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...