Empty Nests

Well, after the skunk, muskrat, rockchuck, rat, mouse fiasco in the hen house and good ol' Lucky the rooster deciding to attack me every time I went to feed our fine feathered friends, we decided to give the little chicka's away.
I thought this might take awhile to happen.
Gary made one phone call and Jinger made one phone call and two, no make that 3 days later all the chickens were gone. One neighbor took 6 of the hens and one of Jinger's friends took the other 7 hens and Lucky.
I thought I would be ok about all this, after all Gary and I don't eat that many eggs, and feed is expensive so we definitely weren't saving any money and it was a total hassle to take care of them through the winter. And the ol rooster was jumping at me every time I opened the barn door.
This morning I woke up at the usual 7 to go potty and my old schedule was to let Odie out, open the gate, open the hatch in the coop.
When I remembered that I didn't have to open the coop, I went back to bed and slept 2 more hours. Sad, alittle, but boy did the extra sleep feel good.
What will I write about now???????????

2nd post and meet the artist!

After this mornings excitement-read this mornings post- we decided to go for a drive and stopped on the way to see one of Gary's friends.

Merlin Stoddard worked with Gary at BYU-Idaho, they have the same birthday and enjoy each others company. He is also an artisan with wood. Several years ago he gave me a small wooden bowl he had made as a birthday present and I love it and have it displayed on a table in my living room with small rocks in it.

Today he showed us one room filled with things he has made which include cedar chests, bowls of all sizes, vases, trucks that are really banks, and tortilla presses and that only begins to tell the story.

Out in his workshop he has a beautiful trunk with lovely sliding trays inside and finished work and locks on the outside. There was also a gorgeous jewelry box he is making for his wife with inlaid eucalyptus in the lid.

He starts with a piece of wood from his large collection, cuts a circle or shape he wants and then turns it on his lathe, seasons the wood and finishes it to a beautiful glow. He gave Gary a small jar and lid to hold consecrated oil, and an amazing cube within a cube. And he gave me a "chain saw" to take home. He does have a sense of humor too!

He does sell pieces, but he did give us some lovely pieces today. If you are interested in purchasing any here is his email address for more pictures and prices.

Merlin StoddardE-mail Address(es): mjstoddard6@msn.com

The beautiful trunk.

The rough cut bowl

A finished bowl. He does them all sizes and in many different kinds of woods. They are all beautiful, numbered and signed on the bottom with the type of wood.

Making the cube within a cube. He makes it sound easy!!

This is the consecrated oil holder and lid. This one is made from plywood and drilled in the center to hold the small bottle of virgin olive oil which has been dedicated for the special use of priesthood blessings for the sick.

Thank you Merlin, you made our day!!

A long walk, horses and skunks

Was yesterdays blog about change??

This morning I woke up to sunshine coming in my window so I got up and for some reason went ahead and got my jeans on instead of slumping around in my jammies. I let Odie out..he has a doggie door but in the mornings he MUST be let out the front door. I went potty and then went out to let the chickens out. (Whole other story involving skunks there, but we will get to that one in a minute).

First let me tell you about my yard. We have a lovely front yard with a covered porch and lilac bushes. The lawn goes around to the back yard on both sides of the house and we used to have a fence on both sides to keep Odie in when needed. A couple of summers ago we decided to take the fence out on the west side of the house, but left the fence on the east side.

Ok, we have the pasture fenced in with several gates, most of them big enough to drive the truck through for feed, logs, you name it. But from the east yard there is a small walk through fence for us to go through to get to the chicken barn. The fence on the east side of the yard has a walk through fence also, which this morning I opened as usual to let Odie in and out (it's too far for him to have to walk around of course).

So I go to let the chickens out and forgot to close the walk through gate to the pasture. I go in open the barn door to let the chickens into their yard and notice the horses we are boarding go by the barn and I'm thinking they want some of the grain that we give the chickens, but as I go out the door to the barn I see the Truth!

Sweet grass!! The horses have gone through the walk through fence and are gleefully grazing on the sweet green grass of our lawn. As yet they have not gone through the east gate to the front lawn so I quickly close that and offer them grain to lead them in the pasture, but N-o-o, they want grass.

I try by myself for awhile to guide them back in but I also know that Sass loves to buck and kick, so I'm a little leary of pushing from behind. I go to yell for Gary to help, he was still in bed when I went out.

And as I come back out I see a horse tail go around the back corner of the lawn heading west.

Yeap, out of the yard and down the road to see the neighbor horses and cows they go.

Let's just leave the rest of the story as a long walk down the road, which is very much like a roller coaster with lots of up's and down's which in a car has always been rather relaxing, but walking on a frosty morning leaves me huffing and puffing with frozen cheeks and ears. Luckily, one of the neighbors cows have also gotten out and the owners have successfully gotten them back in and help Gary, who whizzes by me on the 4 wheeler, get the horses back to our pasture.

Yes he offered me a ride, but I've ridden on the back of that machine before and I thought it would be better to walk thank you very much.

The neighbor offered me a ride in his truck too, but I hadn't brushed my teeth yet and I really didn't think he deserved to die from my bad morning mouth breath.

Now for the skunk story.

We had been noticing holes being dug all over in the chicken barn and coop and thought it was just the mice until we saw BIG holes and ROCKS being dug out. So we cleaned the old straw and gunk out and took down some boards and found a nest of straw, insulation, dirt and a stash of eggs. Muskrat?, Racoon?

Anyway we cleaned it all out and filled and tamped and decided to see what would happen.

Gary went out one evening to close the side yard gate and saw something small and dark scoot across the chicken yard and started to walk across the yard to see if it was a chicken in trouble and then he saw the white stripe.

So yesterday he finished cleaning out the coop and bought some mothballs and I made a broth of onions, chili powder and peppers. I poured the broth down all the holes we could find and Gary scattered moth balls all around the outside of the barn. This morning I could see the holes dug up and tiny foot prints outside the barn in the dirt.

Gone? I don't know, guess we will wait and see what tomorrow brings.

Change, change, change

Boy have I been fooled by the April fools joke! It was so sunny and warm, fooled me into thinking spring was here at last, changed to all my summer clothes, cleaned out the sandbox for the kids, put the chairs, etc out on the deck.
It is snowing this morning and grey clouds over head. The weather man says this will last until at least the middle of next week.
I think life is like the weather.
Each day I wake up and in my mind I plan out the day and what I want to do and how, or what I order I will do these things.
Some times it is the weather that changes my ideas for the day....like today.
Some times what I thought I was going to do changes as soon as I get up and my body tells me otherwise with all it's aches and pains.
Sometimes my sweet hubby has other plans that sound much more interesting or needful that the ones I had.
Before I retired I had all these plans for travel and fun things to do. But reality hit and economic facts changed most of my goals. This is no-ones fault, just sheer reality and facts. Still hard even for a pretty adaptable person like me.
Now I realize that each day is a new adventure waiting to let me know which direction it will take me. I have learned to focus on being even more adaptable than I thought I was and to come to the realization that no ones life is truly their own.
It belongs to your spouse, your children, your grandchildren, your neighbor and your friends. And most of all it belongs to your relationship with your Heavenly Father and what he wants you to do with it.
What will today bring to me? I don't know yet, I'm the only one up so far and it's snowing outside. I'll let you know.

Spring at Last??

Although the weather has been rather crazy lately, for the last couple of days it has been warm and sunny. The grass is green and the tree's are trying to wake up and leaf out.

It has been warm enough to let the chicken's out to run in their pen and Odie stays outside all day long.

I have been painting bedrooms that have been totally white since we moved in. I tried to take pictures but none of them do the colors justice. This is the best one of my bedroom and it doesn't show the lovely sage green on the walls, nor the deep dark forest green of the desk and headboard.Gary's room is a soft tan color and all his furniture is natural wood tones. I still need to hang wall art in my room but I really like the restful colors now. Before it was pretty with lots of creams and reds but think "vanilla".

Gage and Luke have been over too and one day they got to ride on one of the two horses we are boarding for awhile in our pasture. The owner lead them around on the front lawn for awhile.And another day we made masks out of paper plates, feathers and markers. Gage said they made them become Power Rangers!! But Kyle didn't want one!

It has been a good week and I love, love, love being out in the sunshine!

Did You Go to The Tea Party Today?

Despite the rain, snow and hail we joined one son and daughter-in-law at the Rexburg Idaho Tax Day Tea Party today. There were about a hundred people standing on both sides of the main street through today spanning a branch of the Teton River holding signs and cheering when cars zooming by honked and yelled agreement.

There were no bombs, no violence, no car tipping or window breaking. No one shouted obscenities or even booed anyone, and yet we are called Right Wing Extremists by the liberal media.

Anyway, we had fun and felt like we would gladly be called RWE's and local American's who believe in Home, Family, Faith and the Constitution. We did our part.

Here are some pictures of the Tea Party.

Feeling Better/ All Tied Up

Well Hurray, I'm feeling better today and actually had the sense to take it carefully today and not overdo it again!

We did have some excitement this afternoon. It looked like it was going to rain so we fed and watered the chickens and thinking they were all in the coop, we locked the hatch and went back in the house.

Awhile later Gary yells " Mom come help me something is wrong with one of the chicken's. She has her foot caught on something." So we go out to the chicken pen and one of the white chickens is sure enough caught in some string that is wrapped around one of her feet and a weed in the ground.

It was easy to catch and hold her, pull up the weed and then take her, the weed, string and mud into the house to cut it all apart. We forgot about Odie, The Bird Dog!!

I got a pair of good sizzors and we went to sit down at the table to cut the string off and Odie jumped up behind me trying to grab the poor chicka who immediately went bizerk and I about broke her neck trying to hold on to her.

We had to go into a room where we could close Odie out and finally cut the frightened bird loose and put her into the coop with the others.

Then I finally checked out my clothes which were of course covered in.......yes that's right ............

chicken shit!! The kitchen floor was covered in mud from the weed and I felt like I needed a shower!!

Some way to say thank you huh. Guess chickens express themselves differently that humans.

Oh yes!! I hope you all have a lovely Easter weekend and enjoy remembering the real reason for the season. It's not just bunny's and pretty painted eggs. It's remembering the Christ not only died for us, but then rose again on the 3rd day to show that we could all live again. The best gift of all.

Goes to show Ya......

Well, I guess I really overdid it yesterday because I have been hacking my head off today and Gary took me to the doctor who told me "Laryngitis and Bronchitis" and prescribed some hugmoungus pills to take and come back if I didn't get better. Thanks alot doc! He said he couldn't give me a steroid shot (which would have made me breathe better) because it would screw up my blood sugars too bad and I was sick enough already!
So I came home and watched a movie with my Seasame Street blankie wrapped around me and I don't feel any better at all.
Maybe tomorrow.

some better

Well, I felt pretty good this morning so I took off for Sam's Club to do some major shopping that I've needed to do for awhile and got home after messing around in several stores 4 hours later and I'm now exhaused!! My throat is sore again and I've started coughing again.
So I'm going to go get my jammies on and take it easy until tomorrow when I will feel better again and probably over-due it again.
I never learn.

Sicky

I'm not really, really sick, just feel slightly lousy with a sore throat and my voice is gone all raspy and hoarse!
So I may take it easy a couple of days til I feel better.
I finished my "The Survivors Club" book and I took the survivor IQ test and found out (no surprise to me) that I am a Believer! I put my faith in God to protect and sustain me through any and all trials. I knew that already!!
Gary also took the test and found that he is a Fighter. I knew that one too, but let him find out on his own.
It's a great book with lots of information on how to deal with problems and bad situations. You can get more information at http://www.thesurvivorsclub.org/. And you can take the FREE test by clicking on the link on the bottom right of that home page.
It was a beautiful day today and I hope it was for you too.