I didn’t know you could paste Bitmoji images directly from the keyboard into a WordPress blog.
I guess you can. Now if I could only make the avatar actually look like me. Some people do great. Not me.
Back to watching the blog hits add up. I put the wrap thing I made for Kathleen up on Ravelry, so it’s showing up as a new pattern. That frenzy will end soon!
Yesterday was just beautiful, sunny with pleasant temperatures, though a little breezy. It was a perfect day to do some more work on the chicken run. When we last saw it, the run was squared off, the roof frame was up and some cover was on it. Today, the chickens have a nice, big roof that will protect them a bit from rain, and most important, give them some shade in the summer.
After that, things got even more fun. The water dispenser has been repaired, and even more fantastic, it’s level, so water dispenses through all the holes. I’ve detected chicken action at it, so they know it’s there.
Next, CC built a sturdy device to hold their newly improved food dispensers. Now, the food doesn’t spill out, and there are lots of holes for them to eat out of. Plus, the food is in the middle of the run, which means it’s way less likely to get wet unless there’s a particularly driving rain.
With the basics taken care of, we had to make sure to provide fun and entertainment for our fowl friends. What could be more fun than a double-decker swing, right?
We realize that if there is one on top and one on the bottom, there may be some poop collateral damage, but what the heck. It’s fun!
We also added a few more perches for them, and I put a branch in there, so they will have something fun to peck on (and maybe it will attract some bugs to eat).
At the moment, the infirmary/baby cage is not in the run. We plan to put it in when we need to, and surround it with protection, like more tin, to keep young and injured birds safe.
We have also been discussing getting yet another dog run to turn into an area for new chickens, and making a place for chicks, with a heat lamp. Buying all these adult chickens is getting expensive. But, we plan to keep them inside for a while, to deter the chicken hawk and teach Bertie to lay in the coop, not the garage. This explains why we put so many entertainment items in the run.
Now that things are pretty well set up (I’m so grateful for it!), and Springsteen (the black Jersey Giant) appears to have gone broody on us, I decided to just let her try to raise some chicks (yes, it’s winter, but we will put the family somewhere warm if babies show up and it gets cold).
This may give us some less expensive chickens, if it works. It can’t hurt to try. Plus, they may lay cool colored eggs, if we get any to adulthood, with Bruce the Easter Egger as the Baby Daddy!
Thanks to all of you who put up with my chicken posts. These birds are sure entertaining, even if they are hard to keep alive.
And hey, have any of you thought of a Word of the Year yet?
For a few years, I participated in the practice of selecting a word of the year. The idea is to look at the year through the lens of the word you chose.
I didn’t do it for a few years, and haven’t since I started this blog. But, through the miracle of figuring out where the option to search my old Facebook posts is located in the interface, I found my choices from previous years. It appears that the 2013 word was “Flexibility.” Good choice.
And here I found out the 2014 word was “acceptance” (that’s done me good ever since!) and 2015 was “vulnerability.” Whew. I’m glad I’m healthy for my age, because I can see how long it takes to really assimilate concepts that require fundamental changes in my outlook and mindset.
I’m not sure how I got out of the practice of setting a word for each year, because I enjoyed it in the past. Maybe 2016 was a hard year for focusing. It was the year we spent at the little casita. That was, indeed, a confusing year. Of course, I’m glad I didn’t pick a 2020 word, as interesting as that might have been.
It took very little meditation to have this year’s word come to me. My year’s focus and mantra need to be this.
Yes. Whatever happens, I want to find it to be enough. I’m not going to push this year. I want to appreciate what I have, how things are, who is in my life, and what happens. I’m not looking for perfection. I want to abide and accept my circumstances. It’s enough.
I encourage you to find your own word for 2021. Please share, if you would like to.
I wrote this last night, so adjust your mental imagery accordingly.
Sure, sometimes I get sad about losing chickens, but mostly they bring me so much joy. When I see good ole Bertie and Gertie running to see me, any hint of a foul (fowl?) mood I’m in evaporates.
They just want to be where I am. The others are a bit more independent. Today I found all of them taking dirt baths in the asparagus bed (no photos).
Sometimes I just sit in the grass and talk to Bertie and feed her leaves. Ginger used to do that, too. and Fancy Pants. Sniff. But I still have Bertie Lee!
I do have to be careful with the phone/camera, though, because it’s also shiny, and thus peck-worthy.
The other thing I’ve been most enjoying is Bruce as he looks for high objects to crow from. Here he is in the garage crowing from the workbench.
Today he wanted to be king of the welding equipment.
Buttercup was really interested in what Bruce was doing.
Sadly, there can only be one monarch at a time.
I really needed a day to just enjoy the life around me and not have a huge to-do list. It helped a lot with matters that weigh on my mind. I even escaped the dogs and took a nice long walk.
From my walk, I determined that Michelob Lite Extra is by far the favorite beer of litterers, followed by Bud Light and Lone Star. and Duncan Hines is the preferred cake mix to strew on the roadside (yes, 3 boxes)! It’s time to clean up again, I guess.
I had to end on a happier note!
I hope you have a Bertie equivalent to cheer you up. Or, you can borrow Bertie.
Today I am taking a mental health break and just having fun outside. I spent a really long time this morning watching the edge of the woods to figure out how many kinds of sparrows are flitting around in the brush. We get so many in winter, and it’s easy to see them with the cedar elm leaves all shed out.
The first ones I saw were Harris’s sparrows. These are really easy to ID because they have black faces. We get them every winter.
They aren’t common in much of the US, but you sure see them in the brush here. Sorry for these stock photos, but I couldn’t get photos.
Most of the sparrows were white-crowned sparrows. You hear them more than you see them. You hear their lovely calls all around you, then hear rustling. That’s the sparrows rummaging through the leaf litter looking for food.
When you finally see them, their heads shine at you, at least the males. They are vibrantly black and white. A spectacular little bird and lots of fun to watch, especially as they flit around in groups going from tree to tree.
Others stay in one spot for quite some time. I guess there are lots of tidbits to eat there. I will spare you more blurry photos, but it was fun trying to get them.
Once I got out the binoculars and started looking that way, I found the third brush-dwelling sparrow at Hermits’ Rest Ranch in winter, the white-throated sparrow. They look a lot like the white-crowned, but have a bit of yellow above their eye near their beaks.
We also have a variety of sparrows in the fields, completely different types. Most are vesper sparrows. These are the biggest ones, and their white tail feathers make them easy to ID. I never get close enough for a good photo, though.
The vesper sparrows are here all year, even though the maps say they aren’t. There’s another smaller sparrow here now, which I’m not sure if they are savanna sparrows or song sparrows. Well, I’m better at this than I used to be!
We also have lots of meadowlarks right now. They fly really differently from the sparrows, though. And the killdeer are here in the fields, too. It’s quite busy!
Oh, I wanted to share one more visitor, a pair of greater yellowlegs, who have been sharing the pond behind the house with the huge great heron.
I didn’t know yellowlegs swam, but for sure they weren’t ducks! Then they stood up and I knew what they were. There’s always something new to learn about nature.
This morning, I was emptying the dishwasher of items used in last night’s holiday meal. I kept picking up tongs. Tongs and more tongs.
I’m a person who never uses tongs. I’m not sure why. I just use other kitchen tools. I don’t think I’ve ever intentionally bought tongs. So, how did we get EIGHT pairs of tongs?
Anita and I were baffled. With such an extensive collection, we could do so much! We could open a store called “Just Tongs.” When my cousin, Jan, called she suggested a Tong Monster Halloween costume. Hmm.
My best idea, though, was to form a tong band. With so many sizes and materials, you can get a lot of sound out of the tongs, I think. And they are easy to use as a rhythm instrument.
The pictures here are me trying out the bass tong and the baritone. They made a cheerful sound! I need to get a couple of other people to help me out and create a composition for tong orchestra.
So, at Christmas I gave Lee a lovely silver box with turquoise stones on it, which I found in Utah. He seemed to like it. I had thought he could store some of his nice pens in there, but naturally, he has a set pen storage system that no gift can interfere with.
Meanwhile, Kathleen gave him a series of joke gifts to help him deal with the woman in the next office (her). There was aspirin, a funny calendar, etc. Lee realized that one of her gifts could be beautifully stored in the silver box.
So, whenever Kathleen is a pain in his butt, he can reach into the silver box on his desk and find relief.
We are quite a creative family, huh?
Did you experience any gift creativity at your COVID Christmas celebrations?
Sharing a quick message to all of you. Keep the Hope going, it will help.
From the Hermits’ Rest to your place of refuge, celebrate what’s meaningful to you today.
Here’s what’s keeping the ranch house looking cheery!
Peace! Hope! Love!
Let’s admit this right off. I stole this idea from a very talented bogger, whose writing I really enjoy. Her blog also has a beautiful design, so check out this post on the Zowiezoe blog. Zoe (how come it’s so much easier to find an umlaut on the phone than on my dang keyboard?) shared how she has never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions, but decided after the weirdness of 2020, she’ll make lots and lots of them. She is going to revolutionize resolutions and resolutionize her life! You see, if you make so many that it’s hard to keep track of them, you’re bound to succeed at one or two!
I decided that it would be a fun Christmas Eve activity to make some resolutions, myself. This also conveniently procrastinates from more closet organizing. I won’t have quite as many as Zoe did, but I did like her category ideas. Here goes.
Geez, that should be enough. I hope I get some of this done. But, at the least, Lee will be happy that I now have GOALS and priorities and lists! He loves those, more than anything, I think.
Maybe I’m becoming a better person, right? Some of this will help, or, at least I’ll have fun trying!
So, are you ready for the resolution revolution? Let’s ALL resolutionize!
One of the things I like about the way Hearts, Homes and Hands does its business is that they do lots of nice things for the clients and staff. Every year, goodie bags and flowers show up out of thin air to give out to everyone.
Just kidding. Many hours are spent making those goodies. Last night, after a long day of work, Kathleen, Meghan, and CC showed up at the Hermits’ Rest to go into goody overdrive. I got to help, and even Lee measured some cocoa for fudge! (I picked and shelled a small bunch of pecans from the tree outside our office, but Lee ate most of them.)
Meghan and I made many, many pretzels dipped in almond bark and sprinkled with sugar. We got better as we went along. Everyone laughed at how I wanted to be sure every treat bag had the same number of treats. Well, MAYBE I enjoy divvying them up! (Hey, I spelled divvying right the first time!)
The other half of the crew made Kathleen’s special fudge recipe, which contains cheese product (you’d never guess). The microwave was going nonstop between melting fudge ingredients and almond bark. Good thing we have a big kitchen.
After the fudge was done, Kathleen made “trash,” which is her version of Chex Mix. It’s spicy! That’s mostly for the caregivers, since we don’t want to shock the systems of the clients.
We had so much fun making a mess, enjoying adult beverages (some of us), and telling stories to each other. I’d say the management team put a LOT of love into our gifts.
This morning, they discovered our fridge wasn’t quite cold enough, and the fudge hadn’t solidified. It got re-melted and put in the freezer for a while. Our poor saucepan was traumatized, but everything worked out, and after a good soak, that saucepan can cook Christmas foods.
Eventually, everything was all packed up and ready to be delivered by Kathleen and Meghan at some point today.
I’m really proud of them. They work SO danged hard, taking phone calls at all hours, filling out paperwork, supervising…trying to help team members better themselves…etc.
A personal assistance service is not an easy business to be in, since you tend to be surrounded by sick people, hurting people, grumpy people (and FUN people, too, don’t get me wrong) and doing your best to make their lives easier. Luckily, the great people on our team and the truly wonderful and appreciative clients make up for it. I’ve always felt that work that helps others is the best, and I think the Hearts, Homes and Hands team will agree.
I spent much of (but not all of) today getting my closet re-organized. Thank goodness, there was a nice interruption when a baby magically appeared. (Figuratively —he came with parents, too).
It was my great-nephew (by marriage—my siblings were not breeders). Actually he’s a step-nephew but what the heck, little Ryker is as close to a grandchild as I’ll get, I’ll wager.
I hadn’t met him yet, thanks to the good ole pandemic, but no one was in quarantine at the moment and his parents needed to stop by briefly. I enjoyed every moment of holding him and being goofy.
However, that was a brief highlight. Mostly I organized my closet, a thing I tend to do about twice a year. Now, I always thought I had a messy closet because my closets were too small. Nope. My closet is this big, thanks to how we enlarged the first floor of the house.
Our contractor, Ruben, did this for me, and I’m forever grateful. That island holds 8 drawers Bd is covered with beautiful natural quartz. Too bad it was totally covered with clothing, suitcases, and Christmas gifts this morning.
As I finished my three hours of hanging, sorting, and selecting things to donate, I realized that the size of the closet doesn’t matter. Unless you’re a really organized person (like my dad was) your closet will slowly become a mess until you make yourself fix it.
I can’t blame my narrow and annoying closet at the Austin house for my poor closet management, since I can’t keep this huge room looking neat. It’s me. I’m not a whiz with the closets.
Let’s see how long this lasts. I plan to iron some things, and maybe get some cute organizing stuff. And tomorrow the jewelry area will also be fixed. Maybe if I spiff it up a bit, I’ll do better.
Am I alone, or are closets hard for most people? Does your closet look like a California Closets ad?
The Hermits' Rest 