Alki has made it over a year since her cancer treatments ended, and so far so good. But today she went in for a checkup, and they found some abnormal cells, and sent it off to the lab for further testing. I knew it would happen sometime, but I’m still not happy about it.
Luckily she’s as happy as ever. After the vet visit we stopped at her favorite park for a walk in the rain.
While I was outside geting the chickens settled in, and wearing Barclay out for the evening, I kept hearing a meow – meow – meow. But where was she? I was looking all around, but couldn’t see her. Meow – meow – meow…
How the heck did she get up THERE!!? I’m sure she could have figured out how to get back down, but she kept looking like she was going to jump from places that were still pretty high up, so I finally grabbed a ladder and helped her down. Silly cat!
Barclay got all muddy playing in the pasture this evening, so he went right in the tub for a quick foot rinse, which he hates.
Just look at that sweet face! He could get away with anything with those big brown eyes!
This is why I shouldn’t be looking on craigslist unless it’s for something specific! I saw someone about a mile away selling two Buff Orpington hens for $14, and of course I jumped on it. My hens’ egg production has been less than stellar – I’m sure any day now they’ll all start laying at once and I’ll have more eggs than I know what to do with (actually, I doubt it, because I know a lot of cool recipes with eggs). So now I have 2 roosters (the one I wasn’t sure about is pretty certainly in the rooster column now) and 8 hens!
This is the whole flock. Once I opened the pen to let everyone into the coop, there was a little fighting, and Big Bird ran off the biggest new hen. But I picked him up and put him in the dog crate, then went and rescued her from the bushes where she was hiding, and carried her around while I let him out and shooed everyone into the coop. Surprisingly neither one gave me any trouble with being caught or carried around! In fact she was quite calm about being held! I have Buff Orpingtons because they are supposed to be calm and easy to handle. I guess so! Once everyone was in the coop I put the new girls in there. My chicken mentor said to put them in the coop at night and when they wake up together they’ll all be one big happy flock. We’ll see!
The chickens are still my favorite part of the farm. They are friendly and fun to watch, they make a pleasant noise, they eat just about everything you offer them, they follow me around the yard, and every now and then they give us eggs – what a deal!
Patrone and Scoops even found their way up onto the front porch, where Scoops helped himself to teh rose bushes. Luckily they are done for the season anyway! As you can see it was kind of a cold, wet and misty day. When it was heading for dusk I took them some grain and lured them back into the corral. But they had a nice afternoon out.
Like many Americans we were glued to the TV last night watching the election results. The dogs even sacked out in the front room with us and didn’t cause any trouble most of the evening, dozing away while the results rolled in. I have to say we were very happy with the outcome. Obama seems like the right man for the job. I think he’ll represent us to the rest of the world intelligently, and with a dignity we have been lacking for a long time. I liked the plans he laid out, and I realize they may or may not pan out, I’m not some starry-eyed idealist, I know how political promises work. Either way, it’s better than when Bush won by 51% and declared he had a mandate to ignore the other 49% of the country. Obamas speech last night inviting all of us to work together again was a good sign for the future.
I feel like we can finally take a deep breath and relax – well almost! Dave has been completely absorbed in his part in Arsenic and Old Lace, put on by Magenta Theater. He was very happy to have scored the part of Mortimer, and he worked very hard at it, and had many many rehearsals. So I was stuck taking up the slack at home and work, and chores piled up while he was gone most evenings, and recently while performances were on – and of course I was gone too because I try to usher every performance so I can watch him. But now it’s all over, the set is down (and what a spectacular set it was!), and we can relax and catch up. Or we could, if he wasn’t already signed up for the Christmas play!
Click here to see pictures from the show. He’s the tall handsome guy in a suit (perhaps he’ll be easier to spot if I mention he’s the one with hair)!
http://magentatheater.blogspot.com/2008/10/final-bow.html
I think I have to add what a strange feeling it is. I prefer not to act, I hate feeling like if I mess up I’ll mess it up for everyone on stage with me! But I do help Dave by reading lines with him, which means I get to read all the other parts at home. So by the time I get to the show I know it pretty well, and I know as soon as a line is flubbed or skipped, and I feel that in the pit of my stomach. Or I see an actor get that look in their eyes that says something went wrong and they’re correcting for it – it’s almost too much pressure for me and I’m just watching! But this show went very well, there weren’t a lot of those moments, and it was really fun to watch it every night 🙂
Chicken fertilizer is great, and chickens eat bugs, but I can see why you don’t want them in your garden until you’re done with it for the season – they just burrow down and make themselves at home!
Patrone arrived home from the ‘gelding party’ today, a little sore but otherwise fine. I think he was happy to come home. But the other llamas were so excited to see him, I put him in the orchard and gave him some hay so he wouldn’t have to fight for it. But Scoops, his buddy, wasn’t happy with that, so he jumped out of the corral and into the backyard. I had to go to work so I left him there. When I came home from work he wasn’t there anymore, he had continued hopping fences and ended up in the neighbor’s pasture!
So I dragged out the evening hay and some grain, and tried to lure him back, but he just kept running up and down the fenceline. Finally I took the scoop of grain and a halter (behind my back) and climbed over the fence to go get him. Took two tries, but he wasn’t too eager to stay free. So I haltered him and walked him back home.
He was a fence jumper at Martha’s and that got him locked in a barn stall all last winter. If he decides fences can’t hold him here either he’ll have to go back to her barn for his own safety. I wouldn’t want him to get lost or hit by a car.
Patrone has been a bit uppity lately. What he doesn’t know is that Saturday he’s going to a little party – a Gelding Party! We have four animals in the 4H club who need to be gelded – two alpacas, and two llamas, and Patrone is one of them. So Saturday they are all going to Martha’s farm and the vet will come do them all at once! Sorry buddy – snip snip!
Steff Does Stuff! 