Summer Winding Down

Or it was until the last few days of warm, walk-around-with-no-shirt-in-flip-flops weather. As much as I'm ready for fall and winter, my preferred clothing is boardshorts or a sarong, cowboy hat, and flip flops...sigh.

Anyhow, in other news. Lost one of our original birds about a week ago. A racoon finally found the open coop. Came back a couple nights later though woke me up with all the racket. I ran out barefoot in my underwear with a flashlight at midnight looking for them. Saw a pair of eyes glowing as they went around the barn, so I ran down there in time to hear squawking and see the bird running toward me. The big coon started chasing till I yelled and threw a rock or something at it. Found the bird hiding under a bush. Other than missing some feathers she's ok. Fixed her coop the next day. Still waiting to get a good chunk of time to make her transition...

Speaking of chicken transitions, the meat birds' butcher date is coming up...next week actually, we'll have 12 frozen chickens and be buying a lot less chicken feed. Right now we're blowing through a 50 pound bag a week. Seeing how much they eat, and how much organic feed costs it's very easy to see why organic chicken is so much more expensive than conventional.

And speaking of chickens, their coop is soooo close to being done. Had a surprise visit from a new friend over the weekend; relative of a friend's friend down in DC. Really nice guy from Holland who was motivated to swing a hammer a bit around the place. So between us we knocked out a couple barn projects that have been on the list for too long, then hit the coop. Only 8 or so more courses of roof shingles to put on, install a window, reinstall the first one that's all off kilter, and then finish nailing on some trim boards and it'll be done. Can't wait to finally cross that one off my list.

Still a lot to do in general, especially since our heads are all full of ideas after attending the Common Ground fair again this year. Just the 2 of us went on Sunday so we could actually participate rather than spending the day keeping the kids entertained ;) Learned about growing peaches in Maine, enough about beekeeping to realize that we really need to go to bee school (yes, there is such a thing), simple ways to take care of trees to maximize their own "immune" systems, as well as long conversations with a folks running cars year-round here on straight veggie oil, and a green building collaborative about ways to do the exterior walls on the barn with straw bale construction. Now we just need the time and money to do buy the equipment and materials and implement ;)

In kiddo land things are rolling right along. Raelin is in her 3rd week of her second year of nursery school and loving it. So much easier to be the parents of one of the "big" kids rather than negotiating the drop off for the first time. She's also head over heels in love with the chicks; I think she'd sleep down in the henhouse with them if we'd let her! She likes to hold them, carry them around, sit with them quietly in her little folding chair, and generally dote on them and treat them like little babies. It's all very cute and really the first time we've seen her this engaged with anything. There's one type of chick that we have 4 of that she's adopted as her birds, which is great since they seem to have the temperment to being coddled by a 4 year old. Would be neat if they carry that into adult hood since holding a chicken is pretty neat regardless of age ;)

Liam's also steamrolling ahead into full-blown toddlerhood. Words are coming fast and furious. He's doing all the toddler things...wanting shoes on and off, bringing random things to us, negotiating the exchange of said things, answering every question with "no" even when that often rapidly turns into yes, etc. Favorite things to do are throw things. Especially at the chickens. We do our best to mitigate though it's a good thing his aim is off at times. Also likes to watch shoes tumble down the stairs.

Anyhow, back to it here...

It's hot hot hot

Been a few days of scorching and muggy. I like this weather, though doing construction in it...not so much. Today Kelly got both garden beds seeded with cover crop in the hopes that predicted thunder storms will drop some rain. Had a close one today with 6 or 7 ground strikes down in the valley, though stayed sunny up here. Kelly drive through it and said it absolutely dumped.

Hopefully the seed will not all get eaten by the chickens. The 2 adult Rhode Island Reds have found it and needed to be chased from the upper garden twice today. Probably means they were in there a lot more. Then one of the new little girls found her way there, though she hasn't learned much about being chased yet. They'll all learn ;)

We're looking forward to fall and winter. Even as the the last heat of summer sends us running to the pond and river. Mostly looking forward to the decreased pace that winter brings. Of early darkness and cold that keeps us in; during the summer the pace is crazy both because it can be and it has to be with all the getting ready for winter. Then the long nights come and there's not much to do but snuggle on the couch, or read, or knit (in Kelly's case) or work (in my case ;). Hopefully in front of a wood stove. We'll see.

In other news, the shed-to-office conversion took a big step forward today with the arrival of a concrete truck to do the slab pour. At this point it's a carpentry project now, and I'm fuddling my way solo through it. Got a new door opening cut and framed in today, and also finished removing the existing 2x6 ceiling joists, which will be reduced in number by half as well as moved up about a foot. Replacing the stud-grade ugly ones with some nice rough-sawn pine. I thought I had enough in the barn to do all 3, though turns out there was only enough for 2. A neighbor up the road's building a period-accurate garage replacement, so I asked him if he'd be willing to sell me a 10' rough sawn board and he says yup. Coolio. Still soooo much to do on it, and with me often having to do things and then redo them 2 or 3 times to get them right it's not exactly clipping along ;) Hoping that with the door framing done the pace will up a bit, though now I've also decided to remove all the rotten siding and sheathing from where a pile of gravel had been pushed up against the building for many years. Sigh. So more cutting and demo. At least I have enough wood around to not have to buy any more new stuff.

Anyhow, that's the quick uppity date...