so good.
Friday morning I groggily stumbled into the coop to let the chickens out and feed them. When I opened their feed bin, a little mouse jumped at me. I didn’t know how it got in there since I keep the food secure in a plastic trash can, which I call a “feed bin” because it’s shorter and sounds better than “poultry feed trash can.” Theo had followed me into the garden so I picked him up and showed him the mouse, hoping he’d kill it so I could scoop it out. But although Theo has no problem killing rodents, he didn’t want to go into the bin. So I finally put an empty kitty litter bucket in the bin (we use kitty litter buckets for many different things) and when the mouse finally ran into it, I pulled it out. The bucket was large and smooth enough that the mouse couldn’t leap out. I put the bucket outside and when the chickens gathered around it, I kicked the bucket over, hoping they’d kill it for me. Chickens WILL kill mice and things. Mice are cute, especially in cartoons, but they are vermin. I don’t want to be overrun with mice or have them in the feed bin. The mouse was quick and escaped under the coop. I don’t know if the chickens even saw it. Sigh. I should have taken the mouse far from the coop.
I found the mouse in the feed bin again this morning. It was hiding in the empty plastic coffee container that I use as a scoop and when I dumped out the feed for the chickens, it was also dumped out all covered with feed. I carefully checked the bin and found a tiny hole cleverly hidden up near the handle. I wouldn’t have thought a mouse could chew a hole through the heavy plastic bin, but apparently they can. I found a metal trash can in the garage and took it to the coop. Since it’s galvanized, I didn’t pour the feed directly into it, but I scooped the feed from the plastic bin into a bag, put the bag in the metal trash can, and securely fastened the lid. The metal trash can is now “the bin.”
I was going to take the plastic trash can/bin into the garage, but then I thought, “Ah ha!” There is a hole in the trash can, and there is feed residue inside. If the mouse, thinking there is still food inside, goes in through the hole and falls in he won’t be able to get out. The trash can, which became a feed bin, is now a mouse trap. “I’ve got you now, Monsieur Mouse,” I thought. I hope I’m more clever than it is.
White Feather, the hen, died Friday. I was surprised that she lived as long as she did. I knew I was basically giving her hospice care by shutting her away to prevent Mean Girl from tormenting her. I know that real farmers sometimes have to make hard choices about their animals, but we only have a garden, a few fruit trees, and a small flock of chickens and I struggle with ending the life of an animal. I enjoy eating meat, but I don’t raise animals to eat because I would never be able to slaughter and eat what I’ve gotten to know. If I got hungry enough, I am sure I would, but I’m not that hungry.
Our county has a couple of “clean-up” days each year–one when we can drop off unwanted items without charge and another when we can drop off toxic items. The general clean-up day was in May. Saturday was the one for toxic items. Earlier in the week we had gathered together some old cans of paint, old car batteries, and a couple other things. On Saturday we had a pleasant drive through the beautiful countryside to the drop-off point at the middle school in a nearby town. it took only a couple of minutes to unload the items and then we drove back home to enjoy the rest of our day.
This summer I’ve noticed several trees growing on our property that I’ve never previously noticed. They were mature trees so I’m surprised that I hadn’t seen them before. I search through our “Trees of North America” field guide and found the tree. It is an “eastern hophornbeam,” also called “ironwood’ because it has very hard heavy wood. I had never heard of such a tree before. One of the volunteers at the toxic clean-up drop-off place was handing out flyers for a “Forest Owner Field Day,” a one-day event at which there will be lectures about forest health, management, invasive species, and so forth. We would love to attend but EJ has to work that day. We got to talking to the guy and told him about identifying the hophornbeam trees we just noticed on our property. He said that, yeah, the trees seem to be especially noticeable this year.
I just paused to go hang some laundry on the clothesline. For some reason, this summer I’ve had a problem with little ants marching across one of the ropes of the clothesline. I never find them on the other three ropes, only on the one. This morning I put more diatomaceous earth at the base of the two posts, which seems to help for a while. Then I wiped the line of ants off the rope and hung my clothes.
Wren, Hen, and Coons
The hen I’ve nicknamed “White Feather” because she has white feathers among the red, is lingering on–but just barely. I didn’t really expect her to last so long. She’s been looking like a grizzled old dog. I’ve read that chickens only last 7-8 years so I suspect she’s dying of old age. Basically, I am providing her hospice care, allowing her to die peacefully without the Mean Girl tormenting her.
At 6 a.m. yesterday morning, I was sitting on the couch sipping coffee when I glimpsed movement on the deck outside the window. My first thought was that it was our outside cat Theo because of the glimpse I had had of something that resembled his coloring. My second thought was that it couldn’t be Theo because he was still locked securely in the garage where he is safe from night-time predators. I stood up for a better look. Then I quickly grabbed my phone and went to the door to video them. Sorry for the poor quality. The Mama and her babies were moving quickly so I had to video them while they were in sight.
I enjoy observing the wildlife that wanders on our property. I know that raccoons can be nuisances, but we’ve lived here just over 8 years now and they’ve never been much of a problem. The worst they’ve done is eat the leftover bird seed from the feeders and raid our corn, but we’ve never had much luck with corn anyway and we couldn’t keep them out of that. They leave the rest of the garden alone.
We usually see a mama raccoon and her 4-5 babies once or twice every year. We aren’t ever over-run with raccoons so I sometimes wonder where they all go when they reach adulthood. What is the population density on an acre of land–or 5 acres? They can’t all stick around. Where do they go?
Lately, I’ve heard a bird at one of our birdhouses singing all day long. I didn’t recognize the song so I looked at the bird through our binoculars for a close-up view. It was small and brown. I tried my best to memorize its features so I could look it up in our Birds of Michigan Field Guide by Stan Tekiela. I didn’t have much hope of identifying it because it looked much like a thousand other small brown birds. However, I finally decided that it was likely a house wren. In the book I read these interesting facts:
A prolific songster, it will sing from dawn until dusk during mating season. Easily attracted to nest boxes. In spring, the male chooses several prospective nesting cavities and places a few small twigs in each. Female inspects each, chooses one, and finishes the nest building. She will completely fill the nest cavity with uniformly small twigs, then line a small depression at back of cavity with pine needles nad grass. Often has trouble fitting long twigs through nest cavity hole. Tries many different directions and approaches until successful.
After I decided upon a possible identification, I went to the All About Birds website so I could listen to a house wren’s song. Yup. That’s our bird! During the afternoon, I watched a bluebird try to chase the wren away. I’ve observed that bluebirds tend to be quite territorial. I felt a little sorry for the wren until I read these additional facts on the website:
House Wrens are aggressive. Single males sometimes compete for females even after a pair has begun nesting. In about half of these contests the outsider succeeds in displacing his rival, at which point he usually discards any existing eggs or nestlings and begins a new family with the female.
I suspect the birdhouses are too close so birds are fighting over territory. In the autumn, I hope to move the birdhouses further apart and see if that helps.
We have three oscillating sprinklers that water larger areas of EJ’s garden, but they quickly stop working correctly so I’ve given up on them. Instead, I use a little circular sprinkler that sets up a spray like a fountain. It doesn’t cover as much ground as the oscillating sprinklers so I have to move it multiple times to water all the plants in the garden. The last few mornings I’ve been trying to move the sprinkler so it covers the most ground in one time in as few moves as possible. I’ve been sticking short lengths of small diameter PVC pipe in the ground and sticking the sprinkler in that (the part that normally would stick in the ground) which raises the sprinkler and enables it to cover more area. I may have to make a few more adjustments to get it exactly right, but I think I’ve gotten it as good as I can. It looks as if I’ve reduced the number of movements to five, which will cut about an hour off the time it takes me to water his garden. Here is a photo of a portion of his garden. One PVC sprinkler setup can be seen in the center.
EJ has been struggling with a health issue that has caused him so much pain that he has had to come home early from work for several days, including today. We are very unhappy with the local doctors, who all push drugs that we suspect have adversely affected EJ’s health–and their fees seem to be very excessive. EJ was in so much pain today that he gave up and called his local doctor for an appointment. His local doctor can’t get him in before August 7. His office said, “Call first thing tomorrow and maybe there will be a cancellation so we can get you in.” Grrrr. Honestly, we’ve lost our confidence in the medical profession. We have a few horror stories which I won’t take the time to tell. Ok, one: In 2017 or 2018, EJ’s previous doctor convinced him to have a flu shot, only the second he’d ever had in his life. Right after that, he started having dizzy spells, weakness, and shaking. Because of it, he lost his job. That was a hardship for us, although God took care of us in amazing ways.
Anyway, we are pursuing getting EJ signed up with an online practice that uses natural methods to treat health issues, which we much prefer. If he can get a virtual appointment, we will forget about the local doctor.
Mean Girl and White Feather
It’s been a very dry summer–at least for us. On radar, we often watch large areas of rain go right past us without hitting us. Because of the lack of rain, I have to go out ever day to water EJ’s vegetable garden and my herb garden. That’s a lot of work because I have to move the sprinkler every 30 minutes or so to cover all the garden areas. Our gardens are not huge, but our sprinkler is small so it takes me several hours. However, we finally got some steady rain last night and this morning. This afternoon we can see some blue among the clouds, but the forecast says that we could get scattered showers this evening. I hope so.
The good thing about this summer is that it’s been mostly pleasantly cool so it’s been comfortable to work and sleep. Now watch: Because I said that, we will now get hit with very hot and humid weather.
Shortly after we got our first flock of chicks seven years ago, I read that chickens make the humans who care for them into an honorary members of their flock. When a chicken–usually a rooster–is “mean,” it’s because it thinks it outranks you and is trying to get you back under its dominance. For that reason, I’ve never put up with sass. If any act a little sassy, I gently but firmly nudge it away so it understands that it is below ME in the pecking order. Because they know their rank, my chickens have always been respectful toward me. Usually my chickens get along with each other as well. They sometimes briefly peck at each other to keep the lower-ranking ones in line, but it doesn’t last long. Since the pecking order is the way their “society” works, I don’t interfere.
Among the little chicks we got last year was a female chick that was a bit more aggressive than usual. Even as a little one she would sometimes leap and flab her wings at me to scare me. I’d flick my finger at her and she remained mostly respectful toward me. I quickly stop her sassiness if she tries. However, she’s grown up to be a bit bossy to the other chickens. I think of her as the stereotypical “mean girl” who bullies others. She recently started bullying one of the other hens. It wasn’t a simple peck and it seemed a prolonged bullying.
All of our chickens are Rhode Island or New Hampshire Reds which pretty much look identical to each other. However, quite a few months ago, one of the hens, the Mean Girl’s victim, has developed white feathers among the red ones. I’m wondering if she’s from our first flock and getting old, and maybe that’s why Mean Girl is bullying her, but none of the others have white feathers, even those from the first flock. I don’t know why this hen does but it’s quite pretty. It makes her unique.
Mean Girl has been bullying White Feather so constantly that White Feather tried to hide from her. I didn’t even know if Mean Girl let White Feather access the food and water. I considered how to solve the problem and I finally decided to build a door for one of the old wooden doghouses inside the coop. I cut a piece of sturdy cattle panel down to door size. We had originally used cattle panels for our dog Danny’s pen (he’s now deceased) when we lived downstate; we brought them with us when we moved and have repurposed them to make gates, trellis, and whatever else we needed. The squares of a cattle panel are big enough that a chicken can get through so I covered the panel with flimsier chicken wire that is much smaller. Then I hammered in large staples for hinges. I twisted a thick wire into a “latch,” and hammered in a nail that I could hook the wire on to keep the door closed.
Once I had the dog house door completed, I put White Feather in it with food, water, and treats of grass that I pull up for her every day. Ideally, Mean Girl should have been the one shut away, but I don’t think White Feather minds being in a protected place. She seemed so terrorized that I wasn’t sure she was going to make it but I check every day and she’s still alive. She’s sitting up although she still seems unusually docile. I hope she makes it.
In the future, I plan to use that dog house for any little chicks we get or raise until they are old enough to join the adult flock. We actually got an incubator this Spring intending to hatch our own eggs, but our chickens are laying so many eggs this year that we have an over-abundance. So I will wait for another year or two before I use the incubator.
Only Us
Ej had 5 days off last week. Three were his normal days off, one was for the July 4th holiday, and one he took off as a vacation day. We spent the five days working around our place, getting several tasks and projects done. EJ got a couple things fixed on the truck and worked in his garden and garage. He also installed additional shelves in my craft closet. I reorganized my craft closet and did my normal tasks of laundry, cleaning, cooking, working in my herb garden, drying herbs, and caring for our animals. I also organized some of the books in our library, pulling mine that I didn’t like or that we have duplicates of. We will donate them to the public library for their used book sales. We didn’t do anything “special” for Independence Day, but we really enjoy quietly puttering around our home and garden. Peace and quiet, in itself, is “special” to us.
This week we are back to our regular routine of EJ working his normal four 10-hour days at his company and then we both working on tasks on Wednesdays and Thursdays, which are his “weekend.”
In theory, our area has had a decent amount of rain this summer. In reality, we, personally, have not had much. We’ve watched on radar as rain moves over large swathes of Michigan. However, most of it goes to the north or south of us or forms beyond us as it moves east. It’s a bit frustrating to watch the rain miss us day after day. I do my best to keep our gardens watered, but the sprinkler is not as effective as an all-day soaking rain. In places where the sprinkler doesn’t reach, our sandy soil is dusty dry and the grass is yellowing.
Last week EJ prayed that God would “please send us rain.” Then God did. Specifically, He sent “us” rain. I was surprised when it started to rain because the sky had been quite sunny that day and the rain seemed sudden. I checked the radar to estimate how long the rain would last–would we get a short period of rain or would it be long-lasting? Would the rain be heavy or light? I was surprised at what I saw because the radar showed just a tiny blob of rain directly over us. I laughed and showed EJ. He said that when he prayed that God would “send us rain,” it never occurred to him that God would send only us rain. In case you doubt me, here’s a small portion of the screenshot of the radar that I captured. As you can see, our house is marked at almost the center of the rain cloud. Except for that blob of rain, the skies were clear for miles and miles. It lasted only a relatively short time but was far better than a sprinkler.
Sometimes God’s gifts are very obvious.
Independence Day
I didn’t write this (H/T @KGenevieve445). It’s being shared on Social Media. I thought it was really good and worth keeping in mind as we in the USA celebrate Independence Day.
FREEDOM ISN’T FREE
Today we celebrate our Independence which came at a great SACRIFICE to our Founding Fathers.
56 men signed the Declaration of Independence.
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy.
He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly.
He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.
A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart. Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.
Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians.
They were soft-spoken men of means and education.
They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged:
“For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
The Fourth Weekend
We live in a beautiful area in Michigan that attracts many vacationing tourists. We actually have many seasons: the regular Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter seasons as well as Tourist Season, which includes seasons for hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, off-road vehicles, and color tours to enjoy the autumn colors. There are also a variety of festivals throughout the year, such as a film festival, a chocolate festival, a beer festival, a trout fest, a big foot festival, an ice man triathlon, a cherry festival–and several others that I’ve probably forgotten.
Each year our July 4th Independence Day weekend and the popular annual National Cherry Festival are held at the same time, which is occurring now. The number of tourists hugely increases at this tie to 50 times the normal population. EJ just checked the number so it’s not a guess.
EJ and I don’t want to deal with the huge crowds and traffic so we always just stay home at our beautiful Enchanted Forest and enjoy the peace and quiet. However, this morning we did dash out to our local library, which was having a used book sale. EJ found a lot of books by Patrick McManus, an author he enjoys. He has several books by McManus, but these are new ones for him.
I didn’t find any books by my favorite authors (I always look) but I found books by unfamiliar authors that I decided to try. I had a dilemma because I found a whole box of a series of historical novels by Patrick O’Brien, an author I had never heard of. I told EJ that if I just buy one and love it, I will have missed out on the chance to get all his other books–around 20 of them, give or take a few. But if I bought all of them and hated them, I would have a bunch of books that I don’t like. EJ said, “Buy them. We can always donate them back to the library if you don’t like them. That’s one of the reasons I love EJ. He understands and shares the love of books. I also bought a series of westerns by William Johnstone, another unfamiliar author. The good thing about used book sales is that I can take a risk on unfamiliar authors. Often I discover new authors that I enjoy.
As we were paying for our two boxes of books (no set price; it’s by donation), we had a wonderful long chat with the librarian in charge of the sale. We all really enjoyed ourselves. When I told her that I had never read any books by Patrick O’Brien, she said he’s a really good author. Tastes in books is subjective, but I still appreciate a good review and look forward to reading them.
Now we are staying home. On July 4th–this year it’s on Tuesday–there are always a lot of fireworks fired off by towns and campgrounds. We live on a hill surrounded by forest so we have always been able to hear the fireworks all around us, but haven’t been able to see any of them. However, over the last year our neighbor-across-the-road has periodically and randomly put on beautiful fireworks shows that are as good as municipal programs we’ve seen. We are able to see them from while sitting in our living room, which is very delightful. I’m hoping he does fireworks on the 4th.
EJ has to work Sunday and Monday, but he gets Tuesday off for the holiday and he took Friday off as a vacation day so with his weird schedule, he has Tuesday through Saturday off. We will putter around. EJ has some maintenance to do on the truck, we will work in our gardens, and we will probably continue to work on organizing the garage. We are making a great deal of progress in the garage.
Several days last week it was very hazy/smoky outside. Official reports were that it was smoke from the many wildfires burning in Canada. However, the smoke didn’t smell like wood fire. It had a plastic smell to it. People throughout the USA Midwest/Northeast were experiencing similar and even worse smoke. Many people on social media said meters indicated that it was very toxic. It made my eyes burn. We shut the windows and stayed inside through the worst of it. It mostly cleared up yesterday.
I Love To Go A Gardening 