DAILY THINGS

This is an idea that I got from http://walkslowlylivewildly.com/. I thought it was nice, so I'm copying her. :) This list was geared for someone at home, but since I'm at work I figured I'd do it from here.

Outside my window…there is no window here in my jobsite office, but I can hear the city noises, and ocassionally the children from the local YMCA on a field trip to the movies
I am thinking…about how to set up an office space/area using furniture/items that I already have around the house- this weekend's "official" project.
From the kitchen…for lunch today- tortellini with home-made pesto. I'm so excited about that!
I am wearing…tan carhartts, grey t-shirt w/ a navy blue monkey embroidered hoody
I am creating…operation & maintenance manuals for this job that we're wrapping up
I am going…to the office to make copies, and then home!
I am reading…(in the evenings) "Mossflower", book two in the Redwall series
I am hearing…a city bus, the refrigerator, my computer's brain thinking, squeeky brakes on a passing car, the plumber doing paperwork in his office.
Around the house…Hubby framed the wall on the stairwell this week, and has also been getting the front yard ready to plant grass. The next hatch of quail is about the pop out of their shell. This morning (after I let him out & left for work) the dog got ahold of a bag of wood chips for smoking meat on the bar-b-q & played with/destroyed the whole thing (did I ever mention that D & the Dog don't like each other? this is part of the reason why!).
One of my favorite things…is a clean kitchen & all the animals fed
A few plans for the rest of the week…move the new rabbit cage frame to its final resting place, weed the garden, fold the laundry

AROUND THE YARD

Some random recent pictures...

Whimsy

Lakenvelder hen

Red

Rhode Island Red hen


*has no name yet*

Black chicken (black sexlink?) hen

Muffy

Ameracauna hen (she's smart, too)

Little Hen

Ameracauna hen (this year's baby)

Goldie

Buff Orpington hen

(dumb blond chicken award goes to this bird!)

Nan & my basket

Boo & Toby

Sweet Bluebell

Baby quail

The dish is only 1 1/2" across...

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

I was counting this morning…actually, I wasn’t counting. I was working on a spreadsheet of the almost 10,000 light fixtures that I have ordered, received, counted, unpacked & supervised installation of on this jobsite, listening to my iPod (“Celebration”) in an effort to drown out the sound of the mouse munching on something in the trash can across the room, and thinking about an adorable little Russian girl that I would have brought home with me 10 years ago if I could have…she’s 15 now. Her name is Lida. I’ll post a picture someday so you can see her as I remember her.
Remembering, and listening to the hauntingly beautiful sound of that song made me melancholy. So I did what any sane girl would do & wrote to a friend who shared that day a decade ago in the play yard of a little Russian Baby House…asked her if she still thought of “her” little girl Olya, and then went on to tell her about our hopes & dreams. Which basically do not encompass the place we are currently living.
And then I apologized for sending such a downer of an email and told her about all of the wonderful things that we have been able to do with the place we’re living now in spite of how very far it seems from our dreams (wherever you are, be all there…we are). And the tally was kind of amazing- so I thought I’d share it with you.
First and quickly- most everyone probably already knows that we hope to someday have property almost in the middle of nowhere and live as simply and with as little dependence on retail as possible. But right now we live squished between two houses in a rather dense suburban neighborhood on a city lot that is less than ¼ acre. On that lot there is a house, a large shed/workshop, a separate garage & a greenhouse. There is also a rather large concrete patio. In spite of all of these “obstacles” we have still managed to fit onto that little lot: (4) pheasants [to lay eggs, to incubate, to raise for food, sale & release],

(12) broiler chickens,

(6) egg chickens, (20) quail [to lay eggs, to incubate, to raise for food, sale & release], (3) breeder rabbits + (1) pet rabbit, (9) fryer rabbits, (2) breeder ducks, (11) roasting ducklings & a dog. We also have 600 sq ft of vegetable garden

where we are growing potatoes, snap peas, cucumbers, shelling peas, zucchini,

green beans, carrots, radishes, beets, spinach, lettuce, greens mix, onions, green peppers, tomatoes, rhubarb, strawberries, blueberries, gooseberries, grapes & raspberries. We have a pear tree & a fig tree.


A 100 sq ft of herb garden, and flowers in every corner of the yard. I should also mention that this is in spite of the fact that the entire front yard (another 600+ sq ft) looks like a war zone due to the excavation & re-decorating efforts of the dog & hubby- but once we get that landscaped & under control we’ll have even more growing space.
We have a 1,000 gal pond that will someday be home to a colony of crayfish, and a utility room full of 40+ baby quail w/ more eggs in the incubator. The greenhouse will continue to provide us with greens & hopefully tomatoes through the winter. We heat with a wood stove front the huge woodpile in our backyard, we’re getting rain barrels set up and have a compost pile in the works.
It’s easy to focus on the future with eyes only for what Will Be, but if you take a step back and look at the What Is where you are in the now…you might just be surprised.

INTRODUCTIONS, PART 2

So, now you've met the ferrets, cats & dog, but there's more, and they haven't shown their furry/feathery faces yet. Let me continue the conversation from my first post, and introduce you to more of the critters on our little oasis...

PAISLEY & babies of '08

Paisley is just a mutt of a little duck...someone rescued her & her sister from a culvert as small ducklings & I ended up with them. Ping (her beloved sister) died for no apparent reason last spring, and Paisley flew away... Several weeks later she returned with 8 little fluff balls...was she EVER a proud mama! First time any of my ducks have provided ducklings! That was fun.

This is RAT.

She is gentle, smart & loves attention (and food). She has dispelled all inhibitions that I have formerly had against [pet] rats. They're pretty cool!

TUCKER
Tucker was my sidekick and main pal for 3 years. She was an East Indian Runner duck, and characteristic of that breed & the chocolate variety, she turned a white-with-brown-splashes as she grew older. Tucker died at the teeth of oppossum last spring. It was a very sad day at our house, but she had lived a long and happy life. I'll post more on her later.

CLYDE

Clyde is a Buff Orpington duck, and so named because as a duckling he was very small, and was thought to be a runner duck like Tucker. And then he began eating, and eating, and eating, and eating...which resulted in ALOT of growing. I think we had another name for him when he was a duckling, but as he grew & grew my husband began questioning if he was really a duck or not, and started calling him "The Clydesdale Duck". Which is where he got his name. I have actually heard people walking by exclaim over the fine goose we have, he is so huge! Clyde adores Paisley, and they are inseperable. Those rare occassions when Paisley gets a wild feather & flys away for a few days, Clyde goes into deep mourning. And that's about the extent of Clyde's brains... But he makes us laugh, and he makes Paisley happy, so he sticks around.

GOLDIE

A Buff Orpington hen who believes that it is NOT her duty in life to supply us with eggs. She's not very bright, even for a chicken, but I keep hoping that this spring she'll wake up to her true calling & begin providing us with eggs... And she is gorgeous, and pretty nice, even for a chicken, and lets people pet her...which I guess is her redemption.

MUFFY

An Americana or "Easter Egg Chicken". She lays green eggs, and is (for a chicken) brilliant. Actually, I should say she did lay green eggs, but then she apparently realized that we're thieves and she hasn't layed eggs since. I hope it was a coincidence and she begins again when the weather is nicer!
RED

A Rhode Island Red, and an exceptional layer! She has layed an egg every single day since sometime last July or August...even in the nasty cold, dark weather we've been having. I think we'll stick w/ Rhode Islands in the future!

And that's all for now...I have to figure out what I did with the rest of the pictures!