Mama hen hatched 8 chicks!

On April 14, 2011May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, chickens4 Comments

Eight new baby chicks, some yellow, some blue, and one looks kind of gold – how cute! Mama hen is possibly the meanest mama hen I’ve ever met – she growled at me just for daring to LOOK in the brooder box, and when I went to put a waterer in there the chicks could drink out of she puffed up and came after me! I think I’ll let her rejoin the flock, if anyone goes near her chicks she’ll kick their tailfeathers into the next county!

Meanwhile in the other box the chicks are all feathered out and looking pretty good. They are at the scraggly age. There’s also a couple roosters hidden in there.

Can you spot the baby rooster?

Eye problems and fitness

On April 11, 2011 By stefrobrtsIn health1 Comment

My eyes are still healing up. The one that got scratched is getting much better. I can read with it now, just a bit of double vision left. The Dr said I might have to get a new prescription lens for that side, but it’s looking like it could be back to normal when it’s done healing up. The one that didn’t get scratched, but sent me to urgent care two weeks ago with sudden inexplicable pain, is all better. The doctor could not find anything wrong with it, and thought it might have been some sort of ‘sympathy pain’ – he said that happens sometimes. So that eye is not taking any medicine, but the eye doctor put the scratched eye on the steroid drops for the next two weeks. The steroid drops sting. Other than the steroid drops, I am using Thera Tears (replacement tears) in both eyes regularly.

Friday and Saturday night I woke up with stabbing pain in my scratched eye, a couple times on Saturday night, and the doctor thought this was related to dry eyes, or my sleeping with my eyes slightly open. So last night I had a hard time going to sleep, because I didn’t want the stabby eye pain to come back! I finally got to sleep, but woke up every hour or two and put Thera Tears in both eyes, and went back to sleep. So if you don’t count waking up 6 times a night, I got a good nights sleep, and no stabby eye pain, so that was good.

I’ll be so glad when this is all over! I just want things to be back to normal 😦

The stress of the eye problems and not sleeping good has been hard on my stomach, I’ve been feeling just sort of ‘off’ and stressed out. I had some really good exercise sessions this week, including a nice 3 mile walk at the park with Barclay on Sunday. At my weigh in today I’m down to 249 – into the 240s we go! As long as it keeps going down, I’ll be happy!

Enchanted April

On April 10, 2011May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn dave, theater1 Comment

I went to the theater today to take pictures of the play they are working on – Enchanted April. It’s a very sweet little play about a couple ladies who run away for a vacation to Italy to get away from their dreary lives and husbands, and end up finding their way back to them.

Most of the people in the play are our friends or at least people we’ve worked with before. My hubby was in charge of the set building. The first act is pretty simple, and black curtains on the back wall hide the second act set – an Italian courtyard with columns, pergolas, flowers, and a lovely mural one of our talented artists painted. Dave and I spent a lot of time (ok, mostly Dave, but I helped a few days) getting those columns mounted securely. It’s nice to see it all done and being used.

I took pictures with my camera, but I’m still figuring it out, and I had some problems getting the exposure and color balance right. So I gave Dave my old camera to use and he took pictures at the same time. We ended up snapping about 1000 pictures between the two of us and whittled it down to under 200, and of those he only used about a dozen for the promo materials. Thank goodness for digital!

Dave has an upcoming play where he needed to have red hair, so he went ahead and had it colored – talk about a change! I should do a blog post of the ‘many faces of Dave’, he’s always changing his looks for whatever play he’s in!

Camera lens #3

On April 8, 2011May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, dave, navi, pets2 Comments

My ‘new’ Nikon D50 camera came with three lenses. The first is a Nikkor 28-80mm F3.3-5.6 which is the basic kit lens, so it’s the one I played with first. The second one is a Tamron 18-200mm zoom lens, which I have been playing with the last couple weeks – seems like that is the lens I’ll be using most of the time. The third lens is one the previous owner bought as a spare when he left his kit lens home on a trip, and so it is quite similar to the first lens, it is a Nikon 18-55mm F3.5-5.6. So it covers a range that could be described as wide angle, to not-quite-as-telephoto as the other lenses. For that reason I hadn’t been dying to play with it. I’m not even sure I’ll keep it, but I popped it on the camera to take a few shots today.

Dave in the office working (with a cat on the printer)

It’s hard NOT to be cheerful with these smilin’ dogs in the house!

The locust trees are always the last to get their leaves back.

This is the view north over the neighbor’s dilapidated barn.

And this was one of those lovely sunsets where the sun is behind the clouds and they light up with a brilliant outline of the light behind them. Clearly I need to figure out how to adjust my exposure on this camera – not only is the detail lost in the clouds, but in the picture of the barn above it the sky is all washed out. I was spoiled by my old camera having automatic exposure bracketing. I just need to figure out how to do it manually on this one.

So my conclusion about this lens was what I was expecting. It kind of covers a range I already have covered just fine with the other two.

Another thing I have to get used to with the new camera is that it doesn’t have a live view on the viewscreen – you have to look through the optical viewfinder. That makes it tricker to aim when you’re doing stuff close to the ground. I not only was spoiled by the view screen on my old camera, but it flipped out and rotated around so you could get shots from all sorts of interesting angles. But the quality of the pictures the new camera takes are far superior, so it’s worth the trouble to learn to just deal with the new camera!

First Day Volunteering

On April 8, 2011 By stefrobrtsIn Uncategorized1 Comment

I went to the horse ranch to volunteer today. Since it’s spring break, they had an unexpected group of kids show up and clean the stalls, so I got a pile of paperwork to enter in the office. That was fine by me, and I plowed through it in about two hours. I was getting ready to leave when a couple girls showed up and they asked them to catch and groom one of the horses they have there for evaluations, and asked if I’d like to help. So I said sure, and went with them. The horse was a bit restless, and I mostly stayed out of the way. So the volunteer coordinator came by to check on us and said ‘hey, want me to grab a pony for you to groom’, and I thought, gosh, I don’t want to be any trouble – but she said the ponies needed to be groomed too! So she went and got this adorable little pony and showed me where to get her brushes and I got to spend some quality time grooming her. She was more my size anyway 🙂 I’m not ashamed to let the teenage girls handle the big horse while I brush out a pony!

That was great fun, I can’t wait to go back. She said next time I can do some stalls. How silly is it to be excited about getting to scoop poo? Before I left I wandered by the arena and they had a class going on with some little girls racing around barrels (at a walk) and the winner would get to clean a stall! And then I heard one of the girls proudly tell the other one ‘I get to clean three stalls already!’ 🙂

Volunteering at a horse ranch

On April 6, 2011 By stefrobrtsIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Yesterday I went to visit a local riding stables that specializes in riding programs for disadvantaged kids. They need volunteers, and I need to be around horses – so I think we can help each other out. They have a very nice facilities, and need help with both cleaning up and office stuff – I can shuffle papers as well as anyone 🙂 The people seem very nice. Luckily the rules we have to learn all made a lot of sense and were similar to the rules we already use in 4H to keep the kids safe around animals, so I should have no problem remembering them. She said though most of the adult volunteers have their own horses, she would welcome someone like me who really wants to learn about horses. I think my experience working with kids in 4H is helpful too.

I’m very excited, I get to go back tomorrow and work with one of the other volunteers to start learning the ropes to clean out the stalls. I think this is going to be a great way to get my horse ‘fix’ while doing something good for the community with my free time.

Trail Running

On March 31, 2011May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, weight loss4 Comments

Yes, I said trail RUNNING – or maybe I should have said ‘walking real fast’ or ‘slowly jogging’ – well, whatever you want to call it, that’s what I did today. I’ve been continuing my exercise program (I’m down 25 lbs for the year so far), doing the Couch to 5k routine on the treadmill inside, and switching it up with other exercises to keep things fresh – a bike ride here, an exercise DVD there. I thought I would take advantage of the mild weather and hit the trails across the street. As you can see, it was a little muddy still! But I had no problem keeping my heart rate up in the cardio zone – no problem at all! It exercised different muscles than running on the treadmill, and it felt great! Even my workout buddy enjoyed it!

Barclay and Jack run away from home

On March 31, 2011May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, jack, navi, pets1 Comment

Luckily, it was only a very short trip before they were home safe again! Yesterday the dogs were out playing in the yard. Navi had come inside, and I wanted to close the back door, so I called the other two. No response. So I walked around to the front yard and saw the gate was open! Oh no!

Ever since Barclay was a puppy I’ve been working to teach him not to go through the gate without permission. But eskimos kind of do what they please. Worst of all, if Jack sees an open gate he’ll look at it, look at me standing there saying ‘wait’, and then go for it and run right by me! And once he goes the others follow. I’m not saying that’s what happened, it’s entirely possible they raced each other to see who could get through the gate first! I’m just saying that even if Barclay remembered his training and felt even an inkling of a feeling that he shouldn’t go through the gate, it would have been forgotten as soon as he saw Jack charging out.

So I told Dave and ran out to the front field, hoping they were in the fenced area, and calling Barclay, then I started hurrying down the drive, calling Barclay and looking every direction. Which way did he go? Not towards the road, I hope! But I heard dogs barking up the hill, so I looked up that way and saw a neighbor waving at us. I started running and hollered at Dave that they were up here, and he drove up in the car. The neighbor pointed towards the other neighbor’s house and said ‘they were trying to play with my dog but he ran them off, they went back there’. I called again and Barclay came running to me from behind the house, happy as can be! What a relief to see my buddy racing towards me! I grabbed him and hugged him and ruffled his fur and told him what a good boy he was for coming back.

Then the neighbor said ‘there was a beagle with him too’, and I said ‘oh, yeah, we’ll get him too’. Now, it might sound mean, but Jack ignores me when I call unless it’s dinnertime, especially if he’s doing something fun, so I wasn’t going to waste a bunch of time chasing after him. I was just happy to get my hands on Barclay, and I wasn’t going to let him go! I called Jack, but as expected he ignored me. Dave drove up and we put Barclay in the car, and about then we heard baying on the other side of the neighbor’s house, so Dave went around and came back with Jack, looking like he’d had the time of his life!

So our little adventurers were none the worse for wear. I wasn’t too traumatized, but really, what could be worse than losing your dogs? Calling your dogs and not knowing where they are, if they could be a half mile away in any direction, is the most empty, lonely, frightening feeling in the world! [note: this is why I don’t have kids, I’m barely responsible enough to handle dogs!] I mean, can you imagine having to go to bed knowing they were somewhere out there? There’s cars and coyotes and big farm dogs, or they could get into someones field and chase livestock and get shot! Having to put up posters and hoping someone sees them and grabs them and brings them back? The world is too dangerous for a little dog to be out wandering around on their own, even if they don’t know it.

Dave thought I was paranoid for always checking to make sure the gate was closed. I don’t know how it got left open this time, but I guess I’ll keep being paranoid and checking before I let them out. It’s better than the alternative!

Black rooster is gone – chicks move out to the coop

On March 27, 2011May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, chickens2 Comments

The black rooster went off to a new home yesterday, where he will have 8 hens all to himself. He should be very happy there!

Have you ever seen chickens so evenly spaced?

The remaining rooster ‘Handsome’ is happy to have his hens all to himself now. No more squabbling with the other roo or ‘sneak attacking’ the poor girls!

Meanwhile, the chicks are a week and a half old, and doubled in size – there’s not enough elbow room in the indoor brooder. Time to move out to the coop. But there’s a broody hen in the brooder box!

So I scraped up enough materials around the house to build them a new brooder box. This one is only 3×3, but it will be fine for a while. I had 20 chicks comfortably in the 4×4 box until they were 8 weeks old. I think 14 should be ok in the 3×3 box until they are close to that, and by then the broody mom and her chicks will have moved outside.

I think it will be nice to have two brooder boxes available for when I have broody hens, or if I decide to get 2 different types of chicks someday.

Steff Does Stuff!