August 17, 2006

I was dreaming this really cool dream and having a great time with people I knew, when suddenly there was this part that did not work with the dream.. a noise.. rather.. many of the noises rather.. Kiiiii- keeeeee-Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.. OMG.. I forgot to lock the chickens in the barn last night and the hawks were calling. I threw on clothes as I ran through the house while trying to focus my eyes I think.. those memories I am pretty bleary about that .. grabbed my tennis shoes and ran through the newly planted lawn and headed up to the chicken pens.The darn things were flitting from tree to tree.. there were two of them. While I was standing in the chicken pen, trying to convince the chickens they were going to die if they did not get back into the barn (YEAH RIGHT!), one and then the other hawk, landed in the dead tree top next to the hog pen. They were not 30 feet from me and I kept jumping up and down and flapping my arms yelling at them and they seemed to not even realize I was there. They were quite aloof.

Finally they flew off and I grabbed "Kid" out of bed to stand guard and try to help me put the chickens in.. then we sent him out there with a pellet gun and a lawn chair. We can hear the birds but they must be 'next door' now.I got last nights laundry hung to dry outside by 8:30 am.. so it will probably be dry by noon on a day like today.. it is nice and sunny now. Not like the last 2 days.. "Teenager" has been doing alot of his laundry lately and using the dryer which we must put a stop to.. our electric bill went from $54 for every 2 months to over $163 for 2 months.. and that is in the summer.. it is pathetic our electric bill goes up in the summer. I am going to be getting wooden racks for drying this winter inside and he will have to use the clothes line for drying his clothing like the rest of us do.

Yesterday morning was chilly. It was 5C/ 41F and very foggy and I thought the house was a little bit cold to take a bath and then head outside.. This morning is 15C in the house, but I opened the windows anyway. "Kid" is going to bring down a load of firewood and cut up some kindling today and "Teenager" and I are going to clean the woodstove pipe.Yesterday was also the fresh produce co-op.. so I spend the whole day there. It is summertime and people have gardens and the farmers market is each Saturday, so the numbers are down, but I expect come Fall they will come back up again.

Last night I started on a sock.. the first of the Fall/Winter. I have to finish another mate for my "MIL", since I have one done for her.. made the other and found out I did a single instead of a double blue row, which made me mad and I quit on that project for awhile.. this new one is black and a pale golden/yellow and in a 15th century pattern. I am having fun with it, but you need to not be tired to actually get the pattern correct.


Feeding the hogs is scary now. I did it by myself this morning, but I do not like to go into their pen without someone there. They are getting pushy and they are starting to fight each other if they are not fed on time. They are well over 100 pounds now. It is unfortunate that their feeder is now in the middle of their pen. I need to get them some bowling balls to shove around other than the feed trough which is actually quite heavy metal.

Today's list is to make Zucchini Bread, pick a LOT of peas and probably shell and blanche then and freeze. I also probably have beans to pick again. We discovered we have 6 pumpkins which will be a nice size for Fall.. they were all volunteers from the compost bucket. We also had cheery tomatoes and peppers volunteer from the compost bucket as well.. I also have a bunch of wine I need to rack off and/or bottle and actually I do not really want to deal with them today.. maybe tomorrow.

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