Merry Christmas 2021

 

We didn't get our Christmas cards out this year. That was on purpose because we didn't have our family pictures taken until a few days ago, so New Year's cards it is! This year has been just as eventful as most years seem to be, although a little less pleasant with COVID and everything surrounding it. We have managed to remain healthy though, so we can't complain.

Clark (Peanut Head to my faithful readers) and I are empty nesters now and I'm not going to lie, I hate the empty nest. Well I don't hate it, I would just rather have all of my people with me. It's selfish, I know. This last week has been Heaven though because both girls are home and I've been focusing on just enjoying them.

My mom, Julie, moved in with us in June and that has helped me with the transition to an empty nester. It's been a lot of work merging our stuff and making decisions about where to put things and what we should get rid of, but we aren't in a big hurry so we just chip away at it as we have time and interest. In the meantime we have a large container on the property serving as a storage unit for everything mom brought with her. Mom calls it her POD and I call it the dumpster. Mom brought her dog, Pamela, with her, so now we have three dogs in the house. I'm here to tell you that three dogs is a lot of poop. Especially with Bane and his horse sized logs. Pamela settled in pretty quickly and claimed her space. She growls at Gunny and Bane when they go into her end of the house. Gunny just ignores her and does what he wants anyway. Bane doesn't like conflict so his body language telegraphs "Yes Ma'am, whatever you say."

Zoë is living full-time in Pocatello where she is a junior at Idaho State University. She shares a large apartment with three other girls and they each have their own bedrooms. It's a pretty nice set up. She is adulting well and is much more responsible than Clark and I were at her age. Over the summer she started working for Fish & Game as a tech/intern in their habitat department, and she loves her job. She's a Nature Nerd. She fixes fence, puts up fence, weed whacks, chases cows, irrigates, fixes stuff, and sometimes she gets to do cool things with wildlife. Did you know that they make weed whackers that operate underwater?! Zoë already had trailer backing skills when she started this job, but her skills are on point now. She makes me proud.

Annika has had a very exciting year. This time last year we were waiting for a congressional nomination for her application to the service academies and she got three of them. It's recommended that you apply for more than one because each senator and member of congress has a limited number they can give out. That and you don't know who has their ducks in a row, so better to be safe. Shortly after receiving the nominations, she received and accepted an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. The rest of the school year was spent wrapping up senior year courses and other obligations. She spend a lot of hours with the Civil Air Patrol where was was Commander of her squadron, working at Walmart, and taking flight lessons We were hoping that Annika would head to West Point with her pilot's license already completed, but there were many obstacles in her path. The final nail in the coffin was the day of her final flight test, and just days before she was to leave for CBT (Cadet Basic Training which is West Point boot camp), and the plane did not pass inspection. It was a huge let down, but there was no time to dwell on it. She left Idaho Falls for West Point on June 27th and her world changed forever. She survived CBT and her first semester at West Point, and she came home for the first time December 19th. I've been peppering her with questions about her new life ever since. It's going to be hard to let her go with the new year.

I spent another summer working outside in our yard and I shouldn't brag, but I'm getting pretty good with a shovel. Clarkie better not cross me. :) At work I changed schools. Our district opened up a fancy new middle school and I was determined to teach there. Now I'm teaching Pre-Algebra and Algebra to 8th graders. It's my favorite grade and subject. My classroom is beautiful and I have more than three outlets. I haven't tripped the breaker once! My classroom is on the second floor and the flight of stairs is loooooong. More opportunities to trip means I trip more. Tripping going up the stairs is my superpower. Compared to last year, this year is a lot easier, although it's still a lot of work. I like the people I work with and I like my administrators.

Clarkie is still working from home some, but going into the Lab more now. He was one of the first in his group allowed back this last year but it depends on what needs done. More than half his department is still full-time teleworking from home. He earned a promotion this year and is training for new positions, so that means more meetings. His favorite. He's working on his interpersonal skills right now because his boss told him he has to stop growling at people and start using his words. He is traveling more than ever and that's good because we need flight miles and hotel credits now with Annie being so far away.

We're still hard at work on the money pit. We spent most of our late summer and early fall pulling out and relaying the patio at the back of the house so that it slopes away from the house instead of towards it. In other projects, last winter Clark redesigned his closet and made it a lot more functional. All he has left to do now is to add doors to the top to hide all the stuff. Together we redid the laundry room and it is so much more functional because we added upper and lower cabinets as well as a countertop for folding clothes. We also replaced the ridiculous plastic utility sink with a stainless steel sink and cabinet surround. We would still like to add shelving, but that may not happen for a couple years. Next up we have some plumbing and electrical projects to tackle.

There's never a dull moment here, even without the girls to liven things up. We hope this year was as good to you as it was to us, and we wish you a very happy and healthy new year. Take care.

Love,
Clark, Jill, Zoë and Annika

Merry Christmas 2020

 

We’ve almost survived 2020!

This has been one wild and crazy year, hasn’t it? I’m sure we can all agree that 2020 did not live up to our expectations. Here’s hoping for a much better year in 2021.

We were never more thankful to be living out in the country than this year. We were able to lay low and keep our minds off the pandemic and all that came with it by occupying ourselves with our bottomless to do list.

Zoe came home from college in March and ended up finishing the year online. Annie and I went on spring break and completed the remainder of the school year online. Clark started working at home at the same time and we were all competing for our inadequate internet. The girls and I went back in the fall, but Clark is still working mostly at home. He has been traveling a bit too because the source recovery missions must go on. He is very careful though, and to be honest, Annie and I are the biggest threat to our health as we are around hundreds of people every day, many of them incapable of wearing their masks properly. Everyone hates the masks. We hate the masks. Teaching in a mask and making sure my students wear their masks properly is wearing on my nerves, but it is our reality right now. Complaining about it helps none of us. On that note, I’ll shut up now.

I spent my entire summer working outside in our yard and it was wonderful. Little by little, this place is becoming a home that we love. It’s truly my favorite place to be. Clarkie still regularly exclaims that he hates this *$#@ing place, but we know he really loves it. He has multiple pairs of farm pants to prove it, and so do I. They are my favorite pants and I even wear them to town sometimes. It can’t be any worse than wearing pajamas to Walmart.

I went back to the classroom this fall, and it has kicked my trash. There’s so much stress having to teach in person and make sure everything is accessible online for quarantined and Covid positive students. I just make a to do list each day and get through it, doing what I can with the hours that I have. Many days I fall short, and I don’t beat myself up over it. I’m thankful that I have remained healthy and that I still have a job. I do enjoy the kids. I’m teaching 7th grade math, and there is not a more awkward age than 7th grade, so my entertainment is free.

The dogs are loving Clark being home. With him at home I don’t have to go through the routine of putting the couch screamers on the furniture every day to keep the dogs off. I’m a little jealous, but at the same time I do not want to be teaching remotely. I didn’t expect that  we would be able to stay in person, so I am thankful for that. Clark is not traveling as much as he was before March, but we are hopeful that it will pick up after the first of the year. He likes to travel and we like the miles and hotel rewards that he earns.

Zoe bought herself a car in early Spring. It’s a 2011 Nissan Rogue which is an all wheel drive vehicle, so it’s perfect for Idaho winters. She spent her summer working at Cal Ranch and the vet clinic and she was exhausted working every day of the week. I think she has learned her lesson about that. She went back to ISU in the fall and has been home since Thanksgiving. Her finals were online and her spring semester will start mid January. She will be doing a career path internship this semester in a lab with a plant ecologist. Then this summer she has an opportunity to work on a Fish & Game work crew and continue with an internship with them in the fall. On the work crew she will be doing grunt labor like fixing fences, spraying for weeds, planting to reintroduce native plant species, etc.

Annika is in the middle of her senior year of high school. The little slacker finally got a job last summer. She works in produce at Walmart where she puts her OCD skills to good use inspecting and discarding imperfect fruits and vegetables. She has had to deal with some disgusting rottage which we quite enjoy hearing about because it causes her so much discomfort. Everything she throws away has to be weighed and logged. It’s awesome.

We are in the stage of wondering where our child will be this time next year. She has her eggs in several different baskets right now. She has active applications with the Naval Academy and West Point and they are progressing. We are waiting for Congressional nominations right now. She also has applications with the Colorado School of Mines and the University of Idaho. The latter two she picked because they have ROTC programs. She seems pretty set on the military and Clarkie strongly suggests that she go in as an officer, nevermind that that’s not what he did, despite his own father’s wishes. He forbids her to go to the Air Force Academy because he says if she wants  a business major with a minor in religion she can just go local to BYU. Yes, he is a funny guy. I think it’s a Marine Corps thing. They are very particular about the other branches of the military. The other consideration is that she wants to fly and she will have a better chance at that in the Navy/Marine Corps or the Army.

Gunny and Bane are getting on in years. Gunny had a pretty nasty case of pneumonia in the spring and he’s still not 100%. We’ve had many visits to the emergency vet and he is on a steady diet of hot dogs with his various prescriptions. He has turned into my grandparents with his assortment of pills, except that I’m pretty sure they didn’t need hot dogs to choke their medicine down. Baney had a bizarre case of geriatric something something. I can’t remember the technical term and I have no documentation because his care was free at the Emergency Vet Clinic where Zoe works because he has been a blood donor for them. He woke up one day and he couldn’t walk without falling down because his equilibrium had left the building. I’m telling you, it is not possible to carry a 130 pound dog around to do his business. If it weren’t so frightening it would have been comical. Who am I kidding, it was comical, but it was also frightening. After a back door drive up at the clinic, a shot of anti nausea medicine and a few days taking Dramamine he was mostly back to normal. His head is still a little half cocked, but he’s still Baney and we love him. Although he won’t sleep in his bed now because when he was not himself he overshot his bed and clocked himself in the corner where two walls meet. Now his bed is from the Devil and Gunny quite enjoys having choices.

The goats, horses, and chickens are still keeping us from sleeping in too late on the weekends. Oh, and we have kittens! Well, they are cats now, but Zoe found them as kittens in our pasture in June and we had to keep them because destiny brought them to us. Clarkie is super grouchy about excessive cats, so they are barn cats. It’s pretty funny because cats loooooove Clarkie. 

Work on the money pit continues. This year we replaced our well pump and our roof. In fact our roof just happened and it was a nail biter. I’m just so glad it’s done.

This thing is too long so I’ll wrap it up. We hope this letter finds you all happy and healthy. Merry Christmas!

Love,

Clark, Jill, Zoë and Annika

Black Lives Matter Too

It has been over six weeks since my last post and the world has changed. At the end of May, George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer who knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes. Somebody had the presence of mind to document the whole thing with their phone and it sparked protests and riots across the globe. 

It's still going on, and protestors have called for police reform. 

This was not the first time by a long shot, but something about George Floyd's murder is different. It's like the American people have taken notice in a way that they never have before and people are fighting mad. As a country we are divided, although we were divided before this, it is even worse now.

The Minneapolis City Council voted to disband its police department and shift funding to social programs in communities of color. People are protesting to defund the police in other places too. Although this is a terrifying time in America, I'm hopeful that this will bring about real change for people of color.

It is encouraging to see my white friends and neighbors posting on social media about what they are learning about white privilege and the many things they take for granted that people of color don't have access to. While the awareness makes me hopeful, I still see so much hate and denial and I don't know what I can do about it. I feel helpless and ashamed.

I support the Black Lives Matter movement and I hope you do too. 

Many of the Corona Virus restrictions have eased and countries are opening back up. As a result, infections are up. We're supposed to be practicing social distancing to slow the spread of the virus, but people are gathering in huge numbers to protest. It's difficult to criticize the people protesting for not social distancing when they're the ones out there putting themselves at risk for affecting change.

Idaho now has 3,540 confirmed cases of Covid-19.

We don't know yet if we'll be returning to school in person or online in the fall. Peanut Head is still working from home.

The bright side is that we are accomplishing a lot by staying at home as much as possible.

We finished planting the garden yesterday.

We spent Memorial Day weekend digging a utility ditch, and the rest of the following week and weekend filling it back in after burying some new utilities. It was a ton of work and I'm so glad it's done.

We also finished the Lilac Dry Creek bed which I started working on the summer of 2017.

I'm so happy with the finished product. I still have some exposed weed cloth because our next big project is to tear the patio out and relay it so it slopes away from the house instead of towards the house.

Here's a video of the creek bed with water in it. It's my babbling brook.

And last but not least, we put our pool up. We haven't had this set up since we moved here and we have missed it so much. The only problem is that we haven't been able to find the pool filters in any stores in town. In fact, no one is even selling pools right now. The supply chain is seriously disrupted. We were able to buy some on Amazon, but they don't expect them to ship until the end of the month.

In other news, I've accepted a teaching position to teach 7th grade math in the fall. I'm ready to get back into the classroom (crossing fingers that it will be physically in the classroom and not online), and I'm looking forward to spending my days with students again. I've spent a little time in my classroom clearing things out which were left behind and organizing. However, I'm determined not to spend my summer obsessing about making my classroom perfect. It's my disease.

As is typical of teacher summers, I've been scheduling all our yearly appointments and trying to get my ducks in a row. Dentist appointments are not going to happen though, due to the obvious danger for the dental professionals. Hopefully our teeth don't rot out of our heads before we can get back in.

That's my update. I hope we have world peace figured out before my next post.

Stayin' Alive

 

It's been six weeks since we started sheltering at home. We've settled into a routine and often we don't know what day it is. Without the boundaries of a schedule, rushing to and from work five days a week, one day bleeds into the next.

Friday we started phase one of the plan to reopen the state. Churches have been given the green light to reopen with social distancing, but most have opted to wait, possibly until June. Businesses that are open are required to have social distancing protocols in place. Some people are wearing masks and some are not. Probably only 25% are wearing masks. Many people think this is overblown. I think it's more difficult for people to take seriously when they don't live in a densely packed urban area where the virus can travel much faster.

As of yesterday, Idaho had 2,061 confirmed cases of Covid-19. Zoe made the observation that we aren't getting the daily notifications that we used to get. As if this is now just the same ol' same ol' part of our existence.

The stores have toilet paper now, but Kleenex is in short supply and hand sanitizer is still very difficult to find. Also, yeast is hard to come by. Stores are limiting meat purchases to one because several meat packing plants have had major outbreaks. I'm worried about those workers and many others.

We are managing. We got out for another hike last week. We barely made it a mile in before we had to turn around because the trail was snowed in. We will definitely be back to hike this trail when the snow melts. All together this is part of a trail that is over a 100 miles long along an old railroad. What we got to see was beautiful.

Baney is really loving the hikes.

The weather has turned and we have had some very nice days. Our pasture is starting to green up, so we have to monitor Pudgy PJ's intake now because he'd eat grass until he tipped over if we let him. Then he'd probably side chew the grass from his reclined position.

We finished widening the driveway and we're pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Peanut Head is happy that he can pull straight out of the garage now.

When the weather is nice Zoe tries to work in riding breaks. PJ needs the exercise too. This picture makes me laugh because I have to ask "Who is the horse here?" She explained that she likes to work them in the round pen first, and she doesn't like them to cool down when she has to walk them back to the hitching post to tack up. She's so considerate.

Hello Spring

We've had a couple very nice spring days recently. Saturday and Sunday were glorious and I was outside the entire weekend. The sunshine really helped my mood.

Idaho currently has 1,802 confirmed cases of Covid-19. We're hanging in there, not increasing exponentially. We're still under a Stay at Home order until May 1st to slow the spread. We are expecting that things will not just go back to normal. We're going to be fighting this virus throughout this year and into the next until we have a vaccine. People are getting anxious and restless. Many people are in trouble financially.

The girls are not enjoying doing school online. It's boring and difficult to focus, and it's definitely not easier. If anything, it's more difficult. They will not be going back for the remainder of this school year. There are whisperings of universities not opening again until 2021.

It's easy to forget there is a pandemic going on when we don't live in town. We tend to be homebodies anyway, so weekends at least, are very normal for us. We're always working, working, working on the farm, and we tend to not drive into town unless we have to. The big difference for us is that we are now working from home.

We got out for our weekly hike, and this time we went to Craters of the Moon. It's closed to traffic, but you can hike four miles in on a paved road to get to the hiking trail Peanut Head picked.

We did.

Some spots were snow covered, but it was mostly passable. Not like last week.

Once we got to the trail, Baney and I said good-bye to our sweet family and hobbled back to the car.

I'm so glad I didn't go all the way with them. My portion of the hike was 8 miles and they went 13 miles. I went to bed at 8 p.m. that day.

Here's my secret to get Baney to look into the camera when I'm trying to get a selfie with him.

Here's another project I started at the "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Farm." We have wanted to do something about widening our driveway since we moved into this house because our driveway is not as wide as the garage. That means that when Peanut Head pulls in and out of his side of the garage, he has to drive on part of the lawn. The current driveway was the width of the old garage which is now our master bedroom. I think. I'm speculating, but all the clues point to that explanation. Sort of. There are a lot of things about this house that don't make any sense at all.

Peanut Head used the walking tractor to till most of the grass we need to remove, but we had to do the edges by hand. Well, with a shovel.

This picture is looking out of the garage from inside so you can really see how narrow the driveway is compared to the garage.

Peanut Head is going to level those red pavers as the new edge of the driveway, and we will fill the rest in with gravel. At some point we may cover it with asphalt or concrete, but for now we're going to do this because it's cheap and we already have the gravel.

We were also able to work in another planting area and round out the lawn with another mowing strip. I planted a rose bush for now, but I'd like to add some bulbs as well.

It's not finished, but I'm hoping it will be finished by the time I do my next post. That will depend largely on the weather. Stay tuned.

Out With the Old and in with the New OCD Easter Bunny

We've had serious problems with our Easter Bunny in the past. I first documented those problems back in 2009 when the Easter Bunny completely failed to come. Then in 2011 Stinky started to ruin the magic with her skepticism. Finally, in 2012 Zoe learned that I am a Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire.

But now, for 2020, I think we've finally found an Easter Bunny we can rely on.

It's Stinkerbell. Last night she came into my bedroom with the Easter baskets in tow. She proceeded to fill the baskets with grass and then she went to my super secret hiding spot in my closet and pulled out all the Easter goodies. Too many of them. Peanut Head goes a little overboard when he buys candy. 😉

I didn't stop her because why? I'm always frantically putting the baskets together last minute anyway, and she looked like she wanted this thing to go off without a hitch. So okay, knock yourself out, Sister.

"I'm not going to put the jelly beans in the grass like you always do, Mom. That's gross."

Really? That's the way the Easter Bunny has always done it, but whatever, this is her gig now.

I sort of love the way that she put the jelly beans in their own baggies. 💕

So today is Easter. It's not a normal Easter, obviously, but it's by no means a bad Easter. We aren't having our usual friends over because of the Shelter in Place, but it's okay. We're together and that's what matters. I have a ham in the oven, and we're just keeping it low key.

We've been sheltered in place for three weeks now, going out only for supplies. Idaho had 1,407 confirmed cases of Covid-19 as of the end of the day yesterday.

We went to Sam's Club yesterday to pick up goat cheese. Stinkerbell is turning 17 this week and she requested a cheesecake for her birthday instead of the usual chocolate cake. I have an awesome recipe for cheesecake with a lemon shortbread crust using goat cheese as well as the usual cream cheese. It might sound weird, but it is AMAZING.

So we grabbed the goat cheese at Sam's Club and we were walking away when we saw this gigondo bottle of hand sanitizer, locked down with a cable to the sink unit. That's how bad the crazies have gotten I guess.

Yesterday I read an article in the CNN Business section titled "Walmart CEO says we're in the 'hair color" phase of panic buying." No lie. I have been seeing and hearing a lot of commercials for hair color, and it's about that time when people are starting to need their grooming appointments.

I can already see it in the Zoom work meetings. We're all devolving from perfectly presentable people into Muppets. Men are growing facial hair and people are willingly exposing their poor fashion choices. We're all covered in dog hair and we don't care. Not only will 2020 be remembed for the Great Toilet Paper Shortage, but also the No Dress Code Enforced period. I'm still wearing jeans everyday, but I feel like I could be on a slippery slope. Like, I don't even have enough sweatpants to properly capitalize on this opportunity.

I know that some of the online meeting platforms have a feature where you can blur out the background, but we need one that will blur us out and bring the background sharply into focus. Can the IT guys get on that?

In other news, Spring has moodily arrived. We had a few really nice days this week and I accidentally took a few longer than normal lunches. This was my hibernating strawberry patch.

This is it after my long lunch hour removing the mulch. My next task here is to move them to the new beds that Peanut Head made for them.

Right here. It's not happening for a few days because Spring is having a fit right now and I'm a weather wimp.

Peanut Head has been rearranging planting beds so he can fit some more in the garden. I feel like we might actually be ready to plant on time this year instead of last minute like our pants are on fire. 

Oh, that's another thing. Seed companies are overwhelmed and they can't keep up with the demand. It seems everyone wants to plant a garden this year. You can't complain about that. Gardens are awesome.

Baney likes to hang out with me when I'm working outside. I like how he's using one of my bricks as a pillow. Hey, I'm just glad he's not in my lap. He's a very needy baby.

We went on our second hike for Zoe's now online hiking class. I need to see if I can get a credit for this class because it is going to kill me. I am not the woman I once was.

This time we went hiking in Pocatello, and as you can tell by this parking lot picture, we were the only people there. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that the trail was snowed in hither and tither.

I know that here everything looks great and the day is sunny and beautiful.

An actual sign with directions. Already this is better than last week's hike.

The trail is very obvious and we did not have to squint our eyes to decide which way it was supposed to go next. "Is it here, or there? Is it anywhere?"

Best of all, it wasn't too terribly steep too quickly.

We did make Baney pack his own water this time. The slacker.

And then I stopped taking pictures. Because we started running into sections of trail which were covered by snow. And I am not a graceful person. I fell down, on my butt, in the snow, 87 times. Perhaps you are thinking no big deal? In places the snow was more than a foot deep, so I could not just stand up. Being no longer the woman I once was, I had to roll over onto my hands and knees and slowly, awkwardly, right myself. Sometimes only to fall again.

While my family was laughing. Mostly trying not to laugh, but you know how you can see it in their eyes.

One time Stinky fell and she was all "Mom! See, I fell too!" [don't you feel better because I also suck at this?]

Here's the thing though, her one time was 87 to the zero power compared to my falling. It did not make me feel better.

Peanut Head kept insisting that it would get better up ahead. It did not.

I took this picture because this is where I sat down and said I was not going any further dammit, unless it was back the way I came. As you can see it was only 3.25 miles after an hour and 45 minutes, much of it horizontal, but also at the end of my rope.

I took this picture because this is where I filed for divorce. I'm going to miss that man. He is such a handy guy.

I sort of love this picture because it shows that Stinky was tired from the hike. I felt a little bit validated. Never mind that she was running circles around me.

Also, Peanut Head partook of the Aleve with me that night. I still love him.

Losing Track of Time

It seems like I was just here posting, but I look at my calendar and it's been a week. Idaho currently has 1,170 confirmed cases of Covid-19. That number is just an illusion. We (our country) still don't have enough test kits, and we are still only testing people that check all the boxes as far as symptoms go. If someone dies of Covid-19 and they were never tested, they still do not get tested. Not tested means not reported. There's no comfort in that number. We know it's far worse than what is reported.

New York has 131,916 cases and 8,898 deaths now! It's terrifying.

Mostly I try not to dwell on our situation and how unprepared we are as a country. Being at home we have lost all track of time. Weekends do not feel like weekends, and weekdays do not feel like weekdays, despite the fact that we are all working or studying from home.

Spring has arrived and that is something to smile about. It's been rainy and gloomy, but the light is changing, and it's starting to green up outside. I love Spring.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is recommending that people wear homemade cloth masks when they have to leave their houses for essential supplies. This is so that people who have the disease and don't exhibit symptoms and/or don't know they are infected cannot infect others. It doesn't protect the person wearing the mask from catching the virus, but it is a good reminder not to touch your face.

I made masks like this for my family, and I'm continuing to make more for others until I run out of elastic and fusible interfacing.

Wearing an N95 mask can protect you from catching the virus they are in short supply and must only be used by health care workers and first responders. There isn't enough personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers and it's ugly.

Working at home is weird. After the first day I really struggled to stay focused. Today was better, but it's so isolating. I'm thankful for the home gym we set up in our basement last year, because sometimes I need to just get up and walk on the treadmill. It's also nice to be able to start a load of laundry and move it when it's ready for the dryer when I need a break from sitting. Staying up on the little chores like that is easy when you're working at home.

When we aren't working on work, we try to make a little progress on any one of our million projects we have going on at any given time. Whenever we can be outside, it's much easier to put the virus out of our minds.

Here is my dry creek bed. It was looking so much nicer in August, before we had to pull a large section up in order to dig a trench to run a propane line. Our oil furnace died so we took the opportunity to switch to a propane furnace. It was a lot of work, but we don't have the diesel smell when our heater is running now, and we're actually spending half of what we used to spend on heating because our new furnace is a high efficiency furnace and not 30 years old like the last one.

We got it all put back together before the snow flew, and then we had a crisis with our well at Christmas and had to dig another trench through the same general area. We were digging for a week solid starting Christmas Day. It was horrible, miserable, work. Over spring break we got that trench mostly filled in, and now we're starting to put it all back together again. If we get some nice weather this week, I should be able to right everything and move onto newer projects.

I'm very excited about this project that Peanut Head has been working on. These are new roosts for our chickens.

The best part is the tray that collects the droppings. It slides out in order for me to empty it. It will save me so much time when I clean the coop. 

Sadly our flock is down from 13 to two hens and one rooster. We lost five hens to a predator last spring when we were letting them free range. We even lost two babies. Then several weeks ago we lost another four hens to a predator, again when they were free ranging. Needless to say we aren't letting them free range anymore unless we are outside with them. We get one egg every other day now. Bad timing.

We recently bought three Rhode Island Reds and three Sapphire Gem chicks, but one of the Sapphire Gems died. 😥 We've also ordered six Brahmas that we are hoping to get this month. I love the Brahmas because they are big and they have hairy feet. Or maybe that's feathery feet. It will be fall before any of the new hens start laying.

We got out for a hike on Friday when the weather was just barely decent. We went to Menan Buttes and it was nice. It was a little over four miles with a lot of vertical incline and a lot of rocky terrain.

My family kicked my trash and I was sore the following day. Honestly, we haven't been hiking together since Zoe was a baby. It was a nice afternoon.

Baney was exhausted too. He's snoozing right behind me.

Here's a better picture. I love his sweet little crossy legs. His crossy legs are what made me fall in love with him. He's such a Delicate Flower.